Attraction and romance is something I am always second-guessing myself in... If I get that little inkling that someone's into me, I talk myself out of it until they lose interests ("come on, Leah. You're imagining it."). If I'm into someone, I don't know what to do. It paralyzes me, makes me feel so ridiculously vulnerable, and want to hide it all away... It's something I have so much room for growth in... but have been so guarded about. My God's been patient with me, leading me gently through heights of excitement and lows of heartache, yet never getting so involved as to wrap my life up in someone else's...

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable." -- C.S. Lewis

I feel strange.

He and I spoke for he first time in over a year. I last saw him in June 2008. Last week he popped back into my life with a casual email suggesting we catch up. Tonight we spoke for 3 1/2 hours. In November, I will see him again.

And I feel strange. I don't feel heart-broken, I don't feel shattered, I don't feel the bottom falling out again.

But I do feel something.
Will I always feel something?

I hear people talk of their first loves that way-- as if they always hold a piece of you.
But he never loved me, so why should he hold any bit of me.

We joked, we laughed, we shared memories, we talked about our current lives and struggles. He is the same; steady-headed and deep-hearted. I wonder if I seemed different.

And I don't know why I feel teary now. Is it the memories? Is it the recollection of how awful it felt to be in love with him alone? I'm no longer in love with this man. I don't THINK I'm in love with this man. But I know my past love of this man follows me. And here it is again.

Why?

And I don't really know what to say. I don't really know what I'm feeling here. I just feel. I feel so much.

---

"...And I was crying please don't be in love unless you love me back
Put on my shoes and go for a walk, but I can't escape my thoughts
So I just keep going, just keep going..."
-- lyrics by Wallis Bird

 

"My own prescription for health is less paperwork and more running barefoot through the grass."
-- Leslie Grimutter

********************

I saw a shooting star last night. Finally.

I remember so well the summer before I moved to England taking long walks under the night sky and begging God for a clear indication that I should jump off this deep end. I asked one night if I could lay out a sheepskin like Gideon, and told Him my sheepskin would be if He would send me one shooting star, then I would know, and I would go despite every fear and sacrifice, knowing it was His will. That knowledge would be enough.

I walked and watched for hours, but no shooting star.

And I headed back to the house so disappointed and questioning. God, that would be so simple for you and mean the world to me? Why not?? And He spoke to me of faith, believing without seeing. I lingered out by the horses, stroking their velvet noses and speaking to God in my head, and feeling the chill of the night settle about me.

A friendly barn cat came along and caressed himself against my bare feet, warming me from head to toe by snuggling into my cold feet.

And suddenly God spoke in the stillness, like a shooting star streaking across the sky of my mind. "You have nothing to fear. My resources and my love for you are limitless. I know and will provide for your every need as you look to me-- because my love for You is deeper than you can ever fully know." He knew I felt cold before I even hardly registered it, and sent that kitty to warm me and prove a point.

And it's stuck with me ever since. 
And got me to follow Him to Europe, awaken to His hugeness and the fact that His dreams for us and His purposes for us as His children fighting valiantly to make His Kingdom known are so much bigger than we dare to dream...

*****************

Around this time last year, I was reading poetry at the wedding of these two lovely people :)

Happy Anniversary, my lovely Smiths!!

...

This weekend is my cousin Jackee's wedding.

We've talked about, imagined, and dreamed about our wedding days and our husbands and our marriages all of our lives-- playing house, barbies, dolls as little girls, and praying for our future husbands together when we were a bit older. Our friendship had a bit of a wobble at one point, our hearts and our lives moving in different directions. But God brought us back around, though it does feel like we've sort of rebuilt our friendship as two different people than we were before. I suppose that's growing up. But our history runs deep and-- being cousins-- thick as blood.

I feel so honoured that I get to be a part of this wedding. She asked me to be a bridesmaid way back in October last year and I had to tell her no because I didn't know how I would have the money to be back in the states. But then my brother got engaged at Christmas and they moved their wedding up to two weeks ago and I HAD to be home for my brother's wedding so God worked it all out perfcetly so I could be here for Jackee too.

Brona, the missionary lady I'm working with in Sweden (and a dear dear friend) MADE my bridesmaid dress. Yeah. And I LOVE it. I made the sash, and I'm pretty excited about that because I didn't really know what I was doing. Like most things I do, it was kind of ad hoc :)

It just means alot to me that she wants me there, in it, and she's asked me to sing in the ceremony as well-- which, again, just really touches me.

I don't know why I'm always surprised that I mean something to someone.
I love so deeply, so widely, so unconditionally the people I love and I think because it's so intense, I always feel alone in it.

But I'm not.
I'm loved.
And that's a beautiful thing to realize.

