When I was just a small, awkward, loud, and pimply middle school girl, I was introduced to a grown-up, smart, funny, and cool high school girl named Megan Word. I don't exactly remember when we officially met, and at some point she invited my friend Darian and I over and initiated us into girl-world with a viewing of "Mean Girls" at a questionable, yet socially acceptable age. Darian and I were obsessed with Megan. We wanted to be everything that Megan was and do everything that Megan did. (Thank goodness she was the kind person she still is to this day!) She was the older sister who absorbed all of our middle school drama with her high school maturity and put up with every wack-a-doodle thing that came out of our expanding minds.
As the years marched ahead, the relationship Darian and I had with Megan evolved slowly from mentees to equals and began to include our friend Amy. The four of us embarked on life together, the dorkiness of the three younger sometimes outweighing that of our elder.
And today things are different.
Our group message has waned,
Our Snapchats are virtually non-existent,
Our coffee dates are few and far between.
Do I still love them? Absolutely.
Things are just different, and hear me out when I say this:
It is okay.
I once had relationships explained to me in relation to trains. Our lives are the train cars, riding down the track. The cargo inside our cars are the people that make up our lives. But the thing is, much of our cargo isn't permanent. Sometimes it shifts around in the car, and sometimes it gets off of our train altogether.
And to be honest, that can really absolutely suck.
When someone plays an important role in my life, I want them to stay. They help my world to run swimmingly, they help me cross the waters I was once standing on the other side of. I want them to stay, cheer me on, hold my hand, and be there to see everything work out in the amazing way that it will. I treasure every moment, every interaction.
But sometimes people get off of our train before we are ready for them to.
I am not going to sugarcoat the situation in some sort of it will all be alright way. It's true. The entire thing is sticky and smelly and sloppy and all around yucky.
There is nothing fun about it.
And yet, it still happens. People leave our lives, sometimes out of anger, sometimes against our will, sometimes against their will. In order for life to press forward, sometimes it's just necessary for people to move away, literally and figuratively.
And then sometimes a relationship twists and contorts and squeezes itself into another mold, just like with my three friends.
That can be uncomfortable and messy and gross too. But so is life. People come in and out and in and out again, we hold close the memories, and our feelings wax and wane according to our insides and our outsides. But the truth underneath it all is that we are safe.
We are safe, or as some people I know like to say,
"The Kingdom is not at risk."
There is still a Lover, a Creator, a Truth Teller smiling down on us, crying with us, laughing with us, and all around loving us. Those tangible manifestations of the Kingdom may have exited our lives, and yes, it sucks, but we are still safe. Even in our screaming and crying and wishing things hadn't changed, we are still safe. Our trains are still going to move along the track, and chances are our cars won't have free space for much longer as new cargo is welcomed in and also treasured for the time it is there.
Change outside of our control is the absolute worst. There is no accurate way to depict the pain it brings.
So, grieve. Grieve the changes, grieve what has been lost, let yourself feel what you need to feel, and then allow your heart to be opened up to new love and know that however it pans out, it's "normal." You are okay.
You are safe.
