This is my favorite picture of us ever. I took it when I was playing with my new camera on my 27th birthday. He always made my birthdays special. My friends are usually out of town so he would get all of his friends together to make me feel like I was having a party. He always treated me like a princess.
I met Nick through a mutual friend before I went to Australia. I didn't think much of it, but I found him interesting and we kept in touch. We would send small messages here and there while I was in Oz and then when I got back we started spending time together. It was very platonically innocent at first, I think we just found each other interesting because we are so opposite. He's covered in tattoos, brilliant in computers, loves scary movies, and carries a quiet disposition that I found charming and very calming for me. I loved spending time with him. He made me feel exciting. He introduced me to directors I had never heard of, drinks and places I'd never seen, people who were a blast, and puppies who were the cutest thing ever. I've always loved how much he cares for his puppies. Its often made me wonder if he cares that much for them, how much more for me? How much more for future children?
So when you spend enough time with a boy, that eventually leads to a kiss, that sometimes leads to a relationship. When I got back from my trip last summer I had heard that he had gone to church with my friends while I was gone, all on his own. This knowledge electrified me. My biggest hang up with this fellow has always been our different beliefs. For a long time I chalked those differences up to our very seperate backgrounds. But he is an adult now, he makes his own choices, and he was going to church with ME. A loving, welcoming church that has thousands of background stories like his. I thought surely God had caught his heart! How wonderful!
And when I returned from that trip I decided to give "Us" a try. I made the choice to stop being scared, stop analyzing everything so much, and invest my time and energy in him. No longer single and available for others. But I carried this huge weight of uncertainty on my shoulders. Was he going to church because he found God and silently had all kinds of questions in his head? or was he going for me, and secretly not interested in it all?
In October, he revealed it was the latter. Maybe not even that he was going "for me", but if he had gone for himself, he had decided he got nothing out of it and didn't understand the point of going. I was crushed. This began a series of routine cryfests by myself in my pillow on occasion. Usually after some church event that I loved, I would cry myself to sleep that the guy I loved had no interest in Jesus and the Church. This news was painful to my ears! How could we sit through the same service and him not get anything out of it?? Telling me there is no need for church is like telling me there is no need for air, and so you're going to stop breathing. Please no! Don't you know you'll die if you stop breathing!
I became increasingly worried and filled with anxiety about this. We would talk about it once in a while, but I loved him so much that I would always let it go with, "We'll talk about this later". And then we wouldn't.
I am a future thinker, always have been. I used to start packing my bags for summer camp 2 weeks ahead of time and just lay in bed wondering what awaited me. I enjoy structure and plans. While I was ready to drop out of college at times, I knew I'd need that piece of paper to get what I wanted later. While I liked personal training, I knew its instability would hurt me later. While I am in love with Nicholas right now, I KNOW that a marriage between two seperate belief systems can never truly work with out one of us making a sacrifice for the other. Either I am to suppress this worry for the rest of my life, or he is to go to church for my sake, to keep me happy.
I couldn't pretend anymore like it didn't bother me. I couldn't sit in church one more sunday and pretend like it is no big deal that my love was not right there with me, sharing in the most important part of my week. My job will come and go, along with my house, my car, my degree. Those things have their importance, but nothing in my being carries the weight of the Christianity that I am a part of. Its the one constant in my life aside from food, and breathing. How do I continue to go through spiritual life changers without Nick also going through any of his own? How do we have kids and teach them to grow up in the way that is right, if we dispute that?
Oh I wish there was a solution. I wish God would beam a light on him like Saul in Damascus and instantly work this out. I wish that light would flick on in his brain and we begin our adventure pursuing God together. But I've been spending time with him for 2yrs now praying and hoping that would happen. Do I keep waiting painfully for the rest of my life knowing there is a possibility that light might never turn on? My choice was no. Self preservation if you want to call it that. As much as it hurts to let him go, it hurts so much more to stay in waiting. My head has told me for a long time that this is the right thing to do. But my heart has kept me from it, and it felt so wrong to say those words last night. It sounds dramatic...but I feel like Abraham with Isaac. I feel like God has asked me to sacrifice the most important guy in my life.
So there it is God! I choose You over him. I gave You this situation to deal with. I gave up the one guy who has done nothing but adore me. He's never wanted to leave me for another, like my first boyfriend. He's never lost interest in me, like my second boyfriend. No, he was my lucky #3. The guy who made me feel like a the prettiest, smartest, best person in the whole world. The guy who would send me little sweet messages of love all day long, EVERYday. The guy who was proud to hold my hand in any setting. The guy who didn't need to be entertained but was perfectly content to sit and hold me on the couch with what little free time we had. The guy who still looks at me with big eyes everytime I walk in the door like he's just seen me for the first time. The guy who not only listens to me, but remembers every little word I say. The guy who is so utterly patient with everything I've put him through, never wavering, willing to stick anything out. I gave that up Lord! I gave that up because I think You asked me to! Because I believe Your words that tell me not to be yoked with unbelievers. Now, please take care of us Lord. Pleas take care of our crippled hearts. Nick and I are hurting beyond belief. I have not stopped crying since I started talking last night. Please work good from my bad Lord. Please make good of my wicked, selfish, heart. Please reveal yourself to Nick, Lord. Please show him that You are real, and You care, and how You've asked us to live. Please save us, Lord. Please save us both from the mess I have made.
Ephesians 5:22-33
