I know I've been a little slacking in my posting, but today, I finally got internet at my house, so hopefully I'll be a little better at keeping it up. Now if I can just find my camera cord, then maybe I'll put up pics of my house! It's coming along nicely...i just love it. Right now, my favorite room in the house is the kitchen. It's pale yellow with red, black and white accents.
What I'm writing next is purely for my benefit...my blog is therapeutic for me. If you want to read on, please do. I don't mind. I just have to get it out.
10 years ago today, my life was forever changed. I wrote it about the anniversary last year here. Here's a little backstory: Shane and I were in the same youth group in high school. We dated very briefly, but we remained really good friends. It was the typical high school relationship, i call it the "ping pong" effect.."I like you, you like me, let's date, but not right now...etc" I saw him as someone who I could see myself with for the rest of my life, i loved him, but I knew that no matter what, I would never mean as much to him as he would mean to me. Our relationship was very turbulent at times...we would go months without speaking to each other. Shortly, before I left for college, we had heartfelt talk about us and decided that we would start over as friends and if God wanted us to be together, then we would be together in His timing, not ours. I'm so thankful that we had that conversation. I had no idea what would be ahead for us.
I can remember exactly where I was that day I got the dreaded news. I was coming back from an evening class when I saw a note on my door that my suitemate had my phone and that my parents had called. THere was a message on my machine from a friend of Shane and I telling me that there had been an accident and that I needed to call her or Shane's mom right away. Immediately, I knew it was bad. My suitemate, kristi, came in and told me that there had been an accident, that my parents were on their way, and that Shane had been killed. Time stood still. I can remember hitting my knees, pinching myself, thinking any minute I was going to wake up. I screamed so loud that it was heard on the other side of the building. I just saying, "I never told him I loved him, I never told him. " Shane had been killed in a forklift accident at his job.
My mom and my paw-paw arrived to bring me home..that was the longest hour and half ride of my life. The next day was a blur. I sang at his funeral...something that was so hard, but I'm so thankful that i was able to do that. I remember thinking, "I should be singing at our wedding, not his funeral...our funeral." It was not only his funeral, but a funeral for my dreams. I thought my life was over with...I was so sure that I'd never love again, that my life was over.
The grief was unimaginable. At times, it felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. I could barely hold my head up, barely hold a conversation without bursting into tears. Slowly, God began to heal my heart....it would take several long posts to tell you about that...but it was amazing.
I'd often thought about what life would be like a year later, two years later, ten. Wow, here I am. This has been an amazing journey. I remember a turning point in my journey: on my knees, yelling at God, why in the world did this happen, if we weren't meant to be together, fine, but did he have to die? I didn't understand. In that moment, God met me there. In the stillness, I heard Him gently say, "It's the only way that you would ever know." I know now that Shane was not God's best for me. But love is blind...i think that i wouldn't have seen it any other way.
Today hit me harder than I had expected. It isn't so much of the fact of the loss...I still miss him, but I came to terms with that a long time ago. I think it's just that now life looks different than I had thought it would look now. When Shane died, I knew that my life was going to be forever changed. Iknew that there would be someone new in my life, someone who truly loved me for me, who wouldn't try to change me, who wouldn't love me only when it was convenient.
Last night and today, I've been thankful. Thankful that I'm alive. Thankful that I've learned so much about myself, about God, about the plans that He has for me, thankful that for some reason, He chose me to walk this road. So even though life doesn't look like how I thought it would be, it doesn't mean that God doesn't have a plan. I'm walking along the road with Him leading and guiding my every step.
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