Playing Catch

I was so excited to see his face that I really thought my heart could explode inside my chest. It had been two days. TWO DAYS. But there was still something that ached to see him. I wanted to squeeze his cheeks like a grandma would, not because I viewed him as young or juvenile, but simply because I had to remind myself that he was real. A tangible action to remind myself that his loving eyes gazing into an open window to my soul really were for me.

I got dressed, ready and waited for 6:30 as if I was going on vacation. It couldn’t come quick enough. At 5 I got a text saying it may be later than the expected time due to work, which dampened my excitement in a subtle, nondescript way. I ate by myself as 7:30 rolled by and I waited with eager patience. At 8, my heart felt heavy and my desire to see him turned into a doubt of his desire to see me. “It’s work. It’s because of work. This isn’t a choice.” I told myself. It didn’t change the way my heart felt. When I finally heard a knock at the door, I ran with enthused endurance. My excitement nor my disappoint could be hidden at this point. We went to our favorite hole in wall Mexican restaurant where we knew the waitress like a friend. We spoke Spanish with her, he downed an entire plate of fajitas, and we laughed at the photos of the wall. Yet, the electricity of our hearts was out. It was dark, and I was confused as to why my heart seemed to be backing away in timid caution. In this moment, my love became something threatening. Questions stormed into what I thought were safe places of my heart. The intrusive questions pierced intimacy, hope, and trust that supported the stability of our relationship. I told myself we were off. “He’s so tired, give him grace because his week has been hellish. Your expectations aren’t being met, you can be hurt by that but this isn’t personal.” My encouragement to myself worked, and as we pulled into a parking space at my apartment I asked a question I knew would build up the intimacy that had previously been doubted. He hesitated and I shifted in my chair.

That was it. It was the end. I couldn’t have seen it coming even if I had tried. It was like we were in a dream one day, and the next day I woke up in a harsh and unwanted reality. There were moments that I choked back tears, swallowing air just so that I could keep breathing. Then there were other moments that I couldn’t help but break into wailing cries of confusion and devastation. I never knew a love lost like this one.

As the days past, my previous denial shed off me like dead skin. Meanwhile- sadness, wishing, anger, and more sadness stole my attention throughout the day. These emotions relentlessly reminded me that my soul was missing something. A place previously filled, but now a chasm left open. The grief gripped my heart and tossed it around like a baseball. When gripped by this grief, I felt loneliness that made my actual heart skip a beat due to the fear of never getting him back. But in the air, I felt an aloneness that was perplexing. I could truly say that none of my expectations were being met. I had no power to give meaning or purpose to this heartbreak. I had no sense of personal strength.

I was entirely dependent on being caught again. And in this brief moment, I was more free than ever before. I had nothing to steady me except the supernatural hope that I was, indeed, going to be caught.

At a young 26 years old, I’ll say that this is all I know of hope after an unexpected loss. We have the unrestrained freedom to grieve, while simultaneously having the unrestrained freedom to believe. It does not make sense, and it’s not supposed to. When we grieve, we’re asked to lay understanding aside. And while we let go, we’re asked to just be. To be still in the uncertainty, to be sad in the grief, to be angry in the confusion, to be desperate in the longing, to be human in the everyday. Because that’s what we are. The more we embrace being truly human, the more we are shaped into being believers. Believers who trust that God is good in grief. Believers that know (at the end of a toss-up) we really will be caught in the loving, healing, patient, graceful hands of God.

Romans 8: 24-25

We were given this hope when we were saved. If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t yet have, we must wait patiently and confidently.