“And then, there’s another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims.  It’s called unrequited love.  Of that I am an expert.  Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other.  But what about the rest of us?  What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded.”

–Iris, The Holiday, 1996

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

-Anaïs Nin

There’s not much worse than the petal that reads, “Loves me not.”  And sad though it is, unreciprocated loves happen more often than the reciprocated kind.  I was definitely the girl growing-up who’d scoff at your boy sorrows and presume your love pains as lame.  A few personal heartbreaks later, however, I can’t think of much that’s more painful.  If love, or marriage, were an arrangement, coupled with a commitment, its processes might seem more obvious.  But today’s set-up involves greater choice and subjectivity, like commitment, trust, perseverance, patience, surrender, submission…than and failures in our commitments.  Like when dating relationships end.

Dating relationships usually break-up, which isn’t the most compelling motivator, to say the least.  The first time I got mad at God was during a break-up.  This guy and I had done everything “right,” including following felt “promptings” to stay together.  So when we broke-up it felt like “God’s fault.”  Presuming that moving “upward” (like in the “triangle picture” of dating, with the couple as the two bottom points, and God at the pinnacle) or toward God, will always lead the couple closer, is dangerous.  Sometimes God breaks-up two good people with two good paths, for no good reason.  Except to draw us closer to Him.

Sharing our souls is the most vulnerable thing we can do.  We’re unpredictable and paradoxical and foolish and peculiar and quirky and fickle and multi-layered and boring and needy and too much and not enough…so why on earth would I want to share all of that with another, especially when another could reject it?  “My soul can only take so many dumps,” I recently told God, “or crushes, or dumped crushes, or cut-short destinations.  I’m tired of putting it out there, only to have it left there, or left to suffer silently.  Plus, if You knew all along I’d mess-up (or be messed-up by) a given relationship, why did You allow it to unfold in the first place?  Why do You allow, and even lead me to date people, blessing our territories for a time, yet knowing full-well a break-up song is in tune?   Are You that obsessed with my growth that You’d hurt me so deeply?  Or that undone by my lacking faith that You’d punish, ignore, or play games with me?  Or is there something more delicate at hand here?”

I didn’t cry much as a kid.  One night I did though, was New Year’s Eve, 1989.  I was travelling with my family, lodging at a Day’s Inn somewhere between Charlotte and D.C.  Approaching midnight, my young senses were tiring, yet a fresh determinacy latched to my eyelids.  “The end” was growing close and I was growing more and more desperate to be with it, to be with 1989.  It seemed the end of an era to my eight-year-old mind, and I was devastated.  How could it leave?  How could it depart so quickly and never come back?  Was it really never coming back!  I couldn’t deal with it.  I didn’t want to deal with it.  I was mad at the year.  Angry that it would enter my life so richly and yet hold the audacity to depart.  Tears poured as the television dropped the Times Square ball.  I simultaneously made every effort to “save the year” by scooping its last breaths into a salad dressing bottle.  1989 was gone.  Death had confronted me.

And like death, even when expected, break-ups are unnatural, unexpected and painful —because they taste loss, which usually recalls other tasted losses.  Everything in me feels like I have been lost…like my energies, exposure and vulnerability have crashed suddenly into a cavernous, blank abyss, or cemented wall.  I am stunned.  And frightfully challenged by tears longing to wail brokenness back together—to rewrite this tragedy I assumed as “forever.”

For better, or for worse, I’m learning that experiences scar you.  And scars aren’t erasable.  No matter how hard we try, memories of porches, meals, or make-out sessions won’t leave.  They may fade, but won’t disappear altogether.  So what if instead of scolding ourselves when scars arise (in the form of they/he/she/it), we validated their reality and called painful what should be painful?  What if we resisted self-condemnation and sought scaring’s invitations to recognizing a world that is not as it should be?   Loss is failure in the world’s eye, but seems par for the course in Love’s mysterious pursuit.

One of the biggest tragedies in our dating stories, or overlooks in our break-up sagas, is dismissing its processes to “natural,” or “trivial.”  Running from pain runs from pain’s invitation out, and loss only becomes my slave when its hurts are narrowed to “logic.”  Hovering beneath Christian jargon and hiding our authentic (God-given) judgment hides us from reality.  Some days will be hard, and some situations just plain awkward (like seeing an old crush, or seeing a new one with your old best friend).  The alternative, however, is to stuff our pain in statements like, “I know God, so shouldn’t be upset,” or, “God always has a happy plan and future for me, so I’ve just gotta suck it up and move on.”  Truth never modelled such a tale.  To risk hurting one’s feelings, or risk handing-over your real feelings, will usually be hard.  But if God is true, and truly Lord over outcomes (including feelings), we’re better off being authentically upset, heartbroken, and maybe even awkward, rather than maturing a lie.

Someone once told me that therapy isn’t about learning not to fall off your bike, but learning the tools to get back on when you fall.  What if unmet crushes were nothing more (and everything plus) flirtatious longings?  What if our attractions were unpreventable, natural, and in fact, even, a form of God’s flirting?  What if dating, break-ups, heartbreak—what if everything—wasn’t a pressurized tool to get us married, find “the one,” or fix our sorrows, but for a training ground toward a higher call?

The overarching will of God for our life is holiness[1].  And although sometimes this involves happiness, other times it involves the likes of suffering, unfulfilled longing and societal persecution.  Even in this, however, the challenging belief is that God is good and has His (and your) best interests in mind[2].  Successful dating is not just achieved by those who “get hitched.”  Successful dating, “courtship”, (or life) is achieved whenever persons are moved closer to God.  Even in courtships that break-up, then, or unrequited love that never requites, God’s hand is still initiating and pursuing something.  We make messy attempts toward life and love, usually with even messier results.  And for some reason, God lets us.  And loves us all throughout.  Though difficult to recognize at times, and more difficult to receive, He is always shaping rescue, redemption and healing—always working our stories toward the good ends of His.

When asked why I trust a Deity who has the power to take everything away, I’ve realized there’s actually no other Deity I’d rather trust. Being in authentic relationships means I will hurt, and get hurt.  The paradox, and miracle here, however, is that getting hurt is a guaranteed straight shot to my heart.[3] Tragedy opens me to transformation.  Maybe that’s why broken people are so quick to profess nearness to God^[4], because broken people aren’t scared to admit needs, like longing and rescue?  God is about holiness—showing us ours and drawing ours toward His.  But what if holiness didn’t always change us, fix us, or necessarily make us feel happy—what if holiness happened more often, even, through break-ups and heartbreak?

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.” -M. Scott Peck

“In the midst of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” -Albert Camus

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Abbie Smith is the author of Can You Keep Your Faith in College and The Slow Fade.  Her working manuscript addresses singleness and sexuality, from which the following excerpt is pulled.  Abbie resides in Savannah, Georgia as an author and spiritual director. Find her on facebook (with a new last name of Sprünger), or follow her writing at www.conversantlife.com/blogs/abbie+smith.

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[1] 1 Thessolonians 4:1-3; 1 Peter 1:15

[2] Romans 8:28

[3] “The Problem of Pain”, by CS Lewis

^[4] Luke 6:20