Today marks what would've been the One Year Anniversary with the Wisconsinite. I felt in a glum mood most of the day, reflecting on the past year and where I'm at now versus where I was at then. To be honest I feel that everything Mandy did to me still haunts me. I feel weakened by what she did, like I'm a shadow of my former self. It still feels like a part of myself is gone, a sort of dismemberment. There's still lots of anger and sadness, and I still miss her often. It can make me sick to my stomach to dwell upon what was lost. It isn't just about her. I was happy and excited, I had a purpose and an identity; and she ripped all that away with broken promises and empty words. I still feel trapped by what happened.
Her actions, they've paralyzed my life and my heart. I miss the happiness, the excitement, the purpose, the identity. I'm thinking I miss that more than I miss her.
My faith has suffered. To have your greatest prayers answered, to have them thrust before your eyes and then wrenched away without a reason...
How can you just keep going?
How can you not pause and think?
To have your shitty life culminating in a Good Ending, and then to have that Good Ending taken away, to be in worse shape than before... How can you just shrug your shoulders and say, "It's okay, God has my best interests at heart."
Really? Does He, though?
Where's the evidence of that?
Why does being in God's "favor" have virtually no effect on a person's life? Wouldn't you expect God's hand of blessing on His people (and His wrath on those who refuse Him) to actually manifest itself beyond dusty words on cracked parchment?
I'm not looking for a sign.
I just want something that makes sense.
Maybe the reason I want there to be some "hidden purpose" in Mandy is because I want there to be some evidence, even if it's not the kind I like, that God's involved. I want to have that hope. But maybe He's not involved. Maybe He just lets things pan out, perhaps making tweaks here and there, answering a casual prayer every once in a while; but maybe the vast majority of our lives are left to chance. It sure doesn't look like He's involved, and it bothers me that a major branch of Christian theology revolves around explaining why God doesn't do what He says he'll do.
I crave the confidence and trust I had with God. Her actions, they corroded that confidence and trust. Or maybe she just showed up my confidence and trust for what it really was? But if you can't trust God with those purest things that matter the most, what can you trust Him with?
I don't go to church all that often. It sickens me to see people who haven't had their lives torn apart, to be around people whose prayers were answered, to be around people with such confidence and trust. I hate seeing their joy and hope because I envy it.
I try to pray, but it all just feels forced. He hasn't listened before; why expect anything different? If the point of a prayer is to bear your heart so God knows what matters most to you (and therefore what He can take away to cause the most pain), then maybe the best bet is to not pray at all.
I try to meditate on scripture, but it just feels like words.
Well-worn words stripped of their life and vitality.
I don't like this feeling, this sensation of being lost, out-of-place. I feel like I've lost my way, took a turn down the wrong lane; I feel like the Prodigal Son who was welcomed home and then spit back into the pigpens when He didn't measure up.
Ashley prayed that if God wanted us together, He'd make me attractive to her. She didn't find me attractive when we first started hanging out. But God answered that prayer; "I've never been more attracted to anyone, and I literally have no desire to even look at another man." I pray earnestly that if He wants the two of us together, He'll heal my heart and enable me to move forward, even to love Ashley more than I loved Mandy. But my heart doesn't seem to want to heal.
Why does God answer her prayer but not mine?
Or is her "answered prayer" the same as mine was: self-delusion?
I want to think this is normal. I want to think I'm not crazy, that this will pass. But sometimes I doubt it will. Sometimes you're just damaged, irrevocably ruined, and nothing--no therapy, no relationship, no church, and no prayers--will alter that fact. I fear that what I thought was the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and the greatest proof of God's love for me, will be in the end the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the thing that pushed me away from the faith altogether. I fear that my faith will weaken and die, that my heart will become calloused and cold, and that I'll never be able to love again. I fear that will be the legacy the Wisconsinite leaves on my life.
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