My only hope is to offer up my scars in love.

I called Andy the other day and he told me after some probing that he doesn't want to talk to me anymore. He realized I had been judging him. He is was right in a way. I dated Andy because he is genuine, he glows with Christ's countenance, he knows who he is. But deep down, he must have known I wasn't the person he was ready for. There are always two sides. I told Andy when I broke everything off that it was because I couldn't marry him and not never look back and wonder if Troy would have been the better decision. But I see now that isn't wholly the case and it is one I maybe was hiding behind. When a good friend asked me if I would have still broken things off with Andy even if Troy didn't exist I had never considered it but I knew the answer was yes. I used Andy to cover the hole in my heart where God's love and self love should have been growing. He is someone I would consider myself eternally grateful to be with - he is a beautiful, beautiful person. I hated things he did because they were everything good that I couldn't make myself face to accomplish; I envied and coveted traits because I never ceased to fail at trying to even scratch their surface. I couldn't bring myself to laugh or play because I never deserved it. I couldn't give him happiness that I didn't have. But back then I thought everything was perfect, my love pure, my intentions clear. Then I felt I was being honest and I was as far as my ignorance allowed. I had no idea I was lying to myself and then to him. Every moment was a lie. I will never deny I loved Andy, but it couldn't have been a love that should have been sealed. It was selfish and he will always deserve more than that. Nothing I could say he would trust, no apology, no explanation. All I can do is pray God will heal his heart. Again, I have to just face the regret. I hurt him deeply and he can never know the depth of my sorrow for it.

When he told me this it shook me hard. The disgust in his voice was something I never thought I would hear in Andy. Of course I understand and if I had to choose a punishment for what I did to him I know it would be far harsher than he or God would ever choose for me. He trusted me. I am grateful for a blessing I had a few days previous when I was feeling out of harmony in which I was blessed with focus and a desire to know better a God that is ever-anxious for my happiness. A perfectly timed perspective. But I lost a best friend. I lost a love, a confidante, a hero. He's just gone. What scares me most is that both he and Troy are gone; the two people that knew and loved me best have chosen not to. I can't ask them to stay.

I had a period of time where I didn't physically didn't leave my room because I felt I would just wound people if they became at all attached to me. I felt I was becoming a hazard to everyone else instead of just myself. Now I see that with every relationship there is risk. I wish people would assume that I will be an idiot, that I may hurt them not out of spite but out of ignorance of my own weapons, that I have to mess up and hate myself and mess up again a hundred times before I realize I am worth that piece of the atonement Christ suffered for. I wish they would understand that I will do everything wrong before I get something right. But my wish is that Christ will give them forgiveness for me because one assumption they can always make is that I will never give up. I don't know what I have to offer them other than a charity I am only now beginning to understand. My hope is that it will be worth it. But the little I have and the little I learn I will give. And that is my only hope for this life: to offer up my scars in love.