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Wednesday, May 2, 2012

...all is well.

Have you ever read a book you didn't want to finish just because the story wasn't writing the way that you had hoped?  I'm reading one of those right now and I'm rather disappointed.  I'm especially disappointed because it is the final book of a four book series by one of my favorite authors, who usually ends her stories just the way that I had been hoping they would end.  The main character relies on their faith to overcome whatever life obstacle had been placed in front of him/her, God has worked the seemingly impossible situation out for good, and of course, the right boy falls in love with the right girl and they end up together.  Sigh.  Bliss.  Life is beautiful and all is well.

But in this case, it does not seem as though the right boy will fall in love with the right girl.  Or, at least, who I deem to be the right boy and the right girl.  This story has been set up for years in several previous books from other series.  Several moments in this particular series have even set up the reader to think that these two people are meant for each other.  That God has been writing their story for ages and now, it's time to see it come to fruition.  Except, that's not what is happening right now.  She fell in love with someone else.  People keep telling him that she wasn't the right girl for him.  She keeps saying she thinks of him as a brother.  He enjoyed a date with someone else.  NO!  Stop it!  I'm too invested to let go of the their young love that was so pure and amazing.  What is going on here?

I'm the kind of person who believes that good love stories take time.  I think that the most romantic stories are the ones where they loved and lost and then found each other again years later after having lived and matured and developed a knowing about life.  Or when he likes her for forever and they're just friends, but then, he meets someone else and she realizes what she could lose...and she almost does lose him.  But then, he realizes it's always been her and runs back to her arms.  The Notebook, Anne of Green Gables, The Time Traveler's Wife...these are the romantic stories I love.  I was really hoping that this was one of those.  But it is just not turning out that way.  Bummer.

Of course, maybe the bigger issue here is that I'm so emotionally invested in characters from a book.  As if we were friends.  Oh well.  Sometimes it helps to get me through the day.  And sometimes I think God uses stories like these to teach me a lesson about something that is relevant in my life.  Like the fact that even if it doesn't all turn out the way that I see it, that He is still the author of my perfect story.

Right now, as I read this love story that's not turning out the way I'd hoped, I'm considering my own love story and the potential that there may be something brewing there.  It has been taking time.  A lot of time.  And there's no guarantee that the time it's taking means that it's actually leading anywhere.  This could just be a drop in the bucket, meant to teach me a lesson and get me to the next place in my life so that I can be ready for my real love story.  I guess I never considered that going through my own time-taking love story could be so frustrating and faith-testing.  Who knows where this will lead?  But, I do know that knowing this person has grown me and taught me so much.  Here are some of the things that knowing him has taught me:
  • I can trust in God's assessment of a person and the intuition He's given me to identify when it's a good assessment.
  • My silliness, awkwardness, and just the person that I am is attractive...and I really don't have to be anything else.
  • There really are unmarried handsome, intelligent, Godly, mature, TALL, athletic, humorous, witty, respectful single men in their 30s still out there.
  • I am worth taking the time to get to know and not someone to be swept off her feet with no regard for the condition of her heart.
  • I am also worth the honesty it takes to tell a girl his reasons for not pursuing me in the way he would like to...as I watch his face express his own disappointment...instead of disregarding this and sweeping me into something doomed from the start.
  • Respect matters to me.  Both that I respect him and that he respect me.
  • I'm not alone in the season of life that I'm currently in.
  • I can trust God and where He leads my heart.
I know that God has purpose in my meeting this man.  But like the book I have been reading, maybe it isn't going to end the way that I had my heart set on.  Maybe God is leading my heart away and letting go is an ok thing.  Maybe this was just a season of healing to renew and revive a very wounded heart.  Or maybe, it's my own love story, taking the time it needs to make it's way to the permanent pages of my heart.

I know that God always has my best interests at heart and means to do me no harm.  If that is truth, then being with this man at this point in our lives would do both of us harm.  I have to trust in God's vision and the fact that He can see the entire canvass, not just my little corner.  Trusting God like that has been so hard!  I often find myself slipping back into the same fears of rejection, loneliness, and that I don't deserve to be with a man like this.  If he is the man for me, then God will work it out.  And if he isn't, then God will lead the way.  I have to trust in God.  God is continually bringing me to my knees as He works it out.  I have no where else to go.

Regardless, God will work it out.  Even if the characters in this book end up with other people, the author will show how she saw that it was God's best for them.  And everything they went through before brought them to the point where they saw God's leading on their lives and how His vision was so much better than the pieces they could see.  So it will be ok that they moved on from their young love, pure and joyous as it was.  Sometimes God does move us on from good things for better things, even though the moving piece is usually painful.  I just can't wait to find out what God has for me as He writes my love story that I've prayed for since I was a young girl.  He could be writing it right now with this man.  Or He could be writing this chapter of my love story so that I will have an open heart for the man God has for me.  Either way, I believe that God will end my love story the same way.

Sigh.  Bliss.  Life is beautiful and all is well.