So breakups. So very entirely new for me. It has been over eight months now but just last week I had a family friend come in to Wheatberries and ask if my boyfriend and I were still together. And then apologize if they were being too personal and proceed to ask what happened.
Now I dont generally believe in “too personal”, if you are comfortable asking I am generally comfortable in sharing. Throughout the ten years I have written on my blog I have always had the authority and desire to be as honest as possible because in doing so my hope is that someone can find encouragement. So when I found myself in a relationship it was a bit of a transition into realizing the words I say on the world wide web may have an impact on my significant other. Am I respectful with my words? Am I honouring the other person with the things I share? Before I posted my first blog sharing my excitement about our relationship I ran it by Sim to make sure it didn’t make him uncomfortable in any way. So three months after writing that first blog we broke up and shortly after I had a desire to address it on here, but again…how can I write honestly and respectfully and aware that I am not the only party involved here.
So for months now I haven’t known where to start. Or if I even needed to write about it at all. Is this kind of subject off limits for missionaries? What business is this of yours? Why do i feel the need to say anything at all?
Well for me, in a sense, it feels like I have left a chapter of my book unfinished. Unconcluded.
So in my attempts to finish it, here I am.
But this wont be a story about the reasons why we broke up, or how it happened or anything quite like that. Instead this is a story of how intimately involved my heavenly Father was in mending my heart.
This was my first relationship. I gave my first kiss away at twenty eight years old (*gasps*). Not because I am anything special but because I am very cautious and probably too picky for my own good. I read all the right books “I kissed Dating Goodbye” at 15, “I Gave Dating A Chance” at 17, “Sacred Marriage” at 27… you get my gist. I always had this idea that I would only date my husband and that was it. That if you wait long enough Gods gonna bless you, right? And when you say “I love you” that means forever, right? So I entered into the relationship very naive but with a reoccurring prayer of “God be glorified in this relationship” and I thanked him often for this gift of an amazing man who loved Jesus, loved his family and loved me.
And then in a whirlwind of awkward silences and hard conversations and him visiting and then some space between us, we broke up.
Now I would love to be dramatic and say my heart shattered. But in all honesty it didn’t. It hurt like h e double hockey sticks, but it wasn’t broken, and the only logical explanation I can give you is strictly supernatural.
My boyfriend did not have full monopoly of my heart. Jesus did.
You see five days before we broke up, during a time when Sim had asked for a bit of space I was in a time of worship singing “Good Good Father” and the Father spoke “Kimberly, I defend your heart”. Of course I hoped this meant He was fighting for us and everything was gonna happen according to my well laid out plans, but I also knew that just maybe my plans weren’t necessarily in sync with His. Maybe, perhaps, Kimberly doesn’t know whats best. (Shocking, I know.) So when the day rolled around when he asked to facetime I went into the conversation with an acute awareness that whether our relationship was moving forward or backward, my God’s got my heart.
Now that doesn’t mean it was easy, it doesn’t mean there weren’t tears or tubs of icecream. This kind of sadness was entirely new to me. The extent of my anger was surprising to me. But thankfully I didn’t walk through any of it alone. Through the weeks following the break up I essentially prayed the same prayer I had throughout the whole relationship, “God be glorified”. Now this time it was “God be just as glorified in this break up as you were in the relationship. In the way we talk about each other. In the way we heal.” I don’t know when I will be in another relationship, and I cant predict whether I will ever experience this kind of pain again in my life. There are so many kinds of pain we’re gonna know here on earth. Sickness, death, injustice, betrayal. And a mere breakup may seem minimal compared to what you have been through or perhaps are going through right now. But the beauty of Jesus is that he is there through every. single. moment of our lives. So I decided I was gonna wring out of this breakup everything the Father wanted to teach me about who HE is and about who I am. In this time I learned how magnificent and whole the Father’s love for me is. I learned that HE is not intimidated by our emotions and that I could bring all my emotions to Him. And everyday HE met me, and HE walked me through the break up like no one else could have. Of course my friends and students were absolute champs and loved on me so much during that time also, but ultimately He was the one who healed my heart. I don’t claim to understand why God would give me a gift and then take it away. I still have so many unanswered questions but at the end of the day I am choosing to trust that my Father defends my heart and HE is always always holding me by the right hand.
God’s goodness is not contingent on my experience of His goodness. When He gives a blessing, He is good. When He takes that blessing away, He is good.
I cannot stress enough how important it is to have a right view of God. My perspective of who Jesus is does not get blurred or twisted by the good or bad in my day to day life, but my perspective of life gets absolutely clarified by what I know of His character and nature. It changes everything.
Jesus Christ.
HE changes everything.
So this really isn’t my breakup story, this is just a story about Jesus capturing my heart with a greater understanding of his perfect, all encompassing, never ending love.