Our Love Story Part 2

{If you missed it, check out Our Love Story Part 1}

Not only was Owen the love of my life, he was the one who broke my heart.

Through his occasional visits with me in Wisconsin, and the increasingly infrequent phone calls, it was becoming clear that his life and mine were taking two different paths. Our conversations and interests weren’t meshing anymore. I had known for a while that he drank often and did drugs and he was not apologetic for his choices. I was not a prude and didn’t want to end our relationship for these choices alone, but I saw his attitude toward life changing and his lack of joy and ambition for the things of God. Talking on the phone was becoming more of a duty than an enjoyment.

One of his last visits to see me

I was so torn between wanting what we had had and the realization that that didn’t exist anymore. I was losing my best friend and it was breaking my heart. I knew I cared about this man more than anyone I had ever cared about, but I also knew we could never be together.

It was the hardest thing I ever did, but I called him and told him that our lives were going in different directions and we shouldn’t talk anymore.

My heart was broken. I don’t think I realized until that moment how much I had loved him. I had lost my best friend and a little part of the future I had thought might exist for us.

This threw me into a time of doubting and questioning God. I didn’t understand why God would allow me to be that close to someone, and then take that person away from me. I became cynical about love and relationships. I have always felt things deeply, and this was no exception. I went on with life as usual, but there were many nights I would sob alone in my room over what I had lost. I was devastated that I would never hear his voice again.

He was just as troubled about the loss of our friendship as I was and the following spring he called to say he would be in Chicago and he wanted to know if he could drive up and see me. I was headed out on a road trip with some friends and so he came up to see me for a few hours and drove me as far as Chicago where he got on a plane to head back out west. This was a futile attempt to regain what we lost when we both knew it wasn’t meant to be. We talked in circles and in the end decided he would call me to check in after I had finished student teaching in the fall. I still missed him like crazy, but it was clear that it did neither of us any good to try to hold onto what was lost.

That spring after I graduated from college, I found someone who was the opposite of Owen in both appearance and behavior – short, blond, religious, not great at conversation – and I figured he was a safe bet. After all, it hadn’t worked out with Owen, so maybe I needed something completely different. But it felt like all I was doing was trying to convince myself that I should like this guy, when really I kept comparing him to Owen and he kept falling short. Owen called back around that time and complicated my emotions even more. God was gracious enough to let me spend no more than two months in that relationship and He was slowly using these moments in my life to draw me back to Him.

About once a year, Owen would call me and we would catch up about events in our lives and he would reassure me that he was still alive. He had bought some land in Nevada and was building a cabin there and he was traveling all over the west, living out of his car. He would send me postcards a couple of times a year from his travels. I still missed what we had together, but I no longer had the attachment to him. In my mind, I had gotten over him. I grieved his loss, but I knew it was something that I needed to lose.

And God was gracious during this time and provided meaningful relationships for me when I felt like no one really knew me. Several girlfriends from church and homeschool came back into my life and assured me that Owen was not the only one who I could have a meaningful relationship with. I was healing and beginning to see God’s grace more clearly.

For two years, I had been living in my own apartment and was really cherishing the single life. I went to the gym, worked 3 jobs, helped out at church and would go on the occasional date with a nice guy. And every year, God was revealing more and more of himself to me. I had seen his faithfulness to me when I had turned my back on him, and he had drawn me to himself. Now He proved to me that I could trust him with the details of my life. I had always known in my heart that I needed Him for my salvation, but I had always held on tightly to my free will and the fact that I could be a good Christian without God’s help. But with me kicking and screaming, God was showing me that I was fully in need of him for everything in my life. Without Him, I could only go through the motions. He was pursuing me, in spite of my wretchedness. I knew that He was the only one who could truly fill the void in my life.

{There’s still more to come, if the fact that I’m now married to someone named (SPOILER ALERT) Owen doesn’t give it away (-:}

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