Clandestine Confessions

I was building a kitchen table in late summer- one designed to seat four.

I bought it with the intention of fulfilling the plan for its design.

And I sat on my floor in tears; trying to screw together a giant tabletop to the legs with the middle bar falling.

Repeatedly.

I told myself during the last constructing of furniture that THAT one would be my last to do solo.

And here I was again.

“God, I am so unbelievably tired of doing this all alone.”

I felt the weight of it all.

–

Six days after that I grabbed my mail, and in it was a rather hefty medical bill.

A reminder of a diagnosis waiting to be given…or not.

And the weight of being a single income household.

I wept onto this bill.

And then immediately began making changes…cancelling trips, returning décor I just bought, putting concert tickets up for sale.

Giving up little pieces of life to afford being alive.

“God, I am so tired of carrying the burden of this life alone.”

–

Ten weeks ago, I purchased a standing desk – the majority of it metal.

I had to carry it up three flights of stairs in segments due to the weight of it.

I was losing steam in trying to do everything by myself…

–

I am so grateful I know how to be a strong, independent woman.

I am so grateful I know how to care for myself, manage my money, take care of a household.

I am so grateful I know how to protect myself, save myself, sit with myself.

I am so grateful I know how to travel alone, eat alone, go to concerts alone.

But I will also be incredibly grateful to not have to be alone anymore.

To share life with someone.

To have someone else to count on.

It is a desire of my heart this desk was magnifying.

–

I started to put it together and got two legs in before tapping out.

The sketch of the two people on the second page stating “Build MUST be done with two or more people” glaring at me.

This was my breaking point.

“God, I am done.”

For eight weeks that desk laid on my bedroom floor in pieces. And every day I walked past it and contemplated… “do I text him and ask for help?”

And every day I opted out.

Too petrified of a no.

Too scared of rejection.

Too afraid of deepening further a wound I have been desperately trying to heal.

Until one day…

.

.

.

.

There is this billboard on the way to my favorite Starbucks that displays how many colored bibles have been purchased so far that month from this local company.

Ever since I moved here, I told God that if ever it shows 528 that will be my sign that all will be okay…confirmation that He has heard every prayer, and it is safe to proceed.

The odds were not in my favor.

I only ever drive that road about once a week. Being on it at just the right time would have to be a work of God…

Which was a huge reason why I even asked Him for it to be an indicator…ask for the impossible to prove what I have come to see as an impossibility.

Surely, my fear of a forever lonely heart would be proven justified.

–

My friend from work and I had been trying for over a month to get to Trader Joe’s together. Every Monday something unexpected would happen – a meeting, a sick child, an appointment.

“We will try again next week!” we kept saying.

And then the week came. A last minute reshuffling of plans and rescheduling meetings made it happen.

Which put us on THE road.

My friend and I were so caught up in a deep conversation that I almost forget to look out my window as we passed the sign.

I caught the sight of the huge, bright red numbers right in time.

5

2

8

I lost my breath. I gripped the seat. My heart fluttered.

Seventeen months I have prayed. Waited. Had my heart broken. Been defeated. Almost given up.

And there it was.

But…I still doubted God. As I do a lot. Especially pertaining to matters of the heart. Especially when there is so much at stake. Especially when it seems too good to be true.

“I need a signier sign,” I said to myself.

Despite that LITERALLY being a sign…

“I don’t see you texting him…why aren’t you texting him?!?” my friend said to me after I told her what had just happened.

She spent the entire shopping trip checking in on the status of the message’s delivery.

One that would not be updated until later on in the evening…

–

Some might call what I was experiencing a breakdown hours upon returning home.

At least that is how it looked from the outside.

Me on my bed covered in tears, shaking and hyperventilating from the anxiety of text after text and email after email inundating my phone.

Feeling like I was doing everything but seemingly nothing.

Trying my best but apparently my best being all wrong.

I had far exceeded my threshold, and it brought me straight to surrender.

It broke me open.

I admitted to myself that I could not keep trying to manage this life alone any longer.

–

I took a look through blurry eyes at the menagerie of desk pieces sitting before me, grabbed my phone, and at 8:28 sent the long overdue text.

“Hello….(insert me fumbling with my words as I learn how to ask for help)”

Shortly after my phone would ding with his text sound – set apart from all the rest.

“I’d love to. I am free any evening this weekend or Monday. What works best for you?”

–

Six days later he was at my apartment.

When the night would take the most unexpected turn…