Do you have a minute? We need to talk.

"So I screwed up and I need forgiveness" 

Have you ever heard these words before? Spoken by maybe a friend, boyfriend, parent, sibling, spouse... I'd heard these words many times, but never had the words provoked such fear in me.  

I heard these words today a year ago. My boyfriend at the time was named Matthew and he sent me a message telling me we needed to talk. Months proceeding this email he had moved to Japan and I hadn't seen him in 4 months, so naturally those words aren't exactly what i want to hear. I'm finishing up babysitting with a friend at someone's house so I basically have five minutes before I have to go. I check to see if he's online, of course he isn't but his younger sister is. I'm terrified at this moment so I beg his little sister to let him online. Eventually she agrees and she gets him. After some prodding he tells me what he's done...

Cheated? The word sounds so cleshe and like it should be coming off of a soap opera. What does cheated really mean though? It's so broad... "I made out with the girl I met at church camp..." and this is the second girl that there have been problems with since he left, mind you. Why he chose to tell me this 5 days before Christmas is beyond me.  

Immediately all hell breaks loose on this kid's ass, but after about five minutes of defending himself he decides he has to go ice skating... I mean I'm not too terribly important, so I deserve no explanation or apology, right? Of course you want to skip off to go ice skating. My heart about stops in my chest. Everything is going in slow motion. I no longer hear the kids playing with my friend, I don't even see them running around the room as I stand up and face them. I must be dreaming. Matthew loves me.... That's what he always told me... Why would he do this? 

At that moment a little girl ran up to me and hugged my legs and told me something I didn't hear... I fell to my knees and she attacked me, hugging me as tightly as she could. At that moment I just held this little girl accepting the love that children freely give as tears began to slide down my face.

I'm not sure how or when, but all I knew is the kids were gone and I was alone cleaning a room when my sister in-law came in. At the sight of her face I completely fell to pieces. I don't know how long I sat in that little girl's room crying in her arms but it didn't feel long enough. I didn't feel I could ever stop crying... My Matthew had betrayed me? How could this have happened after what I had given to him, after what I had entrusted to him... After the love I had shared with him? 

Nothing made sense, and I felt as if the safe walls I had built for myself were crumbling down. Matthew was my safe haven. He was what got me through each day. I loved Matthew with everything I had in me. The future we had sculpted together was deteriorating and no matter how I tried to hold it together, it was crumbling. 

I don't think I actually slept at all that night. I merely cried and cried until I talked to him around 3. He shared the "hairy details" and he treated me like you treat someone you hate. After a few days i decided to forgive him and give him another chance, only with boundaries that had to be followed. He eagerly agreed and that started us out on a journey through hell for the next four months. 

All those months I knew he was with other girls when he said he was studying, I knew that he was lying but I couldn't let him go. I was physically sick most of those months, basically staying in bed all the time. He didn't have time for me and the little time he did have he spent treating me like utter shit. When I wasn't talking to Matthew I was thinking about him, longing to be with him again.... When I was talking to him, I was crying. This was a bad cycle to be in, because nothing else mattered. 

Finally, by God's grace, he dumped me on April 1st. Why I didn't end it before that I'll never know... At this time I began earnestly seeking God, begging Him to help me because I had no where else to turn. I had an incredible three weeks where, after the initial first few break up days, I was content in the Lord. I was happy and overflowing with love for the Lord. 

Then something happened... "Bible camp girl" decides to email me and apologize for what she has done. Nice, right? Well, yes... But this email also contained information about all these girls he had cheated on me with. This angered me. I became furious with God for allowing this to happen to me, because after all... Don't I deserve so much BETTER? 

I went spiraling downward immediately and hit rock bottom, yet again. I was absolutely miserable. I got better at hiding it than I originally had been... I no longer was as sick and I was able to act as if things were getting better... But they were getting worse. I was turning my back to God for what He had done to me and cutting myself almost everyday. Cutting became such a bad obsession I let it go beyond reason. Before long it was determining my actions and thoughts instead of the other way around. It was what made me happy and that's all I focused on.

Months went by... And then there was someone who cared to speak truth into my life. Someone who wasn't afraid of my screams and glares and big walls... For the first time in months I saw the Light I had forgotten about. Slowly I began to learn about the God I had been so angry at... I began to realize what I had done to Him without even seeing it. I began to fall back in love with my God that I had pushed up on a shelf for too long. I began to discover new things about Him daily and an amazing thing happened.... My joy returned to me! I didn't need a boy to make me happy, and I certainly didn't need Matthew to make me happy. I couldn't be turning to a blade to satisfy my emptiness or longing for something more, because by doing that it was saying Christ WASN'T enough to be that something. My Contentment had to be found in God. 

So I began a process at the end of June with the help of Godly people speaking truth into my life. They gave me a slap of reality in telling me, "Hey, you're sinning!" Now its December again... And I'm still learning to be completely satisfied and content with Christ... But I'm learning! It has taken me nearly a year to get over what happened, but today I can sit here and honestly tell you I am over it and that I am so very blessed that I had to go through it. Everything happens for a reason, and that reason is to glorify God. Through our sufferings we learn and grow... And through that, our Father is glorified.  

I sit here crying as I write this... Not because I miss him or I'm saddened about what happened... But more at the memory of how crushed I allowed myself to be. How utterly depressed I was over a mere human relationship... How empty I was, without Christ radiating out of me. I cry at the pain I caused my Savior and the time I wasted away from His will.