Can we just be friends? The question wasn’t audible or even apparent to me. My heart asked you—deep crying out to deep.
From our vantage point on the trail, we had an unobstructed panoramic view of the town, the sunlit valley, and the magnificent Collegiate Peaks rising like a hedge of protection.
Side by side, we sat on a large rock. Its cold surface shot a shiver up my spine. Without taking my eyes off the mountains, I offered you my hand. The gentleness and warmth of your acceptance invoked tears, hot and streaming down my face. I choked on my sobs. “I don’t want to be alone. I want to share my life with someone.”
“You’re not alone.” That’s what you said. But even though you sat right beside me with my hand in yours, I was too deaf to hear.
“I’m sharing this moment with you.” Dreaming of someone else, I was too blind to see.
You were a friend, and I wanted a husband.
As far as friends go, you were the best even when I was the worst. I did all the taking and none of the giving. One day I’d treat you like the most important person in my life and the next completely ignore you. You should have dropped me to pursue a worthy friend… I wouldn’t have blamed you. But you remained—faithful, loyal, and true.
People told me you wanted to be more than my friend. They said you wanted to be my husband, but for some reason their words stung, deepened the emptiness, and made me angry. Discarded, abandoned, and seeking approval from men, no matter what they said… I couldn't see you as my husband. That wasn’t what I wanted.
Always a gentleman, you made no sudden advances toward a romantic relationship when I wasn’t ready. You knew best. I needed a friend to help me heal.
So we remained that way for many years, didn’t we?
I’m not sure when things changed between us… when things changed in me… but sweet and slow and all at once I saw you, my best friend, as someone more. No matter how wonderful my circumstances had become, how faithful, loyal, and true my friends were, despite finding a genuine love… it meant nothing without you, nothing and no one compared to you or was enough to meet my endless needs.
On those days when I’m disappointed in myself for not seeing sooner how your love is unmatched, how you were and are everything and enough, how you alone fill the empty void and complete me…
You gently remind me…
I would have never known these things if you hadn’t first been my Friend.
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15 (NIV)
For your Maker is your husband—the Lord Almighty is His name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; He is called the God of all the earth. Isaiah 54:5