You know the aching moments after you ask someone on a date? You just managed to work up the courage to make yourself vulnerable to their power, and it feels as though the whole world hangs in the balance. It really isn’t that big of a deal, most of the time, whether the other person says yes or no. Rejection is just a natural part of life, and one we all need to learn to deal with in one way or another. The anxiety is in the waiting.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Your heartbeat lunges ahead at three, four times the tick, tock, tick, waiting for an answer, any answer at all. You feel relieved when they finally say something, not because they necessarily said yes, but just because there is some resolution to what feels like a slow march to the guillotine.
It’s even worse by phone. What might really only be a minute or two is suddenly stretched out, feeling like hours of searching for an answer. You check the screen every few moments, wondering if you have somehow managed to ruin everything. Civilization will be falling apart now that you admit you want to spend more time with someone.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. It continues on indefinitely, until finally they respond and mention that they’ve just gotten out of the shower, which they conveniently decided to take at the worst possible time for you, ever. What if a meteorite had struck the earth right at the moment, and you never got to know what they said, because they had to take a shower?
My life kind of feels like that moment right now. The in-between time, just waiting for God to text back and tell me she’s too busy to hang out on Saturday. Or really, for God to text back to me at all. She seems to keep her phone on silent these days.
Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Round goes the clock, hoping one day for the Rock to start talking to me again to give me some direction.
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted by my phone ringing in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw the picture of my friend Kelly smiling at me. After quickly getting off the road, I answered the phone with a grin. “Hey Kelly,” I said, genuinely happy to be hearing from her. “You never call me,” I chuckle, “What’s the emergency?”
“Micah, where did you go?” came her reply, without the same happiness. Slowly, realization came over me. I had been told by so many people not to go that I stopped telling people. Somehow, I had managed not to tell Kelly.
I lost any ability to speak with confidence. “I just... went.” I had to say it twice before the words were audible.
“Where are you?” she asked, not betraying any emotion in her voice.
I questioned for a moment if I should answer honestly. On the one hand, this was Kelly. The girl who I could trust with the strangest thoughts running through my brain at all times. She understood my mind, often in ways I did not. Our friendship, and our trust, meant the world to me. I couldn’t just lie to her.
But on the other hand, she might try to come with me. I love her as deeply as friends do, but leaving her education would be a bad decision right now. She didn’t need to leave. But she might if I had asked. Maybe even if I didn’t ask.
“Somewhere between Iredell and Hico.”
She was silent for awhile. “Are you really doing this?”
“I suppose so,” I chuckled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice finally broke, and her distress became evident. Now it was my turn to be silent. I looked down at my shoes, covered in dirt. I shuffled my feet, unsure of how to respond.
“Who told you?” I asked after a long pause.
She laughed into the phone. “Is that really what matters? You go and ditch me and don’t even let me know?”
“I had to go,” I muttered, unable to really articulate what I was trying to say. “I have to find my way home.”
A long pause interrupted again. The pauses were nothing new, because our conversations were often filled with moments of contemplation, when one of us would be taken aback by the new way of seeing something the other revealed. We would breath into this new paradigm, and try to understand. I felt her doing that now. “I would have told you to go,” she said, finally.
My heart broke a little as she said it. My other friends were hurt when I left, but those closest to me had had the chance to share one last hug. Except for Kelly. Why didn’t I tell her?
Because if I had, I wouldn’t have gone. I would have wanted to stay and talk with her for hours, exploring the depths of everything I was feeling, and I never would have left. The promise of a new intellectual adventure with her would tempt me to stay, living into a complacency that was life-giving, yes, but not to the fullness for which I was seeking.
“I love you, my friend,” I whispered after long enough, trying to look through her new paradigm. Tick, tock.
“I love you too, Micah,” she responded, and then pausing. Tick, tock. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to beat your ass.”
I smiled, knowing that she was smiling back at me with that sweet smirk of hers. “I know.” I asked her why she called, and she began to talk just like we always did. I imagined myself sitting with her in a hidden booth at the old dining hall, like we used to. It was always a Friday around two, so most people were gone or left us alone. I tried to eat healthier on Fridays, so I would have some bland, dry salad that would take me years to chew. She would always finish the food on her tiny plate so quickly that I felt like a tortoise showing up to a hare’s carrot eating contest. But the conversation was always worth the eating embarrassments. Our thoughts would wander through what it means to love, and what that means for theology, and settle back down on how to love our pesky roommates.
The conversation went on for hours, as it always did. She asked about the trip, and how I was feeling. I asked about school, and what she was doing to really live while in school. Gradually we wandered as usual onto the topic of a loving God. She reminded me of my own conviction that God loves us even when we don’t feel God doing so, but that God will only pursue us as much as we can handle. When we finally said goodbye, it was only because my phone was on less than ten percent battery, and I needed it alive in case of an emergency.
As we said goodbye, she told me once again that she wanted to beat me up for not even inviting her along. I apologized, but after a pause, she threw the apology back in my face. In one of her silly voices, she just replied, “Micah, you gotta do what you gotta do.”
I rode on from that place, feeling as if I had sat on holy ground. I suppose the tick, tock, tick, tock, was over. God has spoken through my dear friend, only so much as I was able to handle. Maybe with God, there is no in-between time--just the time between when you want to hear it, and when you are willing to hear it.
As it turns out, God texted back. Saturday doesn’t look very good, but she’s totally free on Sunday.
Day 7: Nineteen hundred and sixteen miles to home. Maybe only a few more to me.
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