Over the past few months my former mentor and I have been reconnecting. At first I wasn't sure what this would look like. We live several hours away, and neither one of us has a ton of time, he's pastoring a large church and spending time with his grandkids, I'm working, finishing up a master's degree, exploring some options for the future, and being a dad. In some ways, I felt that after our initial phone conversation everything was done. I had reached out, been honest, and extended forgiveness; he had responded, apologized, and accepted forgiveness.
As I've gone through the months since then, I've realized how much I miss him. Recently we were on the phone, I was asking him for prayer and expressing some frustration for a situation I'm facing with my ex-wife, and in the midst of that conversation I told him, "I'm sorry we lost touch."
People enter our lives at different times and for different reasons. Some make a big impact, other we barely remember. Some build us up while others try to tear us down; some pour into us while others drain us. There are some people we think we'll be close to forever, and other we wish we had never met. Some will wound us intentionally, others unintentionally, and sometimes there will be wounds we make worse.
This wound turned into a four year silence because I wouldn't ask a simple question. I was too afraid to be rejected, to insecure to risk being vulnerable, that I ended up pushing someone away who had helped and guided me through some of the biggest moments of my life. I let this wound get worse and worse, to the point where I had to write a letter explaining how the narrative I was enclosing and then call a secretary because I was too nervous to talk to him.
I don't know what the future looks like with us. I don't see us ever working together at a church, partly due to logistics and geography, and partly due to how I've felt God leading my life. I feel that we've grown out of the mentor/apprentice stage of life, but all good relationships should grow beyond how they start.
I will always be grateful for the things I have learned from him, I quote him a lot, and a lot of the things I do stem from he taught me. I am thankful that God brought us together, grateful that God didn't let me continue to brood over I felt ignored and abandoned, and thankful for having time to reconnect.
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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