ofadistantfuture - Tumblr blog

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear future one,

I am not loved easily. How quickly I resist it when the hairs on the back of my neck prickle with its premonition. Does he like me? Is he interested? What of my feelings?

You know how I fight it so often. Almost with sheer belligerence I bark at the attraction to back off. How dare it sully this friendship with its cruel constructed hopes and expectations. How it has caused me so much heartbreak receiving and giving rejection. Oh, I don’t know how to embrace it and I’m so, so sorry. I may have turned your feelings into vile unwanted things because of how much I don’t want my own.

Would you understand that very broken, very shattered part of me? How I have longed to love and being left hanging out to dry on a precipice? Then seeing someone offer me their affection I am so spooked I abandon them to the same fate? My initial reaction to the thought that he is pursuing something with me is ‘stop’ and ‘why’ and ‘I can’t’.

Stop drawing close to me. Stop sending me messages that show you’re thinking of me and inviting me to places just the two of us. Stop getting nervous and hesitating around me and listening to me. Stop being kind to me. Stop asking me for advice or what I think or what I want.

Why would you even want to try if I’m so closed and abrasive? Why do you even like me, are drawn to me? Why be gentle with me when I may not be gentle with you at all? Why believe anything I have to say? Why put in this effort if you’re going to be disappointed in the end?

I can’t commit to liking you. Or even being attracted to you. I can’t overcome this fear that has shaken my confidence that I’m a terrible, terrible judge of character and friendship. I can’t be sure I even like you, can’t be sure that your flaws are not the only things I’ll find to push you away. I can’t love right now because I’m scared and I’m scared because I loved and it hurt.

But if I could tell my shaking heart something it is this: you will be healed. It is a promise. Maybe not now, not today, not in time for the next boy that comes around. You will be healed of this fear and this pain and you will be able to love. Every tear wiped away.

But don’t mistaken the fact that you’re not sure if you love now to not being loved. Because this boy is proof that you are loved, regardless of who you are and have been, God gave him to you in this moment as a sign of his love to you. You who are filled with such sadness and hatred and Mara have been given a Ruth and a Boaz to stand beside you and remind you that you have not been forgotten.

So I’m telling my heart this, and I’m telling you this too: you are loved. You are loved even when you are unlovely. God does not let us only be loved when we are useful and healthy and reciprocating. He lets us be loved constantly and maybe it is surprising and bewildering to be experiencing love right now. But this boy is proof to me that I am loved even when I cannot love back. He is a grace in this season, even if I can never reciprocate I can be thankful for that kind of sign.

So, I am proof to you. That you are loved in whatever season you’re in. Whether is your finest or your worst, whether you’re feeling peak confidence or more unsure of yourself than ever. I love you. I want to care for you and challenge you and encourage you. I want to give you the courage to face yourself and the world and be brave and honest when you’re scared. I want to confide in you and trust you. I want to hold your hand.

Whatever season I find you in, whatever season I find my heart in, I love you. It’s not a perfect promise, but it is a promise to try.

- J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of the Future

I can't stand myself when I like someone. Why do the most ugly feelings come first? The one that has already resigned itself to unrequited misery. The one that jealously side eyes any other girl that comes around. The one that holds its breath for something to break (doesn't something always break?). I feel so afraid and fear becomes the first hurdle my heart has to cross.

Liking you makes me afraid, I'd rather run than face my feelings for you. I'd rather shut my heart down than deal with this. Coward that I am, I've been called cruel for it.

So now this is me trying to trust Jesus instead of running. This is me holding still in the storm. It's not a yes and it's not a no. I am petty, I am insecure in this, I want to take myself out of the equation and nurse my broken heart without letting it actually break. If it's always the same in the end, if it's going to be rejection, then what am I even hoping for? What am I waiting for to change?

You. I'm hoping for you, I'm waiting for you.

I am not a stranger to laws. We rely on the patterns that repeat themselves to survive. We count on the sun to shine, for rain to cycle through the atmosphere, for gravity to pull us in. Sometimes when something happens enough times I learn to see it as a law. Confessions end in rejections, people who promise to stay will always leave, when I show my heart it pushes him away. Like chains and traps it circles my heart and I stare at it all warily and believe - it cannot be changed, I can hardly defy it.

And yet there inside me burns for a miracle. Something in my spirit knows that these patterns are not the full story. They are not foretold chain reactions. Surely you are coming for me. In a tale older than the ones I tell myself: Once upon a time Someone came back for a no one that deserved nothing.

So, here's me encouraging my heart that you are real. You are someone. And if that means being brave right here for you now, if it means holding onto faith that there is an ending that I cannot predict, if it means battling the doubts and jealousy and ugly risky pains of tearing my heart again - I'll do it. You'll see, I'm made to fight for love and I won't bow to the fears forever.

