Still letting go....

I guess the letting go stuff doesn't stop, huh? 

How to let go of someone, when their body still lives, their voice still rings in the air, their heart still beats?

How to let go of someone when you can see them, but they don't exist anymore?  When his eyes have become hard, his voice cold, and his gentleness, his love, his hope and joy and laughter and sweetness that I fell in love with are no more?

When unforgiveness reigns.  I know when it started. A community, a family that should have rejoiced in his good fortune, in his love, instead turned on him and used him as a means to an end. An ugly end.  It's not about you, they said.  But it was.  And he couldn't...didn't forgive.

Did they not suffer his loneliness with him?  Did they not pray with him, for a wife, for a family?  Yet, when God provided, they frowned and muttered and glared and rejected and he began his new life with the seeds of unforgiveness and bitterness in his heart.

And they grew. 

And he disappeared.

And still, I love.

I have lost more than a husband. I have lost a friend, a brother in the Lord, someone who loved our town and who shared his love with me, and who longed to make a difference here.

I don't know where he is anymore.  But this one thing I know.  Once in my heart, no one truly leaves. I choose to love, and to love always.  I choose forgiveness. I choose love.

The time is coming when I will no longer be his wife.  But I will always be his friend.  I promised. 

Someone asked me once, before we were married, how can you be sure?  I told him, I have made the choice.  I am sure of my choice.  I choose to love this man, no matter what.  That is mine to control.  And I keep to that choice.  I can be sure of nothing, but God's love for me, my love for God, and my choice to love another.  That is all I needed then. That is all I need now.

That love is what will keep me whole now. 


"Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me; " Psalm 23:4