I recently had to confess to my accountability partner about a reaction I gave to a message I received and replied to on Facebook. It took talking with him to realize just how wrong I was too.
Background: Amy and I dated for 10 months almost a decade ago. During our relationship I did a couple of things right, first off it was hands off. We didn't kiss until the last couple weeks or so of our relationship. That saved me a lot of pain when we did eventually split up. Second off, I got creative and wrote a poem to her and superimposed it onto a picture she took. The picture was of a camping trip she went on in Hawaii. She fell over herself on how much she liked the picture, but she didn't seem to like our relationship enough to fix it when it started to have issues so it died. Or better said after I had enough I killed it.
Getting into why I killed it is a long story, but suffice to say she was not all that good at communication or conflict resolution. After ten months of dating she didn't know whether or not she loved me, among other things. When the relationship ended it was not pretty. I was not being very forthcoming in talking about why I ended it, and she was being cruelly manipulative in attempts to get what she wanted. That with a few more reasons caused our breakup to get a little ugly. It ended with me pretty much hoping I never heard from her again.
In all honesty I had forgiven her soon after this all happened, and had mostly forgotten about it. In fact the poem I wrote was the one, of the plethora of poems I authored, that I was remotely happy with. Thus the poem and picture have always been a happy memory for me about something good I did. I had just detached the memory of who the poem was for and made it a general truth about who I wanted to be. So when I posted the poem and picture with it on my Facebook page I never thought anything about it.
So when I heard from her via Facebook message of all things, I was shocked. But I must admit, I was not upset as much that she had sent me a message, but rather that she was able to send me a message. I thought that I had made my self unsearchable to anyone that I didn't want to find me. I had this mental barrier set up that protected myself from anyone being able to hurt me again. If no one that had ever hurt me could contact me ever again, then I could control my life a bit better. This is where I say that pride sucks! It was my pride that was injured more than anything.
Before I should have I popped off the above response. I really didn't want to be hurtful with my words, but looking back on it now, I was really wrong in saying what I did the way I did. What I was really saying was, "How dare you try and contact me again! I don't want anything to do with you!"
I have had to go to God and ask forgiveness for this, it was very wrong of me. I am so surprised how the sinful nature can still sneak up and stab me when I am not prepared for it. God is slowly pruning me of things I never new where an issue. I obviously had never really forgiven her, or at least had not continually forgiven her of all the hurt I had received 9 years ago. I feel like a stupid teenager again, for that is what my response was, immature.
I can make all kinds of arguments on her being in the wrong, but that would be just rationalization of my wrong comments. I have since apologized in the most sincere way I know how. I find myself quoting Romans 7 over and over again. "Oh Wretched man that I am who will free me from this body of death."
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