- J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of the Distant Future,

Trust is hard. Asking others for help is hard. Admitting that I need help is hard. Which strangely and logically I know is only making manifest what has been true and not hiding or covering up my sore spots. I have a lot of sore spots in my heart. But it is difficult all the same to let someone in. It didn’t used to be this hard, it used to be easy and maybe that’s why I got hurt the way I did. I didn’t want that part of me to change but somehow between all the years it did and now here I am afraid to trust.

Because to trust is to love isn’t it? And wasn’t that what I was starving for all along? Wasn’t I starving for the sense of security that trusting another person brought and how believing in them made me feel for a moment invincible until it came crashing down on me? When I could no longer ask for assurance, saw that my persistent questions were more annoyance, when I couldn’t figure out how to work out or unravel my distrust with another person, didn’t it always end the same way? Finally it seems I had learned from the failure that this is not trust really, it feels like it but it does not last.

I want trusting you to last. I want to know that in my seasons of doubt I can push in closer to you, ask more questions of you, and cling maybe sometimes a little too tightly to you to remind myself of what is real. I don’t want to hide from you, or think I’m too much for you, or that I must deal with my doubts alone and without your help or else our love is not ‘strong’ enough. Why can’t I be weak in front of you and have that bring us closer instead of pushing you away?

I hope that you won’t leave or give up on me. I hope that in my moments of faithlessness which I am prone to having you will remain just faithful enough to walk with me through the valleys.

- J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Boy that I Loved,

How are you? Has it been years since we have spoken or just minutes? I feel a need to apologize for the past tense, like it is some kind of rejection, but you were the one to reject me first so I wonder why I should even worry about that.

Sorry, this isn’t a letter to you about my bitterness. I meant it as a friendly gesture, honest. I admit that it was perhaps forthright and reckless of me to admit my admiration or attraction to you with the word love, but I don’t know what other word to use that would convey the weight our relationship (or lack of it) has laid on my heart. The way I felt for you, the things I did or undid, said or unsaid, sometimes they come back to me vividly as much as I try to forget it. I’ll remember your smile, or your laughter, or a warm touch out of the blue and reminisce: “I’m moved by you”.

I’m sure by now you have found someone to love the most. I’ve met her probably, and if things didn’t work out with her I hope it doesn’t crush you or anything. You were made to be loved, so I am certain you will land on something to hang your heart on. Or if you’re happily married to the apple of your eye I am so, so happy and proud of you for finding and holding onto her. You will be so happy, even if it hard, and I hope for great joy and contentment.

I’m writing to tell you that I still think about you sometimes. When I read an old journal entry and find a ‘this boy’ comment your face comes to mind. Or when I’m sharing a memory and I say ‘a friend once said to me’ it’s your voice I picture hearing again. Sometimes you just show up in my dreams in strange unresolved fantastical places like mismatches of all the places I remember you from. It’s strange, but I have forgotten many people in my life but I don’t think I will ever forget you. Because being in love with you changed me and scarred me and healed me. It’s like your name has been etched into a memorial wall in my heart and every now and I again I run my fingers over the names and relive their significance.

I don’t regret it you know. Because I felt loved by you in those small moments in time. I felt loved and allowed myself to get a little carried away in how easy it was to feel special and important and matter when you looked my way, talked to me, and gave me your attention. The most powerful aphrodisiac and most of the time you didn’t know it, just was treating me the way you do anyone else, being yourself in front of me unaware how precious it felt to me. “I feel loved” and my heart leaped to respond to way it had been called out. What a beautiful and scary thing to feel loved.

I’m sorry if that just took it too far for you. I know you didn’t love me back, that I didn’t give to you that same feeling or at least the attraction wasn’t there for you. Every jealous thought or feeling I had confirmed this. You weren’t responsible for my hopes so I don’t hold you responsible for my failures. I’m still grappling with the worthlessness it makes me feel when someone I can’t seem to help but choose can’t choose me back. I didn’t mean to interpret your rejection of me in that light as a stamp on my identity, but it just became discouraging that no matter what I did or didn’t do couldn’t cause you to love me more.

And maybe that’s something I need to still learn about God’s love and affection towards me. That to starve for it does not mean it can be earned. I am still learning what it means to be loved by God and praying that it cracks my heart wide open and makes me see something new about myself that for so long I have been blind to.

All I know is that I somehow received love from you in some way. Maybe it was your friendly chats and check-ins. Maybe it was the protective considerate gestures that piled up like autumn leaves on my mind. Maybe it was the strength of your words that cut and challenged and healed me. Maybe it was the way that with you I just thought I was enough.

I hope that life finds you well. Perhaps no one else will have to know the secret in my heart that you shone so bright for me so briefly. I hope that you have the confidence of being loved, even though I don’t have it, because there was a time when you shined so brightly to me. This joy that feels as full and as empty as a sky full of stars is what I have for you.

