Gobsmacked

The British have the best words for everything: "crisps" sound so much more delightful than potato chips, "knackered" conveys more exhaustion than American words for tired, "washing up liquid" seems cleaner than dish soap, and the list goes on. My favorite Briticism of all describes exactly how I am feeling today--

Gobsmacked.

It means stunned, astonished, slack-jawed with disbelief--as if some plonker jolly well smacked you right in your squidgy gob.

Monday night, things went decidedly pear-shaped between Romney and I.  As shared in my previous post, I was too bewildered by the skidding halt of our relationship to really process much.  The Tuesday that followed was one of the most incomprehensible, grief-filled 24 hours of my life. Evidently, it was no picnic for Romney, either.

We got together last night to talk over what he had been going through since our break up.

What he shared totally took my breath away.  To sum up, the sense of crisis he felt Tuesday after our break up led him to spend all of Wednesday seeking God, who came through dramatically with life-changing epiphanies.  Many things were revealed to Romney, including that he and I belong together, that our relationship is worth fighting for, and that--perhaps most miraculously--Romney really is genuinely in love with me.

There was much he shared that will remain just between the two of us, things for us to treasure and pray about and thank God for as a couple.  I can share this much with confidence: because of Romney's encounter with God, the specifics of what he shared and how he shared it, I know beyond all doubt that our relationship is deeper, stronger, and more blessed than it could have been without the heartache of its demise and the soul searching that followed it.

I'm beyond stunned, more than overwhelmed, and brimming with unspeakable awe.  It's been a roller coaster, these last 72 hours. I know it's probably overreaching, but I wonder if the 3-day time period could be more than a coincidence. I can't keep from thinking about the theme of resurrection.  Monday our relationship flatlined, Tuesday it was dead and buried, and Wednesday it was revived to more life than it had ever had. God can take something beyond hope and so breathe Himself into it that it not only comes back to life, it transcends its former state and rises to a more glorious level.

It's too bad that Godsmacked is already taken by the band, or I could claim I came up with the term to describe that feeling you get when God totally tonks your life and straight away your sixes-and-sevens are transformed to smashing brilliance, you spawny blighter!

I will close out this post with the scripture that has been ringing in my head like a beautiful bell all day...

"Behold, I make all things new."

Woman loses 170 pounds overnight!

So Romney is gone.  He is leaving Tucson tomorrow, but he has already left me behind.
I have been through break ups before, and this one was perhaps the least dramatic as far as emotional discharge.  Our year-long relationship simply vanished with one brief statement, zapped into oblivion by this little incantation:

"I love you, but I'm not in love with you.".

I can share this here, confident that Romney won't see it.  To illustrate his statement, Romney loved me enough to encourage me to start a blog, but was never interested enough in my thoughts to ever bother reading it.  There are many other examples. In fact, I knew the truth of Romney's statement before he did.

Of course this is for the best, and I don't harbor any bitterness toward Romney.  He needed to come to this realization, and he needed to be brutally honest with me--and most of all himself--about his lack of passion for me.
Even so, I feel like shit.  One year down the toilet, so many sacrifices and dreams and affection brought to nothing.  And all because I'm just not...enough.

I know there is nothing to be done for it.  I'm not what his heart desires, and there is no helping that.  But I will grieve in my own way.  I don't even know what that will look or feel like. The analysis will undoubtedly come later, but for now I'm just stunned, standing here bewildered and blinking.

I left Romney with my blessing.  May God grant him the desires of his heart.  Amen.

And here is another day, morning coffee and planning my activities and yammering away on my little blog.  I will keep going through the motions.  "Just keep swimming."

Feasting and Forgetting

Thanksgiving always reminds me, as it is designed to, that I am one incredibly blessed person.  I have a wonderful family and amazing friends and the most ideal boyfriend I could have dreamed up for myself-- my privileged, well-fed American self.

Now, just a few days past Thanksgiving with all of its bounty and grateful reflection and people I love, I feel so...blah. Dispassionate.  Not sad exactly, but like there is nothing much to be happy about.  This, I know, is a lie.

It's funny how we human beings can be so prone to short-sightedness.  How frequently we need reminding of all the good things in life, our history of being blessed and of bad things turning around for the good.  No matter how great and glorious and consistent our past triumphs, it seems one small setback can so cloud our vision we can't see any blue sky.

Or, like the crowds that were following Jesus in John 6, sometimes we're just blind.

Here we have the familiar story of Jesus miraculously feeding the hungry multitudes that had been following him.  With just His blessing, a few loaves and fishes became a feast so abundant that the disciples collected twelve baskets of leftovers.  I can't help but be reminded of our fridge groaning under the weight of all the Thanksgiving leftovers we crammed into it a few days ago.

In John 6, after the crowds had feasted and witnessed Christ's outrageous provision, they are naturally pretty impressed:

¹⁴ After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” ¹⁵ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.

Here's where it gets crazy.  Just a few measly verses later, this is what that very same crowd asks Jesus:

³⁰ So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’^[c]”

Are they really this stupid?.  John 6 mentions that this conversation takes place one day after the miraculous feast.  There is much to be gleaned from the handful of verses that contain the entire dialogue.  In fact, the conversation Jesus has with this crowd marks a dramatic turning point in His ministry.  What strikes me most about it now, however, is just how blindingly forgetful we followers of Jesus can be.  Lord help us in our spiritual dementia.

The sun doesn't disappear when it rains.  Yet it still seems our nature to feel orphaned in a storm.  Just a little drizzle on my parade is all it takes to shake my faith sometimes.

Two days into my new job with the Red Cross, they fired me (although I am eligible for rehire they tell me).  It appears there was a failure to communicate about my Christmas travel plans, and upon clarification I was promptly told to grab my things and leave.  It was a stunning development, but also an answer to prayer.  I didn't want this job if it would detract from the bigger plan of resuming my dental hygiene career. I prayed that if this job wasn't right, then the door would shut.  They couldn't have slammed it much harder than that!

My quest for a dental hygiene job has been disappointing, but not fruitless.  I was hired for an on-call position, they just haven't "on-called" me yet.  I have some dental hygiene temp work lined up for next week which will pay my bills (thank GOD!), so I already know I am going to be Okay.

It just doesn't feel that way.

But then, I'm not feeling much of anything right now.  In my mind I know life is good and God is great.  My heart, however, seems to be on lithium--it's beating, but not with much enthusiasm.

So I'm praying for some anti-lithium, or anything to reignite some passion.  Maybe I just need to watch Annie again to be reminded that the sun'll come out...tomorrow.  Or Gone With the Wind..."tomorrow is another day."  I could use a dose of Annie meets Scarlet O'Hara tenacity and hopefulness.

Maybe that's where I'll start--with Netflix :0)