It kind of changes your world.

Thank You, Lord, that You are teaching me to see,
that I might more fully reflect Your whole heart...

I sat out there under the wide open sky, the 'lake of shining waters' glowing down the hill, and my back to the beautiful white tent atop the hill of the field and felt.... sick at heart. Hurting so much but unable to say so. So desperate to be happy for them and not let anyone, especially Danie, see how much it hurts. It's all so perfectly beautiful there in this treasured place of my heart. And it hurts to see it all happening all around me, only not mine. This place has been such a sanctuary for me, such a haven of my heart. It's meant nothing to her, and nothing emotional to Caleb. My feelings run so deep but they so easily overlooked them. That makes me feel like the lowest kind of nothing... And then having to give up this dream of mine besides. And all while trying to hold onto my pinned up smile and look good in the bridesmaid dress.

I might have raged a bit at this man I'll share my life with, whoever he may be. Why's he dragging his feet??

But mostly I just cried and ask God to change my heart. Please, please, please. Quickly. There's only one more day til the wedding and I still ache as much as I did those months ago when they just stepped right over me without saying a word.... Maybe more so, now, when I'm seeing it all unravelling around me and the bride and her family don't even know how they're stomping all over me in their high-heeled shoes.

And this song is His voice singing over me as I stand amongst those beautiful trees on that windswept prairie hill of my heart overlooking this sanctuary which was such a gift to me from Him....

I feel like my head is in a constant spin since arriving back here to Sweden, to working with Rescue Mission. That's not a bad thing, but it's not a good thing. I don't know what sort of a thing it is.

I think I expected to have more faith by now. Do you ever feel that way? Like, you expected that any day now you'd happen upon the fountain, and instead you find yourself still wading through the shallow pool, still kicking around for that fountain hidden somewhere in the waters.

Maybe I just wanted it all to be easier. As much as I advocate shades of gray, it would certainly be easier if it were all black and white.

Sorry for keeping you in the dark all this time. It's just that... I've been "in the dark" too-- not knowing what I want to do or what I should do.

I feel like such a fool. Either way, I feel like such a fool. Either I'm missing something, or I'm choosing something that I shouldn't. Either way, I feel a fool. 

As it is, there's this very attractive, good, gentle, honest man who adores me. I don't know why. I don't know what he adores about me. I still feel like he hardly knows me and if he did, he'd have nothing in common with me. But I can't turn his gaze from me no matter how I try. And part of me desperately wants to and part of me so longs for him to keep it there. And the two sides fight against one another constantly, one not stronger than the other...

So, because of that constant fight, I decided a few weeks ago to tell him that I can only be his friend. I explained honestly why. And I asked him to stop waiting for me. Because for about a month and a half we were kind of "seeing eachother"-- tentatively for me; decidedly for him-- and he was waiting for me to say, "Yeah, okay, let's be together." I honestly COULD NOT DECIDE what I wanted. I so strongly wanted to say "Yes, let's go" and yet I also so strongly thought, "No, no. I don't want this." How can one girl be so utterly conflicted? And why in the world would a guy wait around for her as she worked through the conflict in her head?? It seemed to bother ME more than he that I was keeping him on hold... To me, that seems so unfair to him.

(The week that I had this big "talk" with him about only being friends, my brother's wedding invitation arrived and he'd been cheeky and had his fiance write "Leah & Stephen" on the invite. I was already feeling so sad and weepy that week... making myself give up 'what could be'...) 

At first it was the cultural differences that frightened me and made me want to stay at arm's length. But there were so many confirmations along the way that culture wouldn't really be a problem. He wasn't at all worried, and I love the diversity of cultures and in fact it would make sense of a good God to give my heart over to one of its passions-- relating to people cross-culturally. Yes, I see and understand that relationships are hard work even without being from different cultures. I think that one shouldn't really just fall into such a relationship and expect all to be rosy, but she really must CHOOSE it-- and not in spite of the cultural difference, but because of it. I want to spend my life with a man from a different culture than mine. If I'm given that choice, that's what I want. It's just... I was thinking Europe, not Africa. So it all threw me for a loop for a bit.

But eventually, I don't know... I gave a little. I started looking at all my African friends in a different way, not just Stephen. I started trying to understand more, looking at them with eyes of a student trying to observe and learn and soak as much out of my interactions as I could. And suddenly, the cultural thing wasn't the biggest chasm.

Once that was out of the way I could seriously think about he and I as people, as personalities. And again, I gave myself pause. He is beautiful and kind and respectful and desires commitment and honesty and integrity in his workings. He wants to be a good husband, and a good father. He wants to live a life of serving God and others, a quiet life. He never ever takes the spotlight, is always the first to help, never complains.... I admire him so much for so many reasons.