Be well and blessed and I hope one day our paths will cross again.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

I want to be clear

I do still in fact hope for a romance with you. Just because I’ve made peace with a possibility without, just because fear is no longer choking me in my loneliness and desire, doesn’t mean I don’t care about whether you come around or not.

Make no mistake. You have given me courage to face my silly heart. This heart that could only helplessly envy while it scorned affections. This heart mangled with a deep possessive desire to own and control a person to never leave me. This heart that has felt abandoned one too many times, not special and not worth saving or fighting for. Again I face it with the possibility of being far closer to actually being able to love you and not just long for you. You are a precious hope to me, the one I trust Jesus with all my heart to find and love. You make so many metaphors make sense, and if for me faith is one giant love story it was because I first felt it with you to be true.

Not because I know you presently or because I’ve matured so much in learning to love. But almost the opposite that throughout my life the one constant, most childish hope I ever had was for you. And it was as simple as a best friend and as complicated as a lover and everything in between. You were something I believed in almost foolishly and in a way I cannot articulate well to others without seeming to be out of my mind. I confided in you, I wept, I bared my fangs and frustrations, I lashed out at you, I pined for you. You were a cathartic safety net pulled tight against me and each time I would remember that to meet you one day would make everything worth it.

So fiercely still do I look for you, search for you in my own quiet ways. I watch the faces around me and look for the signs of you—kindness, gentleness, humility, laughter, conviction—and I raise it up to God and ask, “Could it be? What am I feeling? Let this be a pure and good love.” And I endure the chaotic rush and agony of my emotions wrestling always with truth and sometimes finding that there is some truth in my emotion that I am not always quick to recognize. And I just do that again and again until my own heart can beat a little more true and a little more free.

I wonder, and it occurs to me now, if loving you will feel like freedom to me. Especially to a heart scarred with chains and silences and misunderstandings. Would loving you be like freedom to me and would I recognize you from that sense? Or will you be a complete surprise to me still as so often I am caught off guard by my fantasies?

But I know this is how I will know you: You will approach me first and ask. You will notice what is happening before I do and feel compelled the way I’ve felt compelled to search for the reason your eyes wander to me, the reason your heart burns and beats a little more brightly, the reason you long to forgive me and grow closer to me despite my great unworthiness of your love.

Please Jesus, may it be soon. May you walk into my field of vision and become sight. May I get an opportunity and chance to fall in love back with someone.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of the Distant Future

I've been thinking a lot about timing lately. How both my grandparents died within a month of each other, of how around me people are getting married, engaged, dating and how in the past I raged and struggled with that like an open sore. I didn't have a lot of patience then, still don't really, but at least right now I've found some peace.

2 Peter 3:9 says "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.” Jesus saved my grandfather at 92, he let my grandmother suffer under the controlling hand of her mistrustful husband, he still hasn't brought you to be yet. And yet, I realize now it is not for being slow, or for wanting us to suffer, or even to teach me a lesson. It is for the sake that when it can and will happen we would know his love for us. Revealed in the way that can only be given credit to Him. Pressed into hearts soft enough to receive love and not too afraid to be known.

All this anguish and hoping and praying and courageously cutting down the lies and walls and doubts, all this heartache in the secret places, tears cried that no one will see, good deeds hidden left from right, the unknown mysteries of a Spirit free as the wind and as powerful as typhoons, yes, even all this is to taste the Love of God. Yes, even waiting is to taste a flavor of his love yearning towards us.

So who am I to understand the mystery of our meeting or the tandem of our timing? I already knew, even when I fought it ungratefully, that it would only be at the right time for us. Be that tomorrow or a year or a decade. I knew that for me you are a promise that only God can fulfill, not meant for me to look ahead and tear down and rebuild barns for. Jesus has only asked me to tend the garden of people he has given me and if it seems fruitful and hopeful it is only because God gave the circumstances and the actions and the words to be so.

I hope you walk in someday. I hope I can recognize the beauty of your spirit, I hope that you'd be like a treasure I find in my little corner of my harvest so precious and miraculous and yet worth everything. Maybe that's too much too soon, ah, look at my impatience getting the best of me. I just want you to know that I don't regret the timing. I trust God and I know that all things work for the good of those that love Jesus. Be well my love, grow deep roots, may we meet soon.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear man of the distant future,

One of my greatest fears is that when I die and I meet Jesus face to face he will say to me, “Sorry, I don’t know you” and then I get sent away. I wonder how frustrating that would be, how humiliating how wrong I got it all, and how torn apart I would be if that were to happen. Then knowing all the excuses in the world won’t change his mind or make a difference. That scares me sometimes.

