A reflection on recent requests by my divine advisor.
She is, first and foremost, beautiful. Beautiful in that sense that can only be a composite of physical and mental and spiritual and emotional beauty. She is talented and stimulating and comforting and challenging and accepting and inspiring and has contributed to my life to the point where I felt I had no human need that could not be met by her. We've been best friends since High School, though at times we have flirted with the possibility of becoming more.
Last fall, we started dating other people. We were so close as to be potentially threatening to a significant other, but both were incredibly gracious and understood that we were simply friends. Best friends. It was almost too good to be true. (Foreshadowing, anyone?)
January came around and I left for Haiti. My girlfriend and I separated by more-or-less mutual agreement. Before I left, my best friend and I went to Chicago and saw a musical, and generally spent a lot of time together. It was good. When I left, I immediately began writing letters to her and have faithfully written two to four letters per week since I left. We have sent e-mails back and forth, and I even saw her once when she came her for a missions trip.
God has always been in our relationship. She has been such a powerful spiritual influence in my life and I am certain that I would not be where I am today spiritually if it were not for her inspirational example. Yesterday, God impressed upon me that the nature of our relationship was not appropriate given the commitments that she has to her boyfriend, and that, given that I am not entirely innocent of that which I might be accused, it was time to stop being a potential stumbling block.
And so I told her as much. I said I would not overreact and cut off contact or anything like that, and I would still write e-mails and the occasional letters, but that I no longer felt comfortable being so invested in such a relationship, nor did I think it proper for her to be invested.
She replied, said she had prayed about it, and she agreed with me. And now... well, I don't know what we are. Friends. Just two people in the same, very small, world.
My heart breaks every moment.
Dan
A poem by Hilda Conkling:
I am willowy boughs
for coolness
I am goldfinch wings
for darkness
I am a little grape
thinking of September
I am a very small violet
thinking of May.