Grappling With Divinity

What do you do when you have been afraid of the same thing for forty years? What if that thing is a person? What if that person is someone you love?

One of, if not my biggest, spiritual struggles, is discerning the answer to these very questions. I pray almost daily for God to guide me in one particular relationship which, for most of my life, has caused me more confusion, more fear, and more grief than any other. In fact, I recently realized that the way in which I perceive and behave in most other relationships is directly influenced or informed by my experience in this one relationship.

In many ways, I have been a slave to this relationship. I have allowed it to control my thoughts, my feelings, and even my own self-perception. The thought of it tortures me and affects every area of my life. It has become like a god to me.

But I do not know how to break free. I do not know what the right thing to do is. I pray, I write, and I seek spiritual counsel, and yet, even after all these years, it is still not clear.

I do not know if I am supposed to stand up to this person, if I am supposed to walk away, or if I am supposed to be still. My faith is being tested, sometimes to the breaking point. I have had anxiety attacks, arguments, and lost many hours of sleep and serenity, all because of this one relationship.

It is an easy thing to stand on the outside and to say that I should speak up, that I should face my fears head on, and that I should confront this person. It is just as easy to say that I should walk away. Neither of these options feels right, however. Neither feels like the lesson God is trying to teach me, but I really don’t know.

Part of what makes standing up and saying something complicated is that I don’t want to be petty and selfish. I don’t want to be the kind of person who tells another that they need to change for the sake of my contentment. If the peace of God is anything, it isn’t contingent upon circumstances. It doesn’t rely on other people changing to suit my needs or desires.

I also don’t want to do what I have always done, however, which is to walk away. It hasn’t worked. While, in the past, physical distance has afforded me some amount of peace, in the back of my mind, I know the truth. Walking away is neither resolution nor transcendence. Rather, it’s a form of denial.

And so I stay, and I stay quiet. Well, that’s nowhere close to true. I have not been quiet at all. I complain, I argue, I yell, and I cry, but I do this all around the problem, not at the problem. I spend an absurd amount of time and energy working around this problem, but never on the problem.

I wouldn’t even know where to start. I’m so afraid of this person and their reactions that I get flustered just thinking about it. It’s exhausting. I’m exhausted. I pray to God that he gives me the wisdom, courage, and strength to do the right thing. I pray that He guides me out of this desert of anguish and draws me closer to Him, but most of all, I pray that He shows me how to navigate this relationship with love.

~Robert Van Valkenburgh