The Best Path through Life, is the Highway

Last week while I was in San Antonio, I met a guy from DC in the training class I was attending.  We went to dinner and a movie and then lunch together the next day.  Conversation flowed fairly easily and part way through dinner, we discovered we were both Christians.  For the remainder of the training week, we kept each other company in class by texting about our classmates and events in class and on the last day, we agreed we’d keep in touch and maybe get to hang out again one day.

Also last week (and for possibly the millionth time), I watched part of my all time favorite romance movie ever – Love Story.  I love this movie, with preppy Oliver and feisty Jennifer – this time, though, I watched it with an anxious ache in my stomach.  It reminded me too much of the somewhat recent demise if my own amazing love story.  It’s been almost a year now, since we’ve been together and I still think about him all the time.  The strength it takes me every day to resist contacting him, is not my own and experiencing it, is all I need to believe in miracles.

Two months ago, with great trepidation, I gave my Oliver – as well as my entire love life – to God.  I knew He was asking me to put the whole subject at His feet and then leave it there.  It was honestly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  First, it was terrifying because of my deepest fear that I’ll end up a single spinster like many of the women in my family have.  Second, the idea of giving up males and love and dating was a hard one, because of the caveat to leave it with God.  Anyone who knows me, knows my hobby is the male persuasion and in the words of a new coworker recently, “…you can give up men, but they will never give up you.”  I wasn’t confident if I gave my love life to God, that I would be strong enough to resist opportunities to take it back.

I still think about my Oliver every day.  And I have to remind myself almost every day that God has my love life now and He will take good care of it.  Giving up control of that part of my life was and is hard.  It’s not a blissful ride, occasionally I get panicky or resentful.  It annoys me that I have to sit behind not one, but two canoodling couples on my flight from San Antonio to LA.  I mean, come on!!  But still, I know He’ll take good care of me.  Since giving my love life to Him, I’ve met two new men…and both are Christians.  That’s a big deal to me because in 16 years as a Christian, I’ve met and dated exactly...one fellow believer.  So it feels like a sign on the interstate telling me I’m not there yet, but I’m headed in the right direction.

I haven’t given up on my Oliver completely and I haven’t been able to get clarity on if giving him up is even something I should do.  So in the meantime, I pray and I focus on myself and my walk with God…and until He tells me different, I hope.  But while I hope, I’m also more acutely aware that when God is in the driver's seat, I don't have to know where I'm going, I can just sit back and read the signs.

Love Story is my favorite romantic movie ever…I know the story, I’ve seen the “signs”…but I’ve never actually seen the end. That’s fitting, I think.

Love y’all,
~M~