Secrets

The following year was marked by blissful happiness with many carefree and exciting moments. A world had opened up to me that I longingly watched as an outsider for as long as I could remember. While hesitant at first, in no time at all I found myself falling head over heels for this man who I’d known but a short while. He quickly became my very best friend and my biggest supporter, cheerleader and advocate. I was cautious at first, letting him in slowly. I needed to be sure he was going to be around if I were going to open myself up again. Really open myself up.

In time, I shared with him about the hard stuff. It had been on my heart for some time to do so, and I knew if we were going to really, really make this thing fly then I was going to need to suck it up about a thing or two.

It was Good Friday evening, and we had just left the evening service and were on our way to grab some food. My heart raced frantically within me, having been rehearsing what I would say to him through the entire service. I felt my underarms begin to sweat. I needed to not panic. I needed to simply share.

“It would be what it would be,” I told myself.

I heard myself parrot the line all girls tell their girlfriends, “If he’s for you, he’ll stick around no matter what.”

Famous last words, I knew.

Still, I knew it was now or never.

I tried to make small talk as we drove, but he could sense something was up, and I knew it. He asked if I was okay. I never could have a bad moment without him somehow sensing it. I loved that about him.

Except for now.

Now it was making me more nervous than ever.

He asked a few times what was going on. I hesitated, attempting to gather my thoughts. I knew he could tell it was big. I saw the nervous anticipation as he pulled into a nearby parking lot, quickly directing all of his focus toward me.

How could I tell him? How could I share with him about my darkest moments? My best kept secret.

I knew I was risking losing him completely. But I also knew if he was in fact from God for me then it would somehow be okay. I hoped.

More, I knew in my heart it was far better to be brave and alone than to be dishonest and together. I wanted God to be near more than anything. I wanted to honor God. Even if that meant solitude.  

I swallowed hard and choked back tears, as I began to share with him of my jaded past. He had come to know bits and pieces along the way, but there was more to tell. He knew about my history with lupus to some extent, and he also knew I had made my share of mistakes when it came to dating.

He didn’t know however the color palette I had painted wasn’t all pastels with a few small grey dots mixed in. No, there were large cracks and dark spots spattered across my palette. Spots of shame and regret. There were deep streaks of depression and fear. And as much as I loathed and dreaded the idea, it was time for my unveiling.

I began by sharing with him of my visits to the oncologist’s office for a virus I had contracted a few years prior. Horrified and embarrassed, I told him of my surgeries. I waited for him to react. To somehow play it all cool, yet subtly pull away. To somehow make an excuse not to hang out again in the near future. To say something insensitive.

Anything.

I didn’t look in his direction. I just couldn’t.

I felt his eyes burning holes in me from the driver’s side. I wiped the tears from my eyes, and he leaned in giving me a hug.

To my surprise, he wasn’t put off. He didn’t run, and he didn’t condemn. His gentle words told me he accepted me, right then and there. And nothing was going to change that.

I exhaled, feeling a great weight had been lifted. How was that possible?

In that moment, I saw for the first time (in what would be many instances), the deep love of God extended to me, through him. His name, Matthew, aptly meaning “gift from God”.

He was loving me the way the Heavenly Father loved me.

And suddenly, I was free.