I think it scares me because that was what it was somewhat like with J-. I mean, after I publicly slapped him in the face he asked me to go and talk to him in our college coffee shop a few days later and I agreed to it (idiotically in hindsight). I remember him trying to explain how what I did was uncalled for and that I should apologize to him and his new girlfriend. Can you imagine? They weren’t wrong but I was so pissed. How could you say that to me? If you knew what I felt, what pain and heartbreak and shattered hopes I was going through would you even think to ask? And then he called me crazy and irrational and overreactive (and so many things I still sort of believe about myself, fear about myself because I thought that it was true that he knew me and that these were the things that destroyed relationships). Here was this boy I was in love with and he was just so wrong about me in every way. It was as if he didn’t know me at all, maybe never did.

That broke me more than anything else. How is it possible that I tried my best to love someone and that person I loved didn’t even know me? Was I also wrong about him too? Also, infatuations are so stupefying I swore them off for like three years.

I know it happened like a decade ago or something. That in some ways Jesus has transformed me from the person I was then that even I might have trouble understanding and knowing my past self. But this uncertainty of falling in love with an image, with an idea that isn’t really the true person still sort of haunts me. In fact it still happens to me to this day. I wonder if this is part of what love does or if this is something Jesus will heal me from too.

I’m not saying that I will know and understand everything about you because I can’t even figure that out for myself. But if you are relentless in your hopes of being recognized by Jesus as one of his then I can relate to that sort of purpose. Then maybe I would be less afraid of misunderstanding you too. I hope that you see me rightly too. Not necessarily as I see myself, but seeing what I hope to become closer and closer to becoming in my own unique way.

I strive to be straight forward with you, or as honest as I can be. I won’t play guessing games or waste your time if you are interested. I will try to give you a chance no matter my feelings and I hope that I can come to trust you even if we don’t end up working out romantically. I probably respect you very much as a person and to even have a shot at being considered I feel safe with you. If it is you, I hope we work out or at least that we come to an agreement if it is not working.

Then at the end of our lives, I hope I get to see that part when Jesus looks into your eyes and says, “well done” and welcomes you in as one of his own.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of the Distant Future

I wasn’t good enough from the start. Tripping and falling through every hoop and never knowing how to stop hurting you when I’m hurting and—I’m sorry. I’m sorry for all my inconsistencies, for my temper and angry words. I’m sorry if all I know how to do is cry or be a victim. I’m sorry I don’t understand you even when I desperately want to.

I’m afraid that you’ll give up on me when you find how much you can’t fix about me. Because I’ve given up for far less than that. I think I am afraid of losing you once I’ve found you since that has been my only experience so far—losing.

So this is my letter to you, if I’m going to lose you and this is how it ends between us.

I hope it is for very good reasons like that we’ve found that perhaps this is not the marrying kind of relationship. I hope it is not because we got tired of each other and somehow complacent with no affection. Of course I’m going to be sad and desperate, how can I not be when it is you?

But at the same time you have given me a hope that others have not: You chose me. And by some miracle I was able to be open enough to choose you too. Which means you and I can and will be chosen again. Maybe even by each other (though I’m sure if I am in early post break-up with you it sounds so frightfully good).

I know that you are good and kind and despite all your faults real or perceived I firmly believe and desire that you will love and be loved again. I don’t know what circumstances brought us together or apart but if this is the last we know of each other on this earth, please know that I am thankful to have met you and to have loved you. It was an honor to be let into your heart and your life. You were someone I had hoped for, for so long, that I was sure you would never be real and yet God so blessed me with the reality of you. Thank you for working with me and through me. For being part of who I am today and my story. I won’t always be gracious to you, especially when I’m hurting, but I want you to know that you are still an answered prayer.

I’m sorry it couldn’t have ended better, maybe I’m sorry it has to end at all, but I’m just another chapter of your life and I pray you have so many more. That you meet someone that you actually can and will spend the rest of your life with. It’s the least I can hope for you, you are so precious to me even when it hurts. Run the race with endurance, holding fast to your faith. Trust that God has and is and will always be good to you, he has not wronged you or betrayed you even if I did or do. Love Him first, hold onto hope, and see you again on the other side of eternity.

Love,

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Future One

I've been reading Bonhoeffer's advent sermons and boy does it light fire in my heart. There is no shortage of the reality of the cowardice, selfishness, and lying that we do to ourselves now and in his time. Yet God is our Lord, us scrawny, weak-faith, sinking cowards and what a marvel it is that he can make something new out of something so useless. I would rather die on the cusp of the promise land by God's love than to take one step in a traitor without Him. I guess you are my promised land.

It's not that I don't have infatuations or heartbreaks. That's like the only thing my lonely heart knows how to do sometimes. But it is just that if it's going to be you it will have to ring more true than any feeling I have. It can't be for attention, or flattery, or insecurity. If it's you, I will choose you for nothing less than being convinced you are worth loving as surely as God thinks I am worth loving. Through hell and back.

