It is time.

I haven't written anything serious for awhile. It's not as fun. But you know, there are things that have been marinating, and I just can't go much longer without a long, searching glance into the deeper things.

On the way home the other night, I began thinking. I used to think deeply quite often, but I find that I don't have the brain power to spare at this frenzied point in my life. At least, not often. Therefore, I have trouble processing things.

For a little more than two months I've been processing the disintegration of a friendship that was very dear to me. For a long time I was angry and hurt beyond all get-out and disbelieving. Then I became still more surprised and somewhat blank as to feeling. Perhaps that could be termed incredulous. And at some point in this process, I started noticing the other people who came creeping in. No, that's not true. They didn't creep. They bounded. And I found myself surprised, but in a good, albeit, slightly self-reproachful, way.

You see, I've had these other friends for quite some time. True, they are quiet people who don't like to draw a lot of attention to themselves. But they were very much there, especially if I needed anything at all. They were always my friends. And I have liked them for some long, undetermined time.

The self-reproach comes in when I started realizing that I had let this other friend...let's call her Sue...completely steal the spotlight from my tried and true friends. In as much is possible in a non-sexual relationship, I had become infatuated with her, with my friendship with her. She was insanely warm, energetic, emphatic, enthusiastic, affectionate...and she was mine. She didn't let anyone else in, and I felt privileged. We got along famously, and I let that relationship take full precedence in my life. How wrong is that???

And then, over the small period of a weekend, she was gone. We'd been friends for over a year and then it was over. She and her husband had already been planning on leaving our church and they decided that all contact must cease. Don't ask me why--in a town as small as ours is, it's miraculous that we haven't run in to them. So she took me off facebook, she would not be answering phone calls or emails, and she quit the bible study she was helping me lead. Talk about embarrassing, eh? Since I'm the one who asked her to help me. I would've thought I had more discernment than that. All my stuff that they'd borrowed appeared on a table outside the bible study room at church, and that was it.

For all intents and purposes, she became as if she was dead.

Only with no closure, do you follow? Because it was a sudden, unexpected death, this death of our friendship. And it was by her choice.

It is clear to me now that all of this was part of God's magnificent plan for my life. The friendships I'd neglected have become fiercely important to me, as I finally discern the difference between playing at friendship, and really being friends. What Sue and I had was fun, deliriously fun, but it didn't last. And while my truer friends and I don't exist at frantically high levels of intensity, that's perfectly acceptable to me. Because I know that they're not going to disappear in the night. Because I know that whatever face Sue was giving me, it wasn't completely real, much as I would've liked for it to be. There must've been some other self lurking, for her to able to turn away from me so suddenly and with such decisive measures.

It stings.

And that's my problem. Despite all the amazing good that has come out of this sad, bizarre series of events, I am lacking closure. I never really said goodbye and I am not happy that her last spoken words to me were "You really are a forever kind of friend, not just for a season." How can I get over that?

Well, I'll tell you how.

On my way home the other night, I sat reflecting over the wonderful day I'd had surrounded by my superfriends. And yet, as I thought back further, to Sue, I wondered how I could ever find true closure. Well, silly, if not with her, then with God. Amen? I cannot fully release it yet, but God is the only One who can heal these wounds, baby. He orchestrated it, He let it happen. He brought me through as unscathed as I could expect. He will let it sharpen me and strengthen me and tender me. And then I will be all the better equipped to serve others and glorify Him.

And in these things, I will find my closure, and my comfort.



"The object of our lives is won. Henceforth let us wear it silently. My lips are closed upon the past from this hour."

Psalm 57:2
I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills {his purpose} for me.

Isaiah 43:2
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

**A shout-out to the superfriends, not disincluding those of you who didn't get an official name from Matthew:

"She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be."

I adore y'all. You have been faithful even when I didn't hold up my end. You have been shining examples of Christian love. I owe you my sincerest apologies and my greatest appreciation. I couldn't do it without you.