Q-107: Yea though I walk

You've had a rough week. The commute is long, and you've not been sleeping well. And now you have another issue to deal with. You're full to the gills with emotions you can't quantify, qualify, or even begin to deal with. You're too far away from the real problem to evaluate it properly, and your options are limited anyway.

You're afraid of losing something really precious, and you need something beautiful to distract you. You long for it, you seek it out, you look desperately for anything to ease you, to remind you that at least nature can be uncomplicated, simple, lovely.

Because that's what you want right now... simple. Lovely. Uncomplicated.

You can still remember when you first met. You remember how unique she was, you could see that right away. She was like no one you'd ever met until then. Even at 8 years old there was a piece of you that knew-- she was special. At 8 she was smarter, quicker, witter, worldlier than anyone else you'd encountered. She was a jewel in your life, one you didn't even appreciate until so much later.



You drifted in and out of each other's lives, mostly in and around Church-based activities, youth group, Christmas and Easter services. An occasional run in outside of church-- a chance meeting at the outlets, waiting in line for the SATs. Each time you walked away enchanted all over again.



And when you came home from college that first year, and you realized how lost you were, how unknown you were ... to yourself. You had no real opinions, no real personality, no real direction. You'd never fought for your own life, choosing instead to do what was expected, what was wanted, what was "right." You had spent so many years not bothering to ask why? Never bothering to wonder what YOU believed. You watched your life from afar, knowing there was something beautiful somewhere-- but never bothering to brush past the branches in your way.



And then you re-connected. And the two of you got to know each other-- for real. At 4am she was there for you. Long talks through the night, midnight trips to Denny's. Meeting her friends, talking politics. She challenged you. Constantly. "Because" was never a response to a valid argument. You had to think, had to fight, had to debate. You had to constantly be evaluating yourself, and your beliefs. You had to be able to defend them, to defend yourself in verbal battle.



And slowly but surely, you started to open. You started to flip the pages of your own book. You started to de-shutter the window of your own life. She made you. She kept you on your toes, and today-- you can fight. You can take a side, take a stand, even play devil's advocate. You owe her the credit for a thousand conversations. You owe her the credit for 500 debates, 1500 statements of opinion. You learned from her how to stand alone in a crowd, and how to do it gracefully.



It's been years now. Next year you'll have been in each other's lives for 20 years. And now it's decision time. Because what happened requires a decision. It requires taking a stand. Because she won't. Because she won't make the decision, at least not the one you know is right. And it's not just a difference of opinion. It's about life, her life. About living, and knowing that she deserves more than this. She deserves better than this. She deserves better than him. Because if you'd known the whole story months ago, maybe then... maybe you could have convinced her sooner. Let her know that she didn't deserve this, that NO one deserves this. That no woman deserves to be hurt. Deserves to be degraded. Deserves to be afraid.

Because she doesn't hear that now. Doesn't see it. And you are too far away, in distance and in emotion. You are too disconnected by your own emotion to make her see. Because now there is an edge there now that you cannot navigate. An edge you can't see a way past. And all that you want is to go back, to those days when you first met. You want to go back to when life was simpler, easier, before the world crept in and created this confusion, this pain, this anger. Before the world brought in manipulative relationships, co-dependent parents, and boyfriends with guns.



When it was just you and she sitting in the youth room, wondering who we would someday be. And now here you sit, wondering how to convince her to believe in herself, the way that she once convinced you. But all you can do, what you keep coming back to is just this:

"May we discover through pain and torment,
the strength to live with grace and humor.
May we discover through doubt and anguish,
the strength to live with dignity and holiness.
May we discover through suffering and fear,
the strength to move toward healing.
May it come to pass that we be restored to health and to vigor.
May Life grant us wellness of body, spirit, and mind.
And if this cannot be so, may we find in this transformation and passage
moments of meaning, opportunities for love
and the deep and gracious calm that comes
when we allow ourselves to move on."

Dear Lord, protect my friend.