Today is the 20-year anniversary of the darkest, most difficult day of my life. Twenty years ago, romantic rejection by the love of my life left me devastated and completely broken, with little will to live. What enabled me to survive that day and the following two years was my faith in Christ. By His grace, His teachings had been instilled in me throughout my life. So, even the greatest suffering I have ever known could not keep me hopeless forever.
Tears of Grief and Wishes for Joy
My soul was shattered on May 10, 2006, when I read a handwritten note from the boy I loved. It was the first and only note I received in response to a note I had given him. The question I asked in my note (whether or not he had told me he loved me) beckoned an answer, if nothing else I had written him did. So, when I arrived at the school, I was full of hope that I would receive a note from him at all.
Much more than that, I hoped his note would confirm that he loved me too. I had sent him a candy gram for Valentine’s Day. When he approached me at the end of the day he received it, I thought he told me he loved me in addition to thanking me. But within the first few sentences of the note he gave me on May 10, I came to the words, “It’s unfortunate you think I said I love you, because all I said was thank you.” Those words stripped me of all hope and joy and left a long stream of tears of grief. For the rest of the morning I struggled through class, trying hard not to let any tears fall.
Best and Worst Day for Two Friends
It was the darkest day I had ever experienced to that date, and it remains the most dreadful day I have ever lived. But for a friend of mine, that same day was one of the best days of her life. It was her 16th birthday, and she received one of the best birthday gifts I could imagine. A male classmate of ours confessed his love for her and asked her to be in a relationship with him.
They have been together ever since and have grown stronger as a couple and family every year. Of course, I was happy for her, because she had just started the journey toward her love life’s happy ending. But my heart was too broken to celebrate without mourning my own loss.
Knowing God restores joy after suffering, I longed for joy to be restored to me. I had little idea of how I could be truly happy again without the heart of the one I loved most, but I decided to hold on to God’s promise.
Psalm 51:12 – “Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
John 16:24 – “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”
Someday He would fulfill that promise to me, if I followed Him in the midst of my heartbreak. And while I wished most for fullness of joy to overflow from my heart again, I could wish for nothing but joy for my newly romantically committed friends too. They deserved to be happy – I just wouldn’t be for a while until God restored my own joy.
Turning Point for the Worse to Get Better
People often reflect on pivotal moments in their lives that cause a sort of division in their life history. For many of my fellow Hope Moms, it is when their babies died. For me, it is that day twenty years ago when the reality of romantic rejection set in.
Before May 10, 2006, I had been hurt, heartbroken, and felt helpless. But all I had experienced before that day was nothing compared to the grief and misery that became my new reality for several months after that. Even when my daughter was stillborn in 2019, her death did not break me like romantic rejection did.
Missing the Love in Front of Me
In losing my last hope that he would ever love me back, I lost most of my will to live. With God’s help, I made it through the last 2 weeks of the school year and the summer months without much trouble. But a month or two into the next school year, when I was in the boy’s presence once again, I struggled not to relapse.
What I had been missing was right in front of me, and still not having his love in return seemed unbearable. Depression and despair began to threaten my peace of mind. I needed something to keep me sane, something to make my heart smile again for more than a moment.
Of course, what I really needed to do was run to Jesus, whose love also was right in front of me. I prayed to Him every day, but I did not quite completely trust in Him alone to fill the emptiness. I pursued other boys while at the same time trying to surrender my heart to my Savior.
Expending enormous emotional energy trying to make one of them ‘the one’, I ended up pushing them away. I either freaked them out with stalkerish behavior or vacillated too much because the one who had rejected me still had my heart.
The weight of it all was overwhelming. Multiple prayers daily for help and strength were necessary even to keep up with normal life functions. I couldn’t bear the burden on my own.
From the December of Depression to the Next Year’s New Beginning
1 Peter 2:9 – “Proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
Things really got quite a lot worse before they got better. I would have settled for dating any guy within a few years of my age who had any romantic interest in me. More than one boy stopped talking to me at all because of my desperate behavior. By December 2007, the depression I experienced was so severe that I call it my life’s December of Depression.
At the very end of December, after I failed to secure a date for New Year’s Eve, I finally gave up pursuing anyone. It clearly wasn’t working and I had had enough of feeling so miserable. That was when things started to get better, because reaching such a low point caused me to depend fully on Christ.
The turn of the new year 2008 was a much-needed new beginning. I learned to stop following my own heart and start trusting fully in God’s plan. It took several more months, but little by little, He broke the shackles of my felt need for requited love. Thus, He opened my hands and my heart to receive the gift of His sufficient grace instead.
2 Corinthians 9:15 – “Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!”
Jesus Is the Strong Anchor of Hope
Twenty years ago, my strength ran out and my hope needed a renewed foundation. Darkness nearly overtook me during the December of Depression. From my heart I sang, “Only loving you empowers me, yet at the same time makes me weak.”
In writing these lyrics I meant my love for him motivated me more than anything else. However, because of that it also made me more vulnerable than anything else.
Jesus was my strength in the weakness exposed by my loss of hope. (2 Corinthians 12:9) He was my light and salvation in the deep darkness of misery and despair. (Psalm 27:1) Only trusting Him empowered me to let go of my desires and finally embrace the wonderful future He wanted for me.
Victory by Walking with Jesus
Today, twenty years later, I celebrate the great victory He has given me over the stronghold that once threatened my life. Truly, I never got exactly what I wanted with all my heart. Nevertheless, with my whole heart I can say what I have instead is much better: a closer relationship with Jesus.
Hebrews 6:19 – “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.”
No earthly relationship, no matter how close to one’s fantasy, can compare to walking with Him through life every day. So in Him alone I trust, in Him alone I enjoy unfailing hope, and in Him alone I have complete joy and peace. Whatever the next twenty years may bring, nothing can steal my hope or my joy. Jesus is forever the strong anchor of my soul’s hope.