I’ve begun to suspect that God was working in B____ long before December. B____ himself told me he had always been able to maintain as certain safe emotional distance with all the women he had dated, but that he couldn’t seem to do that with me. And I’ve always known that after a few blissful weeks, he opened his eyes and saw how his guard was coming down and the protective walls around his heart were being breached from all sides. But I don’t think that was the full reality.
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I think what B____ was sensing – and subsequently drawing away from – was the exposure of his “false self,” as John Eldredge names it. The socially acceptable appearance B____ had carefully honed over his many wounds. He couldn’t hold it up with me because my eyes were open; I saw him for what he was and he knew it and couldn’t fathom that I wouldn’t be disappointed by his true face. So he left me and chose an easier woman.
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But he needed to leave me. He needed to leave Eve to really get going on this quest to find his true self. And just as we are of the same make, I know how much pain he will have to face before he breaks and rests on God alone. God will hit him right where his deepest wounds are, cut right through the massive scar tissue. He will remove from B____ all he relies on – work, family, somebody to fix, friends – and leave B____ broken and vulnerable. If B____ would just let him, it would all be so much easier; so much pain would be averted. But then B____ would not be as he was made to be. We are fighters, thinkers, carefully brooders. We could do nothing else but cling and fight until all we cling to and fight for is gone. We are stubborn.
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So I can’t pray that God spares him this pain. Indeed, I wouldn’t – I echo, “Do it!” I am living proof of what happens when God hurts. He cuts to heal, he burns to soothe. He injures to show his mercy. As John Eldredge says:
Jesus warned that “whoever wants to save his life will lose it” (Luke 9:24). Christ is not using the word bios here; he’s not talking about our physical life. The passage is not about trying to save your skin by ducking martyrdom or something like that. The word Christ uses for “life” is the word psyche – the word for our soul, our self, those plans to save and protect our inner life – those are the things that will actually destroy us . . . The false self, our plan for redemption, seems so right to us. It shields us from pain and secures us a little love and admiration. But the false self is a lie; the whole plan is built on pretense. It’s a deadly trap. God loves us too much to leave us there. So he thwarts us, in many, many different ways.
Elsewhere, Eldredge says:
“Whatever is denied cannot be healed.” But that’s the problem, you see. Most men deny their wound – deny that it happened, deny that it hurt, certainly deny that it’s shaping the way they live today. And so God’s initiation of a man must take a very cunning course; a course that feels very odd, even cruel.
I believe this must happen with B____. He would say he doesn’t deny his wounds at all. After all, he told me, didn’t he? But he would absolutely deny that he needs anything more for those wounds than what he’s already done. But God loves him too much to leave him there.
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And so my beloved must go through the fire as I did. God blew my false self to bits because he sent his arrows straight for the heart of my own wound. My deepest and oldest wound was that I had always gone unseen by men. Never noticed, always invisible, never pursued or fought for. And despite the general mess I had made of my life last year, it wasn’t until I had been seen by B____ and then not seen again that I had nothing left to stand on. God wanted me to see him first and foremost.
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I never could really understand how having God first in a marriage didn’t hinder some of the romance, didn’t thwart some of the love. My chimera all those years ago testify to this off-kilter understanding of love – I wanted to be God to some wounded man. I wanted to be all he needed, heal him completely with my love, bestow his masculinity on him. What actually was the source of that was that I needed a man who had been wounded and healed so he could understand me. But what I truly needed was for God himself to expose my own wound and heal it so I could help that man achieve his purpose. I don’t want to be God to anyone anymore. Which is a good thing since I’d be crap at it anyway. I don’t want B____ until God’s had his hands on him, covered him with his fingerprints. This is a B____-and-God thing. I have no part to play than to strengthen my love from where I am, and wait a little longer for my love. Which is okay – I’ve got a lot of experience waiting for the best.
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