This weekend I had a hard conversation with a friend, the type of conversation that only spills out on a midnight drive. The desperate, late night ramblings that your brain holds onto so tight until it just can’t anymore. She was asking for advice on a situation that I knew well and had just traveled through. I sat there a moment and thought because I knew my initial answer was something new for me to say. My initial answer was born out of coming out of the other side of what was currently sitting in front of her. I decided to answer her honestly as I could. I told her, “Me, a year ago would have a different answer from me today.”
I told her, a year ago I would have said, “Stick it out, to learn commitment and have resilience. That this difficult (and what I can now diagnose as unhealthy) situation will teach her, grow her and that God would be there every step of the way (still true).
I have no idea where this stupidly fierce determination came and lived into my soul up until recently, but I let me tell you I would have held onto a porcupine a year ago and perhaps told you that the painful needles sticking into my skin everywhere were okay because they would be the thing that would transform me, change me, into something better if I held on long enough.
Then I moved onto the newer part of my answer. I told her I now know it’s okay to let go of some things. That while we are called to such great things as loyalty, we aren’t required to be loyal to a fault, especially if that fault is ripping a trench in our mental and physical health. I told her it will be hard, people will have their own opinions about the choice she wants to make and that sometimes you have to put blinders on and understand that doing what is best for you is what is required. That God is not a harsh judge, hanging over our heads with a gavel, ready to send it crashing down the moment we make the wrong choice. We are not powerful enough to make a decision to screw up his plans for our life anyways. He will always meet us with more grace and love.
Let me just have a coffee table moment with you, that many people have had with me: It's okay to disappoint people, it’s okay to make the decision you feel called to, even if it might put others in a difficult position. Girl, have good awareness of those around you, but also put your blinders on, take a good hard look at our ever loving, ever gracious God and head in that direction.
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