If it is within my power, I don't want to settle for complacent or not lonely. Trust me, I feel very lonely like an ache in my soul I don't know what what to do with. I don't even know if you could touch this loneliness. Maybe there is something divine in it that can't be answered in our lifetimes.

A friend complimented me the other day saying that I live by my principles. What other way is there to live? I believe it so I will figure out, stumbling now, to make sense of it and let it change me. I hope that this sort of change is something beautiful to you. Please let it be something admirable and worthy to you even when I'm nothing but a stubborn fool. It is the part of me I never learned to throw away or hide so it must be exposed, especially when I am fearful or anxious it seems.

But I believe that what shines true as broken and decrepit as it is, is better than any lie or fantasy. I am aware it takes courage to live this way and to admit fault without anger or guilt is still a steep hill to climb. But here's the secret: I am already as bad as they say I am. It's only that God loves me that I have any hope of being different. So I am completely at the mercy of the cross and know that Jesus is the only one that can make it better.

I'm trying not to live in fear of what others think of me. It helps to believe that you always try to believe in me and think the wellness of me, at least you out there somewhere in this wide world loves me for the silly thing I am. I hope to do you justice for that and to believe I am loved even when I don't feel it. Thank you as always for listening and being patient with me. I hope that we meet soon. I hope I get to love you at precisely the right moment. Which is now and then and now again.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of a Distant Future,

Sometimes I'd like to know how to be worthy of a romantic relationship and if I could be good enough that someone would choose me to be their partner for the rest of their lives. It's a persistent lie reinforced by every friend that came and went in my life, usually snatched up by some boy who sees in her what I had known which is that she's beautiful and desirable and worth pursuing and relationship with. It's not true, but it feels like he just gets to swoop in and enjoy the intimacy I wish I could have.

And I'm trying to get over this lie but it's really not easy to disprove a falsity that is so tied to my identity. I'm just the stepping stone, the handmaid, and I can be cast aside when the bridegroom comes along. Maybe I could try harder to hold onto a changing relationship. Maybe my jealousy gets the best of me and I can't accept what we have now as anything less than what it was before. Maybe I just need to not give my heart out to these people.

I don't know but Lord help me because I don't want to believe this anymore. I don't want to be alone or left behind or not good enough. I don't want to be cast off. I want someone who'd see something beautiful in me too. And the longer it passes I wonder if no one sees it because I'm really not beautiful. Which is valid, I could just be ugly. But then how does one go from ugly to cherished? I want to know and it seems the secret is that once it is loved it does not go back to ever being ugly.

So we end with this encouragement: I love you. You are cherished and not ugly, not to me. I love you, if you would have my love and it's worth something to you. I love you which means the others that rejected you and made you question whether you could be loved are wrong. I believe in you and I very much love you. I want you and I choose you to be special to me and unique to me in all my life. You are cherished, I love you.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of a Distant Future,

I’m ok with never. I can be happy with never. I can hope like crazy that there is no never but if the answer is never I won’t hate you or be bitter about you. I won’t. Because I never deserved you, I only wanted you to points of needing you but you are not my portion or my inheritance. A relationship with you is not what I’m in the long haul of life for.

I don’t want to put that on you, to make you feel responsible for my happiness and fulfillment. So in the absence of you I have decided I won’t cross that line with myself. I may feel it sometimes but Lord wake me from my foolishness whenever I start down that road. Lord, save me from betraying you, myself, and Father. So I must begin with this: I will still follow Jesus, I know that he loves me even if I am single for the rest of this life. I will not be mad (all the time), I will try to be honest about my resentment (which is bound to happen), and I’ll miss you fiercely while trying to be productive. I know even now God is refining me and my understanding and my love. I know he wouldn’t give me my idols no matter how I nag about them. I don’t want to keep asking for them either so I’ve been praying that he teaches me to ask for things that are good for me and not just for the things I want all the time.

So please be someone good for me. Someone true and unexpected and a wonderful gift all the same. Please be a compass that points back to Heaven and the Trinity. I lose my focus over you all the time, along with my notions of romance and love and sex.

Pray for me, if you remember to at all. I’m praying for you. May you be so firm and strong in the face of this worlds temptations. That you are awake and watchful and that you won’t fall asleep or give into what culture names you or wants you to be. That you are fighting bravely the demons no one else can see, just like I’m fighting these demons of lust and despair and hopelessness with Christ. Build your faith, build callouses on it and let it be rubbed raw and beautiful by your hopes and fears. I pray that you experience Jesus vanquishing them, slaying the anxieties and insecurities with a great hand of mercy and steadfast kindness. Have courage and be valiant darling, be brave, and do not lose any hope in Christ even when you lose it for yourself. Please let there be men and women alongside you to guide you and comfort you and support you. Please don’t be alone for too long, I want to be with you soon.

