This entry will not see the light of day. It will not be published on my blog. I will speak of it to no one. It is solely between God and me. I am offering it up to him and allowing him to test it fully for the slightest air bubble, the tiniest bit of dross.
This week has been the worst crisis of faith I have ever endured. More than last June or December. More than my college years when after years of frustration with God’s silences said, “All right, God, you go your way and I’ll go mine, and I’ll see if there’s any pleasure, any relief in a vacation from you.” Worse than when I was sixteen and felt my beloved God pull away and leave me to stand on my faith and not feelings. Nothing, nothing has compared to this. This was so much more than facing the prospect of losing the only man I had ever loved and losing him for good. This came down to the elemental, the very building blocks of why I am still breathing on this earth and walking in hope that one day, one day, I’ll enjoy my life and be satisfied.
If I had truly been wrong about the Holy Spirit’s leading down all those steps of faith that not only was it my purpose to pray for B____’s spiritual healing but also that, amazingly enough, he was meant for me – if I had been wrong about all that, after months and months of utterly humble and faithful service, then I couldn’t trust anything. If I couldn’t trust my changed heart and renewed mind to accurately test the Spirit’s guiding then that meant I couldn’t trust God to adequately change my heart to test the Spirit. And where did that leave me? It left me with the dismal picture of complete surrender for a very long time still not being enough for clear communication between my God and me. And that simply would not do. Nor was it supported by loads of Scripture. I knew – I would stand before God himself and testify – that I had not held anything back. That I had laid all of me open and not taken any of myself back without him handing it back with his own two hands. I had done everything required of me to come under the complete protection and guidance of God. And one of the things I was most insistent about was being led by him in all things and honoring his timing in all things, because it was the only way to be happy, useful, and have peace in my heart and mind.
So.
If I had indeed done all Scripture had required of me, then without doubt, God had as well. He cannot be less faithful than me. And the way he had ensured that we would be guided is by his Holy Spirit. That was the whole point of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. Why did he go through all that hell – literally – to cleanse us of sins and justify us before a righteous and holy God? Just so we would be clean and go on our way? And then what? No. It was so we would be a fitting dwelling place for the equally righteous and holy Holy Spirit. Of all the adjectives to describe the Spirit – powerful, good, godly, loving, compassionate, merciful, wonderful, just – the only word ever put to it is holy. Holy Spirit. And why was this done in us for the Spirit to have a dwelling place? Why not stay in the temple as he had done all through the Old Testament, with a high priest only to intercede for us. For relationship! That is the whole reason God has done everything he’s done with us, all through our history! And what kind of relationship can one have if one friend is able to communicate and be understood and the other is not because he won’t speak, lead, move, guide?
I am a new creation and every hour I have spent in willing obedience has made more room for the Holy Spirit in me. So it is impossible that for all those months when out of faith in God I claimed B____ I was allowed to be misled. Why would there have been so much peace in my Spirit about that choice? There was plenty of time after I made that choice in the spring for my Spirit to have had serious objections, for me to have felt like it was just so hard to believe for this. There were definitely times I struggled, when I looked at my circumstances and saw how unlikely it all seemed. But every time I took my eyes off of my physical circumstances and turned them to my God and his unerring leading, peace returned. Now how is that possible?
Well, a couple of things about this whole situation strike me as especially pertinent. On Friday night my parents informed me of the very real possibility of being transferred back to San Antonio. Now they’re all the family I’ve got and even though I’m far more independent and adventurous than I used to be and could see myself staying in my beloved Virginia alone, I just can’t imagine staying that far away from them for long. So it threw into my mind a host of questions about my future, specifically about how this thing with B____ would work out. So Friday night, I went for a walk as my crisis of faith was beginning, and I told God, “Okay, I haven’t asked you for a sign in all these many months but have been content to let you guide me as you willed. But I’m asking you for a sign of what you intend.” No sign or voice came, and by Saturday night I was in a right state, my insides all churned up. I narrowed it down to the uncertainty that dogged me the most: “Have I been wrong about B____?” I waited but no voice. Then after I returned from my walk and showered, around 2:00 am I thought on a whim, “What have I got to lose?” and looked B____ up on Facebook and the rest is history.
It had seemed that was the sign I had asked for. But that brings me to my second pertinent point: when I had pondered and prayed about contacting B____, feeling in my Spirit freed to do so when for so many months I had not, I felt the exact same way in my Spirit about doing that with the letter Kelsey and I wrote as I had about resigning my job: my hands were trembling and my heart thudding, but still and sure in my heart. And I have no doubt it was the Spirit’s leading that saw me all the way to the public Facebook announcement of my resignation. So I can only assume sending the letter was as orchestrated by God.
But here’s the question: why not just lead me to find B____ on Facebook and begin the journey of grief and acceptance on my own? Why have me send the letter in blissful ignorance? Why complicate B____’s perfect life if he was doing the right thing with the right woman? The letter was completely separate from the Facebook incident.
So here’s what I’m wondering and this is why I am not making this entry public. What if sending the letter was indeed just the next step on this journey I thought I was on, to jolt B____ and make him question everything, and the Facebook incident and the resultant shattering of my world was only brought to me because I insisted? Because I did insist. I came boldly before God and, pointing to my months of faithfulness, demanded a sign. What if, had I not asked, God would never have let me know something so devastating but rather just continued his work? Because if B____ was really doing the right thing, why should he need to be brought to doubt?
And I still haven’t gotten a response to my letter, which was written on the 18th of August? Unless B____ has changed from knowing me, for the worse, from what he was all of his life, he wouldn’t just not respond. Last July, when our month-long silence turned out to be, of all things, a mere glitch of our phones – which kept happening that summer – he said, “How could you think that of me? I would never just not let you know if I didn’t want to see you anymore. I would talk to you and end it right.” So for him to know now that after almost a year and a half I’m still not over him, and not tell me he’s engaged and happy and for me to move on please with my life is unthinkable. I wonder if he’s having serious doubts now. And I know for a fact if he broke another engagement, he would have no confidence left in his decision-making ability or – even more devastating for him – in his honor. Something inside him would be broken. I wouldn’t be surprised in that case if I didn’t hear anything from him for a long time because he couldn’t make a decision one way or another. Maybe, when I heard in my Spirit that question, “If B____ is really what you want, are you willing to wait as long as it takes?” meant, good Lord, it would take a long time. There’s far more baggage and entanglements now that he’d have to muddle his way through.
If he is indeed for me.
See, this is the crux. I have prayed and stubbornly believed that B____ will be reserved only for the One for him – a woman who will reflect God to him from a place of credibility, who will support his spiritual growth. Now I don’t know this woman from Adam, but I do know she has not come near to fighting as well as I have for this man, and is she really more capable than I have become of reflecting God in her entire being for this man? After all, if it would do no good either way, if it wasn’t really that big a deal, why are there so many verses about one spouse being sanctified by the other, by an unbelieving spouse being led to God by a believing spouse. Now, I am not advocating missionary relationships. They seldom work. But neither will God ignore all my pure prayers and allow B____ to marry someone who will only encourage him in his lukewarm spirituality. It is God’s perfect will that B____ be edified in all ways – including spiritually – by his marriage. So whether I am for him or not, at least he is safe.
I am the last person on this earth who wants to hold on to something just because it makes me feel good, just because I want it to be true. Which is why I am lifting this up to God more stubbornly than I’ve lifted anything up to him and trusting – against what physical circumstances seem to indicate – that he will move me away if it is not from him. He will not waste me.
He will show me the way, and he will prepare either her heart or mine for the loss of him.
