12. done in the dark
The man in the driver’s seat of the car on the lake that November night would soon after the experience, propose and become my fiancé. It would be the beginning of the end of who I was before accepting Christ.
The two of us met in college and to be married young was still an idol and one of the false sense of securities I held onto. His charm and charisma drew me in, and the sweetness in his laugh could smooth over any situation. He came from a good family who supported all that he accomplished and welcomed me into the folds of their lives. The two of us knew how to have fun together and I saw him to be the type of companion that my mom had in my dad.
After a little while we shared a bond that I thought to be unbreakable. I started thinking oh so quietly that the fate spoken over me from years ago, that no one could ever want me, might finally be untold. A bit of hope sparked my oldest deepest desire. Maybe he is it and this guy will be the one who fights to protect me. I gained enough anticipation to return to the burial ground where my dream laid, dust it off to take it up in my arms once again.
Sharing the news of our engagement started the succession of wedding planning, where would spend the holidays, and how we would decorate our home. I thought we were a team. The longing for something that would produce an identity or a purpose blinded me to everything ugly that had happened in our relationship before he asked, will you marry me?
Despite a decent looking presentation, our rocky start and the red flags in the early days would be our demise, because he was lost just like me.
He lived a life of duplicity that often times was cruelly withheld from my line of sight, yet when the veil of his deceit wore thin enough for me to see through and his lies caught up to him, I found myself unable to walk away. To withstand the pain of burying my hope yet again did not seem like an impact that I could handle. Instead, I held on to yet another mirage; wishing with everything in my being that eventually enough of the good in his background would overshadow the things he did in the dark behind my back.
He made polished speeches to do away with his vices as he held my face in his hands and promised to chose me above it all and not hurt me anymore. He said the very words I was dying to hear.
“I choose you.”
So I clung to them like a life line and willed myself to be worth enough for him to want me and only me. If I could just be enough for this to work out then things would turn out okay I rationalized. My need to belong captured all good sense and reasoning and put them on mute. In the process of making the relationship work, I lost a friend I’d known for a decade, my reputation had been drug through the mud, and I isolated myself putting a strain on the relationship with my family.
I felt dirty, undignified, and left alone to clean up the shattered pieces of the decisions he made and that I participated in. But after months of ups and downs the waters seemed to have calmed just in time to send out Save the Dates. The fighting had ceased and I believed the skeletons had all been unearthed, but on the day we were to choose the tent to be married under, I made a discovery that sent me over the edge.
More lies.
The rage of sundered love charred the words that spouted out, without restraint or filter, I unleashed every wound I could no longer carry. Unable to take anymore, I raised my white flag. Unsure who to be more angry at, him or me for being duped yet again, nothing gentle was on my hand as I slapped away the vision of a future that was no longer going to happen.
I cried for days and let no guard stand in front of the floodgates of my emotions. FaceTime calls with my siblings lasted for hours even if no words were exchanged, and I always ended up sitting in the shower too weak to stand up against the emptiness expanding within me. As ferocious as the initial anger came, it did not compare to boarding up and feeling nothing at all. A ghost town, and a shell of myself became the remains of my decision to end the engagement.
My parents tried to extend comfort by saying there is good pain and bad pain, and it is always better to choose the good pain of a hard but right choice. I did not care; all I knew was the wail of incredible disappointment with the loss of my dream I believed to be just within my reach. Another piece of me had broken off. And the guilt of making a wrong decision and breaking my promise to “be better” ate away at me.
But just as God pulled me from the sinking car, He showed the riches of His mercy by pulling me from that sinking relationship to give me more healing and love than I could have ever imagined. Jesus is the ultimate protector and defender of my heart and does so with unmatched steadfast perfection. God cannot lie, He cannot falter, and He says I choose you (John 15:16).
God’s first and foremost act of protection was to save me from my depravity that separates me from His glorious presence if He had not intervened. Sometimes the best way this is done is through tribulations and withholding what’s desired by our finite minds to give what’s eternally greater. I will be forever grateful that Christ’s love for me is unashamed and able to dive deep into the muck of me and rescue me from any trap I fall into.
Although I thought I had hit rock bottom, a new beginning was on the horizon.