But it’s ok, if it’s not now or soon or later. It’s ok because Jesus is vanquishing the darkness here and hope is alive here. I trust Jesus with more than my life, I trust him so much that I’m not even afraid of being wrong or disappointed because I know he is going to come through. I don’t see or understand it but I know he will.

I love you. I’m trying to love you. Be blessed and be well.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of a Distant Future

Am I left here alone because no one wanted me? Is it so impossible to be loved I wonder? Gladly I took this road of singleness in the past but now, now it is hard to walk without doubting. I know that God has his timings. I can’t help but feel though so scared. I swore I wouldn’t give my heart away so carelessly as I did to J-. The first boy that I ever told I loved. I would ask properly beforehand if he wanted it before presenting it.

But no one has taken me up on my offer yet. Feels like a measly worthless thing after all the rejection. But I am not as brave as I once was. Even I am incapable of unconditional love.

Do you want me? Do you even want to know me or do you simply like that I want to know you? Could you care about me? Would it be enough to be worth giving up your freedom for? Would you take my hand even though it becomes a type of shackle to you?

I am aware of the sacrifices that a relationship with me would cost you. What I might ask and beg of you being more than you’d ever want to give. That this would be a huge blow to your self-sustained independence and lifestyle. To learn to live with me, consider me, bear with me is a commitment that I wouldn’t want you to take lightly. I mean, it will impact me too and disrupt the unconsciously selfish ways I have been living.

But it would be worth it learning it with you. It would be worth it trying to figure out what staying looks like and not just running a way or letting go. What does clinging on to one another mean in a way that isn’t weakness but strength? I mean I’ve tried to figure it out on my own, but none of my relationships contends with the full range of my emotions so that I still feel cowardice creeping up on me sometimes. If they really knew how I felt they wouldn’t want me. The rejection still has its claws in me and I pray, I pray, I don’t throw myself away before I meet you.

I just want to be loved for being me.

I just want to be able to love you for being you.

It seems such a simple request and believe me when I say my heart has filled in all the expectations already but I’m trying not to measure you by the fantasy. I’m trying to measure you by:

How earnestly you listen and want to speak with me

How gentle you are with the people around you.

How often do you do what you say you will do

How do you handle when you don’t or can’t do as you have said

How do you describe what God is doing in your life

It seems those are telling signs and convicting ones for me to live by. I am humbled by this list because I know I fall short of them often. But I wonder, despite any shortcomings I have or you have, I wonder: can and will I still stay even if it is disappointing and may not change immediately? With you, will I have the patience to love you when my character flaws erupt?

He said when he turned me down that he wasn’t going to put me in a circle, of whether I had faith or looks going for me in his book but not both. He said it wasn’t fair. But even as he said it I felt that I must’ve failed in one of those circles. I was afraid it was not having enough faith. I would have rather he told me I wasn’t pretty than that I had a lackluster faith.

Because in the end that’s all that’s between us: faith. This unwavering belief that I have in you, in a future with you, even though you aren’t here. Even though I don’t know the shape of your smile or the color of your eyes. I believe in you and I love you. I am determined that you are something special and precious to me and worth waiting this side of eternity for. It’s the closest I can get to loving and understanding Christ.

So I wonder how do we build this intimacy now? How do I practice loving you now even though you are not here yet? What would please you? Would reaching out to people and listening to them be a delight to you? What about doing my best at work without grumbling, trying to see what God is working at throughout my day? Would writing to you plainly and honestly help me to become more plain and honest with you? Would measuring and trying to discern between my selfishness and sincerity matter to you?

I became a better listener for your sake, well for the sake of those that were hurting that I might not hurt them more. But that might have been you. I wanted to know you when I met you so I learned to pay attention (and write down everything else in case I remembered something). I'm not sure if we've met yet, I'm not sure if we will ever meet.

No, I believe it will happen. It will be like nothing I have seen or heard. It will be like seeing color for the first time, not knowing what it is that I was trying to grasp until it lands serendipitously in my lap. One day you will prove these insecurities wrong. I love you, thank you for listening and working this out with me.

Until we meet,

J

[ofadistantfuture]

It’s hard for me to accept I am attractive.

It is uncomfortable in a way to feel that I am desirable. Desirable is threatening. At least that has been my experience. So even though I wish I were, and that someone I desired would want me too, I am having trouble accepting that I’m worth kindness and delight and trouble and joy. I’m so used to not being worth it, I don’t know what to do. My mind understands objectively that I am in fact attractive and that I have good assets. It even accepts compliments, but I don’t know how to believe it. My heart goes ‘yeah well it isn’t all that attractive since it is still easy enough to say no to’ and ‘I do not attract those who I have been attracted to’. 

