Is This Love?

No, but you are getting warmer...

I believe in a blessing I don't understand.

~Sara Groves

The hurt that broke your heart

 and left you trembling in the dark; 

feeling lost and alone

Will tell you hope's a lie 

but what if every tear you cry

 will seed the ground 

where joy will grow.

From the ruins, from the ashes

Beauty will rise

From the wreckage, from the darkness

Glory will shine

~Jason Grey

When I was 18, I fell in love.  Head-over-heels, fairy tale kind of love.  I knew he was "the one".  I felt safe for the first time in my life and I gave my heart completely to ... let's call him Fred.  As the young and foolish do, we moved quickly.  Four months after we started dating, we were engaged.  I had a man who truly loved me and wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.  Of course, by then I had our lives together mapped out.  I saw the future - the kids, what kind of wife I would be and ultimately the life I wanted.  All with Fred by my side to love me forever.  There was not a doubt in my mind that this man loved me, wanted me as much as I loved and wanted him.

Until he didn't two months later.  He said he'd never loved me and that all his old girlfriends were prettier than me.  He was a fool.

I believed in that love so completely it took four years (and Fred to marry someone else) before I finally believed that Fred didn't love me, actually had not loved me - not the forever love I had believed in so strongly.  

~20 years later

After I moved to Seattle, I picked up a book by a little known author named Don Miller.  As I read his books, I fell in love.  Not literally of course.  But there was something in how he wrote and what he wrote that made me feel less alone.  It was like he, if he met me of course, would understand me.  Ways that I thought about God and faith and relationships, he expressed those same thoughts in his writing.  One week-end, I signed up for a youth workers conference he was speaking at.  I was not a youth worker, so I went incognito (smile).  While his writing was powerful, his speaking was even more so.  I left the conference completely overwhelmed with emotion. But I didn't know why.  Since then I've had several opportunities to meet him and I know is it isn't really him that provokes these strong emotions. But something in my heart responds to his writing and speaking.  For some very bizarre reason, I feel loved.

Over a year ago, I met someone.  Someone who has become a friend and has come to matter a great deal to me.  This person has encouraged me and connected with me in an entirely new way from what I've experienced before.  My friendship with him has truly changed my life.

In my hyper-analytical brain, I began to wonder if there was any intention beyond friendship on his part.  While I care about him a great deal, I have known that a romantic relationship with him is not possible.  This week I finally worked up the courage to ask him.  I needed to know.  It was awkward and awful and the poor man was completely confused and kept saying "I'm sorry."  I tried to reassure him there was nothing to be sorry about.  It was something I needed to know but not something he had done wrong.  At this point, I hope our friendship recovers.

What I am slowly learning and experiencing rather painfully is a re-awakening.  My heart is beginning to remember how it feels to be loved.  I am catching glimpses of it; through Don Miller's writing and speaking and through my friendship with a man I respect and admire.  God is slowly (very slowly) causing my heart to remember.  Why?  To prepare me for something or someone and to help me choose not to run away at the first sign of it.  Because let's face it - the first time around crushed me.  I would never choose to go through that again. However, experiencing how love might feel even in a very small way is a feeling like no other.  And as my heart begins to remember, I begin to hope that it may happen for me yet.