Anonymous here again! B is not thrilled that I told y’all I’m anonymous. I think it’s because we’re similar in our need to know all of the details, always. Secrets don’t keep friends. So if you are curious, I’m Kati.

More importantly, I’m beyond excited to share today’s guest post with you today. It comes from Abbie Smith, a writer residing in Savannah, Georgia. This post is actually an excerpt from her latest book, “Celibate Sex—Musing on Being Loved, Single, Twisted, and Holy,” releasing this February with Navpress Publishers.

I wish I could tell you how much I love Abbie! I first met her a few years ago at the Orange Conference where she was speaking about women in ministry. In some way only God could orchestrate, we’ve stayed in touch throughout the years. The best way I can tell you about Abbie is to let you read her writing. She has an ability to explain lofty ideas simply, and to express human emotions with words in the most beautiful way. One peek at her blog and you will know just what I mean.

To connect with Abbie, visit UnsteadySaint.

 

 

There’s not much worse than the petal that proclaims, “Loves me not.” And sad though it is, unreciprocated loves happen more often than the reciprocated kind. I was definitely the girl growing up who’d scoff at your boy sorrows and presume your love pains as lame. A few personal heartbreaks later, however, I can’t think of much that’s more painful.

The first time I got mad at God was during a breakup. This guy and I had done everything “right,” including following felt “promptings” to stay together. So when we broke up, it felt like God’s fault. “If You knew all along I’d mess up (or be messed up by) a given relationship, why did You allow it to unfold in the first place? Why do You allow, and even lead me, to date people, blessing our territories for a time, yet knowing full well a break-up song is in tune?  Are You that obsessed with my growth that You’d hurt me so deeply? Or that undone by my lacking faith that You’d punish, ignore, or play games with me? Or is there something more delicate at hand here?”

          I didn’t cry much as a kid. One night I did, though, was New Year’s Eve, 1989. I was traveling with my family, lodging at a Days Inn somewhere between Charlotte and D.C. Approaching midnight, my young senses were tiring, yet a fresh determination empowered my eyelids. “The end” was growing close and I was growing more and more desperate to stay with 1989. It seemed the end of an era to my eight-year-old mind, and I was devastated. How could it leave? How could it depart so quickly and never come back? Was it really never coming back?! I couldn’t deal with it. I didn’t want to deal with it. I was mad at the year. Angry that it would enter my life so richly and yet hold the audacity to depart. Tears poured as the television dropped the Times Square ball. I simultaneously made every effort to “save the year” by scooping its last breaths into a salad dressing bottle. In a flash, 1989 was gone. Death had confronted me. And like death, even when expected, breakups are unnatural, unexpected, and painful, because they taste like loss, which usually recalls other tasted losses. And they make us feel like we have been lost.

One of the biggest tragedies in our dating stories, or breakup sagas, is when we trivialize their processes to “natural.” I become a slave to my pain when I try to narrow its comprehensions to “logic.” Hovering beneath Christian jargon and hiding our authentic (God-given) judgment hides us from reality. Some days will be hard (like when you want to console, or be consoled by, an ex), and some situations are plain awkward (like seeing an old crush or seeing a new one with your old best friend). The alternative, however, is to stuff our pain in statements like, “I know God, so I shouldn’t be upset,” or “God always has a happy plan and future for me, so I’ve just gotta suck it up and move on.” Truth never modeled such a tale. To risk hurting one’s feelings, or risk handing over your real feelings, will usually be hard. But if God is true and truly Lord over outcomes (including feelings), we’re better off being authentically upset, heartbroken, and maybe even awkward, rather than maturing a lie.

God is all about holiness—showing us ours and drawing us toward His. So much so, in fact, that Scripture says His overarching will for our lives is holiness.[1] But what about when holiness doesn’t fix us or necessarily make us feel happy? And why is it that holiness seems to happen more often, even, through the likes of heartbreaks and breakups, than smooth-sailing life? Although sometimes holiness involves happiness, other times it involves suffering, unfulfilled longing, even societal persecution. Even in this, however, the challenging belief is that God is good and has His (and your) best interests in mind.[2]

Either God is good and for our good and knows what He is about, or He doesn’t. Either pain and death are the end of our stories, or they’re not. Successful dating should not just be classified as those who “get hitched.” Successful dating, or “courtship,” or life, that is, happen when a man and a woman are moved closer to God. Even in courtships that break up, then, or unrequited love that never requites, God’s hand is still initiating and pursuing and making something new. Sometimes God breaks up two good people with two good paths for no good reason. Except to draw us closer to Him.


[1] 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8; 1 Peter 1:15

[2] Romans 8:28

Pin It on Pinterest