Then someone shows interest in me and it twists into doubt and manipulation. What do you want from me? What do I possibly give you that you’d stay - would you stay if it was just me and nothing else? How do I kindly let someone down with the crush of rejection? Can we be friends? Would you be disappointed? Will I be disappointed? Or will I feel guilty for not liking you? Can I take advantage of your kindness and your attraction or does that make me a hypocrite? 

I don’t know. I don’t understand why I think like this. Maybe being pretty carries responsibility, something to own and to feel worthwhile and let others know I feel that same way. I don’t know.

I want to feel like being beautiful is a good and true thing. That being beautiful can elevate and heighten it in others. I want the kind of beauty that serves someone and not tramples them. I want to have that kind of patience and that kind of kindness and that kind of person who would look for that in me.

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Do I think sometimes that I will never meet you?

Yes. It will come out of the blue and the thought makes me so angry. Lies. I want to snarl at it. Lies built on histories of failures which presents itself as prophecy but LIES. Of course there wasn’t ever a promise that you made to me about any sort of happily ever after. No one ever promised me that I would find you or that it would be easy or simple. I don’t know if what I am doing now even constitutes as waiting, wavering between wanting you and denying it in heart. But if this waiting for you works my faith so that I can believe someone who did promise to come back for me then it will suffice.

I want for you to be a great happiness when it comes within my grasp. I want you to feel what it is like to be believed in all this time no matter what happens to us. I hope that somewhere you believe in me too even when the thought crossed your mind. I’m not afraid (always) of being lonely if it means that someday I will get to be with you. I remember that my life can change in an instant, that I went from being dead to being alive once so to meet you and know you and love you can also happen in an instant. I hope that I will receive many more chances to know you and love you.

Until we meet,

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Man of  a Distant Future,

I’m still thinking of him. I’m trying not to think of him but I want, I want him, so much more badly than I ever want to admit to anyone. But I can admit it to you, after all you are just the imaginary future that I tried to script but won’t come true. I wonder if he will be you? I wonder if he won’t be you and I’m wasting my time but I just thought this morning and that thought led to a want and that want led to pining so here we are.

Sometimes, I don’t think it’s even him that I want. I want you. I want just you to be real, please, but I don’t know how to believe it. A boy or man that could want me as much as I want him? Hasn’t happened yet. But what if he is you? What if he is every sparkling and disappointing and wonderful you I ever dreamt of but could never say to anyone? It’s a disastrous hope.

Lord knows that he doesn’t deserve this. He only treated me kindly and wonderfully. He only was gentle and firm. He only spoke truth into my life so that I could hear the whispers of love from God Himself and he was just a messenger and I know this but it doesn’t stop him from being beautiful in my eyes. It doesn’t stop me from dreaming of tanned skin and calloused hands. It doesn’t stop me from fantasizing a future with this boy who I don’t even really, really, know. We are barely friends, right? We don’t talk or text or hangout. We don’t have anything in common together – hobbies, music taste, jobs, etc. so this isn’t working, right? It’s a sure sign that it’s not working.

Yet still, I am hoping for you and praying for you. Please come find me soon, I don’t even know if I can wait much longer without despair. Just like before I would keep giving up on you but then come back to you because I could not un-want you. Please, please, please be real and exist. Even if it’s not him, that’s ok. Break my heart gently please so that I can be free to long for you again. Even now I think my heart is breaking but I have courage and the fears of every heartbreak before will not make me afraid of the future any longer.

Oh but if you are him, I mean if he is you. I can barely contain it – that possibility or hint that I have found you. Perhaps it will be foolish because even now you are not actually him but another man that I have brushed shoulders with – not even knowing that we were destined for one another. Perhaps he will lead me to you eventually, who knows? I only know that these feelings are meant to be kept under wraps until they burst forth from the grave or die quietly inside my heart. Oh, how I long for a day when I do not have to keep these feelings secret, when I am free to act upon them and to lavish this clumsy and happy liking on you.

Did you ever think you met me? Did you fall in love with a girl hoping it was me? Did she also break your heart too? Are you like me wondering once in a while if I even exist? I wish I could somehow send hope to you right now. I’m waiting, you’re coming and I’m waiting for you. Don’t give up, please, don’t give up thinking that you must be lonely as long as you walk upon this earth or that God must not love you enough to give you a person. God wants only the happiest of endings for us so trust him please. Trust him when you are afraid, when you doubt, when you are anxious. Have faith, my love. Have faith and wait for me please (and please and please and please) like the way we wait for our Lord to come back: not knowing the time or the hour of his return yet we still say come quickly Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Someday we will meet. Someday we will meet and I may not recognize you at first for who you are just like they did not recognize Jesus when he first came. But surely I believe the veil will be pulled back from our eyes and in that moment when we are blessed to know and love one another, when I hold my arms out to you saying, ‘It’s you! Oh, it is finally you!’ and your arms fold me over your heart and you may also say, ‘Finally, finally I found you.’ And what was lost has been found and we will rejoice because this love is only a mirror of the greatest of loves, only a shadow of light that is bright and eternal in heaven.