...but there's more I long to find in the man I commit myself to. I long to find poetry there in the deep places inside, or at least a deep understanding of the poetry in life. I'm not really talking about lyrical phrases here, but... a way of seeing the world. I want to be with someone who I can talk with all day and all night and still find more to discuss and think over together, making discoveries in one another's eyes, in one another's thoughts...

But maybe it's too much to ask for all that as well as the sexual attraction, as well as the gentle care and concern. I mean... it's like I consume his thoughts. This man would... sacrifice for me. I can see that. And it... both touches me and frightens me. And it makes me suspicious. And I HATE that. That I can't just relax into the idea that someone could just... love me.

I told him we must just be friends because I can't honestly go forward, knowing that my feelings aren't 100% there. That's what it came down to. I couldn't go ahead and try this and yet feel like I was acting in integrity. It would have been selfish. I would have said yes so that I could experience what it's like to be adored and cherished by someone, but not because I adored and cherished him the same way...

But then I start to fear that there's something so deeply broken in me that I can only ever truly adore and cherish men who don't feel the same way back. And that terrifies me. It terrifies me!

Back during the month and a half of "seeing eachother" I took a day out with my pastor Mike and we talked about this. Stephen is close to he and Brona too. He calls them Mama and Father, and told Mike straightaway about his interest in me. Mike thought it was grand. When I spoke to Mike about my hesitancy I was so taken aback with his first response because Mike is really not so very "up" on psychology and he doesn't really know my personal stories so much. Brona does, but not Mike. So he responded by saying that he sees in me a suspicion of anyone loving me because he thinks I'm used to having to earn love, or prove myself lovable, maybe because of my relationship with my father or other men in my past. He saw in me that I didn't really know what to do with Stephen because he just... seemed to fall for me without me having to do anything for it. During my "year of Dave" trauma, my Psychologist Aunt and I often discussed my apparent subconcious draw to men who are detached and whom I must try to earn love from to "fix" whatever was wrong between me and my detached father growing up.

But it was confusing to hear from Mike because I had been thinking the same thing to myself-- that maybe my hesitancy with Stephen was due to my father wound issues. And in that case, I should really just go ahead and try with Stephen, right? So I'm not acting out of a woundedness?

I'm so afraid I'll look back someday and discover that I've run from men who want me because I didn't "feel" enough for them, and the only time I've "felt" enough, it's been for men who don't want me...

Stephen says he's waiting for me anyway. Despite the many times I've told him not to, because we're only friends. He trusts that God has told him I'm going to be his wife.... woah. And that God will bring it back around. Maybe when we're old and gray. It's so hard because I want to encourage this kind of trust-- and have told him that if it's God, we can trust that He will bring it back around--, but at the same time, not lead him on because I really think we should just be friends. Stephen had a dream before I said we should just be friends telling him that I would say that. And that I would be with another man. And that eventually, I would come back to him... Goodness gracious. But I just had to make that decision. It wasn't fair to keep him lingering while I oscillated. I can't give him what he deserves, the same level of attention and affection and concern that he has for me. I just don't feel enough for him.

Or is it that I don't WANT to feel it for him, because I want to wait for the kind of man who is my "whole fantasy package"? I do not want to be one of these women who wile away their prime years waiting on Mr. Perfect-- who, by the way, doesn't exist. But is Mr. Perfect who I'm waiting for, or just Mr.Someone who loves me no questions asked like Stephen seems to, and yet has all those other qualities I rather hope the man I share my life with has-- like the gift of leadership and vision in ministry; who takes an active interest in people and their stories, who has deep eyes for the poetry of the world and all that that implies... The ability to play the guitar wouldn't hurt either :)

I'm so torn because I know perfectly well I could love Stephen. If I set my heart to it.

But I am so controlled. It's sickening. Sometimes I just want to let go completely. But I fear I'd regret it.

But what am I waiting for?
And why?

What kind of a sick girl goes around throwing away perfectly lovely men who adore her and want to cherish her? What kind of a sick girl holds him at arm's length and tells him not to? Heaven knows it's what I want... to be loved, just loved, regardless of what I do or don't do, or am or am not.

I just don't know.
And it all weighs so heavily.
Stephen knows when I'm thinking too much. He can see it in my face throughout the day at work, and afterwards he tells me to let it go. But I don't know how.

And now... I'm trying to navigate the sea of "just friends" with someone who has been very clear that that's not what he feels-- and someone I see most every day at work at Rescue Mission and share a social network with.

And some days, like today, I feel so very weak. I just want to curl up in his arms and be. But is it his arms, or just someone's?

Sometimes I just feel such a hopeless case of a person.... And lonely.