I went back. Today, I went back to a place that makes my heart pound – the gathering place of a lot of people and memories that caused infections in my soul. I asked God to drain those infections. Maybe that’s why I could go back. Because I’d healed enough for God to teach me something else.

I don’t know what life is teaching you, but it’s teaching me…that all relationships are pretty transient. Or, they mutate unexpectedly – from close to distant, for instance. And as soon as I think I’ve found the unicorn best friend 🦄 she turns RIGHT around and disappoints my expectations. I end up feeling either 1) My hopes are childish or, 2) brokenhearted, like a child crying in the rain.

Parents who need to be needed will abandon you, if you stop needing them.

Wise parents die or, are more head than heart when it counts. And I say this as a parent who dreams of being THERE for my kids – in whatever way possible… Another child crying in the rain fantasy? Will my child be a prodigal and break my already broken heart in new and profound ways?

As a Christian, I now understand that my husband has joined me, come into spiritual unity with me. I didn’t know that when we got married, and he didn’t know God. I’ve always said he was the one thing I got right. I didn’t get a boyfriend with a car when I turned 16; I wasn’t allowed to date – alone 😲 Prom king material didn’t chase after me and notice my uniquely special self. No movie expectations ever got met in my life, unless we’re talking something by Stephen King 🤦🏽‍♀️ But I got to choose more than one profoundly right thing. Choosing my husband led to a life of pretty pictures.

More important, I chose Jesus, and it turns out He’s keeping me.

I can’t explain it, but I do: I DO love people who have been transient fans and supporters and encouragers – friends who left; who didn’t (couldn’t) grow with me and go deeper; “friends” who betrayed me, who tried to tear me down and destroy me… 

I must have God inside me, I know after I see these people/imposters. Because God is Love, and I have, inexplicably, love inside me for these people who have passed out of the color part of my life into the black and white past and periphery.