Burning Bridges

Earlier this week I made a decision that I finalized this morning, about an hour ago. I had this really good friendship with a girl last year that moved into me really liking her. Earlier this semester I talked with her (for the second time) about my feelings for her, and she responded that she had no feelings for me. That really cut me hard and I was a deep blow. I didn't respond to it very well, and I essentially ignored her for the past while. I let our very good friendship (which had continued with pretty good communication over the summer) fall by the wayside. I didn't talk with her often, we didn't play crib or foosball like we used to, we didn't hang out. I didn't really want that to happen, but it did. Part of the reason for doing that was that I was concerned about how she was perceiving my actions - I didn't want her to think that I was not respecting what she had told me. Over the past 2 weeks I haven't been around people here in North America due to being in Africa. I didn't even really think about this situation much, which was on purpose - I didn't want my time in Africa to be used up thinking about issues I was facing at home. But almost as soon as I came home I came up with the idea of completely denying the possibility of anything ever happening between us. I will admit, I was still holding out hope that something might change, but in the meantime our friendship was dying. So I decided to commit to being her brother in Christ and to never pursue anything further than that at any point in the future.

I didn't want to do it.

I didn't want to burn my bridges.

I didn't want to cut out the opportunity of something in the future.

I think she's the type of woman that I will marry someday. And I didn't want to rule out her being the woman I would marry someday.

But, as I said earlier, our friendship was dying. So on Monday I made that commitment between myself and God. That evening I told Mike, my roommate and one of my best friends about that commitment. And this morning I told her. I apologized for the way I had been treating her over the past 2 months and told her that I had committed to never pursue anything beyond a brother/sister relationship, and that she could perceive all of my actions from here on in that light.

Now that I have burned that bridge I have so much peace. I really liked her. I still think that she is a fantastic young woman. But her decision was to reject me (twice) and by that point I think even the most thick-headed guy should be getting the idea. By doing this I've already seen positive things come. She had been waiting (hoping) for me to come to her to clarify the relationship. She's missed our friendship like I have. We talked and hung out freely for the first time since I was at her place in Regina this summer.

Sometimes part of a person needs to die in order for life to come forth. This dream, this hope of another type of relationship has now permanently died, but in its place an old friendship is finding life. If she is the type of woman that I am going to marry than I have no doubt that God will bring another woman of that type into my life. If not, well, whatever. I trust that God has a plan way better than what I figure should happen. And now I feel really free to fully pursue Him.

As an interesting side note, right now is the first time in a long time that a girl has not been on my radar. It feels  weird. It's good.