Pain and Joy

Relationships are so interesting. The closest ones often involve the deepest love, as well as the deepest pain. When you trust someone, or when there is a lot of history, there is so much more potential to be loved, and to be hurt as well.

I have been experiencing both sides of the spectrum in different relationships lately.

My relationship with Nathan has continued to blossom into a God-honoring, blessed relationship. Sure, we make our mistakes along the way, and we have our moments, but we are loving each other more and more. I have been learning to open myself up more, and have had to face "relationship demons" I didn't even know I had. I am so, so, so glad that God brought us together and I can't wait to see where God leads us.

We recently asked a married couple at our church to mentor us in our relationship. Neither of us have a married person we can go to easily, so we decided to ask this couple to essentially be that for us. After church on Saturday, we both had separate conversations with them and ended up being the last 4 people to leave. I am excited to see how God teaches us through them and how our relationships with them develop. As all four of talked as we were leaving, both Nathan and I were struck with how well it seems this will work, as their personalities and relationship dynamic is very similar to ours, just more seasoned. I'm glad that now I have someone who is willing to share her wisdom with me, and whom I can ask questions that I can't really ask my single friends.

Now, on the other side of the relationship spectrum, my relationship with my dad has been interesting lately. Having both family relationship and work relationship stuff to deal with is straining our communication. There are times I wish I could just "run away" basically and not have to deal with it. My dad can hurt me so deeply sometimes, and I don't even know if he really realizes it.

Yesterday, we had a counseling session together. It didn't go quite like I had hoped. I was hoping dialogue could be opened and our communication could get a jump-start. But it doesn't seem to me like that happened. My dad got there before I did. When I walked into the room, I immediately felt like a deer caught in headlights. I don't know what kinda of spiritual stuff was going on as well, but I was incredibly emotional the entire time. My dad seemed to be really on edge and kept being really wierd towards me. It felt like the most hurtful parts of our relationship surfaced and I felt emotionally beat up afterwards, even though we were only in there together for about 20 minutes.

We're meeting again next week, but I'm both hopeful and nervous. I just don't want to end up getting hurt because of my vulnerability and attempt to get things resolved, and not have any fruit come of it.

This stuff is frickin hard.