The Lesson from my Stressin' : A letter to you

Dear Person,

I know you didn’t expect to receive a letter from me. The truth is that I didn’t expect to write one to you. I didn’t expect that I’d ever even speak to you again but that just wouldn’t be me. There are some things that need to be said and now is a better time than ever.

            My relationship with you has been a roller coaster of smooth inclines and extremely rocky declines with added twists and turns that were just as bad. I’ve gone to bed many nights and woke up many mornings with eyes that were blood shot red from crying, and begging God to make it all go away. I just knew I wasn’t strong enough to deal with the feelings of rejection, and betrayal all by myself. You’ve done things to me that anyone would deem unforgivable. You’ve told lies and defamed my character to people. You’ve lied to my face and played sides just to “save face” and remain a “favorite”. You’ve put me in situations that would have jeopardized my job and my relationships with the people I love. You managed to convince yourself that some of the things you did were to help me. Hmmp… at the time I would have preferred to die in a burning fire then to receive help from you. I was hurting. But what hurt the most was that I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why someone that I called a “friend” would be so evil, bitter, and do such hateful and hurtful things.

            All the while God didn’t make it go away. I felt like He sat there and watched me toil in my pain. I prayed and asked for guidance but all I kept getting was “be still”. My anger and frustration with God pushed me to plot and sometimes go through with my own vengeance towards you but it never helped. You may be thinking that this is petty and that I should have let go of all of this by now but to be honest, the only way that I was going to be able to write this was once I was able to let go. If this had been written while there was still anger in my heart this would have been a bashing letter and an opportunity to put your business on the street. But instead, I’m writing this letter with a grateful heart.

            I want to thank you for fabricating lies. Thank you for spreading false rumors. I even want to thank you for exposing me and my flaws for people to see. Sounds crazy right? Well, I’m thanking you because what you don’t realize is that it forced people to watch me and formulate their own opinions about me. Needless to say, those very people love me and love what they’ve learned about me through their observation. While they watched… I praised. I praised God even when I didn’t want to. I couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to “put on” an exterior that didn’t match my interior. But I did. The times I didn’t want to, it seemed like I’d quickly forget that I didn’t and praised even harder. I realize now that God took me THROUGH, to get me TO where He needed me to be. When I thought God wasn’t answering my prayers He was actually killing 2 birds with one stone. Prior to all this mess I’d wanted God to bring me closer to Him. Now I realized that it was a test. I had to go through this drama and even have my secret issues outted in order for God to deal with me on an intimate level and show me that ALL things work together for the good of those that not only love Him, but that are called according to His purpose. So thank you….

“Draw me nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To the cross where Thou hast died;
Draw me nearer, nearer, nearer blessed Lord,
To Thy precious, bleeding side.”