Be brave, oh distant man of the future. Be brave and don’t be afraid. I love you for who you were, who you are, and who you will be. I love you when I’m angry and crying and frustrated. If love is wishing for your best, if love is trusting God with your care and wellbeing, if love is that constant press of hope for you, if this is love then I love you. If this is love then God is love (and so much more, how is it possible to be more except that His love is infinitely LOVE and mine is only love).

And-oh and-if he is you. If it is him, Lord. Draw him into the embrace of an all-powerful and loving God who pursues and desires relationship with him just as he is. Give him confidence and courage, God. Give him wisdom and hope and faith and love and God just give him Yourself. Like you did on the cross for us. Heal and heel us God. If he is you, let me welcome you with open arms whenever he is ready. Let my heart be prepared to meet you, to see you unveiled and smiling and unashamed of loving him. Let me fall in love with him at the perfect time.

Don’t despair my darling, my hope, flesh of my flesh. God works for the good of those who love him and we who love him won’t be put to shame. Have courage, Lord help us to have courage. If this is the only way to escape pining, the only way to release the desperate ache for you, then I will keep doing this for as long as I hope for you. There may be no other way to sacrifice this longing or surrender it to God except through these words.

Then one day you may read these words. When we are fighting and all seems lost, or when all is well and your heart is so full it could burst, you can read these words and know that there is always hope for us because that hope is safely guarded by an eternal Father, a loving high priest, a wise counselor. Our creator is not bound by time and does not change no matter how we change. I hope that these words are an encouragement to you to not give up the good fight, to run the race with all that you have, to stumble and stand unceasingly. I hope that you let others love you and that they love you as well as they can even if they hurt you.

Then after you read this letter, written in the midst of setting up my classroom and learning how to trust God the way we trust compasses and stars, tell me again and remind me what we’re living and fighting for. Tell me that this is not the end or a beginning this is eternity and remind me that one of the greatest treasures will be to know you in heaven and not just here. The greatest joy will be to thank God for all his goodness. Remind me that this is relationship and we’re going to get hurt but we’re not going to give up.

There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. I am now refraining and it is proper to have this time. But I long for the day we may embrace. When I may interlace my life with yours and walk this life together with you.

Until we meet (again and again),

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dearest Covenant Soulmate

Remember this when you still feel alone. When you ache for that which life cannot fulfill. When what should satisfy leaves you broken and longing and full of despair or disappointment. God’s love is the best love. God’s love is the First Love. God’s love is everything he promised and more. God’s love is not settling for second best. 

Remember we live in the between, in the transition words that connect Alpha and Omega. You were not made to find all life in the shadows, you were made for light and delight. Our love will fail at times. We will feel frustration with ourselves and one another. We will ask ourselves, why we must be so ungrateful despite the blessings poured out? What we want is eternity and holiness and fulness of life. It’s not going to be here, dearest soulmate. It’s not going to be me or our family or our church. It’s not here but someday we will enter it. Remember that it exists and it is worth living in light of the hope that gives us. We are walking this life together but we are not meant to find completeness in each other.

Thank you for taking my hand and heart and traveling through this life with me. With you I find strength to be transformed and I learn to understand what kind of companionship is in store. It is such a pleasure I’m sure to watch you bravely face the world and yourself in faith. When we reach the shores of glory I will be overjoyed to see you unveiled and shining with crowns of glory. I’m so proud of you, of who you are, how far you’ve come and all that God has done in your life.

Remember I am cheering for you, I am walking by your side, I am on this journey with you even if we have not met, even if we never meet in this life. I love you, for me you are enough as you are, for me you remind me I am not alone. God is here and we are not alone.

Sincerely,

J

[ofadistantfuture]

Dear Future Someone,

A friend told me I should publish our letters. I say our but it’s really just mine one-sided, as always I take your reciprocity for granted. I mean, even without knowing who you are, I hope that these letters might feel personal to you?

But I think if somehow this could be an encouragement to someone it would be well worth it. If someone else read it because she was pondering her future relationship then maybe she would feel happy. Or understood. Maybe she would think I’m delusional.

What if you read these though before we knew that you were who I was writing to all along? What if you saw this and you felt comforted by my words and that strange and stubborn faith I had in you? Or maybe you saw this and laughed because how can a girl be this naive? But then when you realize that it’s been you all along then I wonder if that would color your affection with something new.

I think I will, share these letters. I have always loved reading these even if it was only to myself because they are my soul and poetry and art all rolled together in word and ink and thought. I would like to share this feeling with someone, it’s why I share them with you.

I hope you’re ok with that. I hope these are not secret. These are my feelings but they are yours. Just like your smile and laughter in light of who we become to each other will be yours and mine.

Sincerely,

J