Wilderness...

This post has been very hard for me to write. Everything I've told you up to now was necessary for you to understand why my heart felt the things it did on the day I'm about to share with you. It is also admittedly very strange for me to share some of these thoughts with you given that I just told you Isaac and I are no longer together. But this is where the new road of the journey began. And as you read, I ask you to do so with an open heart and much love.



Thursday was a busy day in my life, but not in my heart. I went to work, though my mind was not focused on it. My whole family met up at Fazoli’s for lunch and I tried to eat – and tried to hide that about four bites was all I could muster. That night they met at IHOP for dinner and I shoveled as much as I could eat as quickly as I could eat it – because Isaac had promised to call, and that was really all I cared about.

After dinner, everyone else scattered for the night, but Cassie (my niece) stayed with me and we elected to have a hair coloring party. Here we were, pre-coloring:

The plan was for Cassie to dye my hair first, since I was the one sporting actual white roots, and then when I was done, I'd work on hers. She fixed me all up, I marinated, and then of course as I was mid-rinse, my phone rang. Isn't that how it always happens? It was Isaac. I asked if I could call him right back and continued my adventure. Once I was safely back to a real color, I scurried upstairs to my other bathroom (the farthest possible point from Cassie) and called him back.

You should know that the bathroom where I hid is ridiculously small. You can literally use the bathroom, wash your hands and shave your legs all at once. No room to pace. No room to really do much of anything. Add a shut door and a loud fan, and you start to feel fairly confined. It was probably the best possible place for me...

I could tell by the tone of his voice that something was very wrong. And I knew his heart enough to know what was coming, though I hoped with everything in me I was wrong. His voice sagged with a heaviness I'd never heard before, and through much brokenness, he told me he just couldn’t. He couldn’t even make it to our date the following weekend. He couldn’t do the relationship.

One thing I've learned through this part of the journey is a that a lot of you who love me develop severe Mama-Bear syndrome during the revelation of news like this. To those of you who may be bristling right now, I need you to keep reading and to keep your hearts open.

He made it very clear that this was not because of me. Over and over, he assured me I’d done everything right. (I'll be the first to tell you I most certainly did not do everything right, but I also appreciated his earnestness in telling me otherwise.) I’d been the perfect girlfriend, he said. He’d never been more loved. I was the Proverbs 31 woman. He took full responsibility. I need you to know that he did give me some reasons behind his decision, and I need you to trust me that they were real and valid. I am not willing to share them publicly because they are not mine to share and I want to be very respectful of his privacy where those things are concerned. But know that they did exist and I did accept them, despite how much they hurt. Over and over, he told me he was sorry.

He said the song by FFH – the one I’d shared with him – was the very song God had used to show him that he needed to go into a wilderness, and he needed to go alone. He had to submit to God’s leading and let Him work.

I hated that stupid song.

Halfway through the call, I came down the stairs with wet, matted, newly-colored hair, sporting my pink fuzzy bathrobe, and a puffy, tear-streaked face. I put my hand over the phone and told Cassie to call her mom and tell her to come back to my house. I just needed my sister.

I'm going to interrupt my story here to explain that last sentence. I think most of you who read my blog know that ours is a rather unusual family...in that I am the "second family." My two sisters were born 16 and 18 years before I showed up, so I was mostly raised as an only child. I love having sisters, but because of our age gap, we never had the type of relationship where we needed one another that way.

And yet on this night, I needed my big sister. And any other night of the year, she'd be in her home, a full sixteen hours away from me. How good of God to bring her to Indiana that weekend.

Cassie nodded and grabbed her phone, and I went back upstairs and resumed the call with Isaac. What I'm about to say is not my most mature argument ever, and I almost deleted it out of sheer embarrassment. But I'm leaving it in because maybe I need to be embarrassed...and I also need you to know how positive I was that this relationship was God's plan.

One of the reasons I can share with you that Isaac cited as a need for a desert was the presence of soul-wounds that had nothing to do with me. He didn't feel able to commit his whole heart to me until they were healed. I told him I didn’t care if he couldn’t give me his whole heart right then. I’d take whatever he could give – even if it was just a quarter of the thing. He said that wasn’t fair to me. I didn’t really care. What wasn’t fair was that he was walking away. That wasn’t fair. He needed me. Didn’t he see that? God had told me we were meant for each other. He had!

At last, knowing I could never win an argument that had God backing it from the other side, I gathered all my determination and said to Isaac, “You can go if God is calling you. I can’t stop you or argue with Him. But He will bring you back. He will. We were created to be together and He WILL bring you back.”

Isaac said he hoped so. Told me he did love me and he still thought I was beautiful. Told me to not regret anything I did – that I’d been nothing but wonderful to him.

I asked him if he would still come to visit the first weekend in May, as we had scheduled. I knew he had specific plans in the area that were bringing him this way, and I knew they still stood. We had planned to spend Saturday and Monday together. I’d already taken the day off work. He said he didn’t think it was a good idea to go through with it. I dissolved into tears and begged him to come. I couldn’t bear the thought of canceling that vacation day – or worse, being home alone during that day. I don't know if he agreed because he hated hearing me cry or because he felt bad...but for some merciful reason, he changed his mind and said he'd be there. I thanked him profusely. (Yes, I do know now how pitiful that was...but I couldn't see it at the time.)

The call ended just as Lori stepped up on the porch. I fell, sobbing, into her arms and tried to explain what the phone call had been about. She sat beside me on the couch while Cassie sat in the chair across the room and listened.

You should know that Lori is my complete personality opposite. She is extraordinarily calm about everything. I’m not sure how we’re related. She listened to everything Isaac had said to me and then she looked at me and said, “He’ll be back. He will. He will come back.”

I hiccuped, “How do you know?”

She said, “He just will. I know. But you need to give him something to come back to.”

I nodded and tried to wipe away tears and snot. I could not envision this ending her way at all, but I wanted to.

Lori stayed until it appeared I was not a risk to myself or to Cassie, and then she left. I apologized to Cassie for being the world’s worst aunt, excused myself for the night, and went to my room to journal.

My heart breaks and yet rejoices. Isaac called and we both cried while he told me You have called him into a time of wilderness. And I can’t go. He has to go it alone with You. But Father, I still believe You have a plan for us as a couple. I believe You created us for each other and we must forge ahead.

I will let him go into the wilderness with You, believing with all my heart that You will bring him back to me, healed and restored as You promised. I trust You with his heart, his life, his future.

Streams quoted Job – “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” And I will. I trust You with my Isaac.


Be gentle with his heart. Grow him into the man I know he can be. The man You have created him to be. Make him Yours. Make me Yours.



This one last piece, I share with you, because it is key for later.




That night, as I prayed, God also whispered to my heart that this healing and restoration would come about by the fourth of July. I clarified – “2010?” Yes. This fourth of July. That was over two months away. I couldn’t even make it two weeks without seeing Isaac. How could I survive over two months?