I had gotten to the point where I was ok. I had accepted the fact that we weren't going to be together. I had stopped writing to her, including the letters I wrote and never sent, and I asked someone who I had talked to about the whole thing to hold on to them. I was trying to move on, but it was difficult. Things with my job were starting to get rough, you can read about that in the posts on The Misplaced Wound, and I was beginning to lose interest in what I was doing. There was no challenge I was facing, no adventure I was living, and no beauty I was rescuing; the three things Eldredge identifies as the deepest longings of a man's soul were absent from my life.
It was a Friday or Saturday morning, I didn't have to go to work, and I had nothing planned for the day, and so I decided to just hang out on my couch for a while and watch a movie. For whatever reason I happened to pick Braveheart. Remember the very first movie she and I watched together? Braveheart, I mentioned it in the first post because it's relevant to what God began to do. As I was watching it this time, something hit me in a way that it never had before.
There is a quote that occurs early in the movie, William Wallace's father has been killed in a battle against the English. His uncle has come to take him and raise him, and William begins to face the reality of what his life looks like. The quote is at 5:50, but this sets up the scene well. William Wallace's word has been shattered, and now he faces the choice to embrace his destiny or not.
When I heard those words spoken this time, it was like God said them to me. I had given my heart to this girl, and it had been broken. I was at the point where I didn't want to give it to anyone else, didn't want to risk doing anything where I could get hurt again, and in that moment God told me, "Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it."
God made me to live with passion, otherwise life is just existence. There can be no passion without risk, and risk always brings the possibility of wounding. It's easy to become guarded, playing it safe, and never pursuing anything, or anyone, again. In my mind that was what I wanted to do. I didn't want to move on because that meant having to take a risk on someone else in the future. But through the words of Braveheart, God was calling the man out of me. "Your heart is free. Have the courage to follow it."
God had, and has, so much in His heart for me. Right now that's a message I have to keep reminding myself of and believing (I asked for prayer a few weeks ago, and I would appreciate continued prayer). He has given me a heart that is passionate about so many things, and I have to be bold enough to risk the wounds in order to follow those passions He has instilled in me. It began back in my one bedroom apartment in Michigan, I had been wounded, and in all honesty I wasn't even looking for healing. But God had something in mind for me that went beyond her. My heart had been wounded, but God didn't intend to leave it that way.
My heart is free. I must have the courage to follow it...
Fight the lion, 1 Peter 5.1-11
TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!
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