Here you go. It might take a while, but I hope it's worth the time you maybe take to read it.

Story - from one perspective



Once upon a time there was a girl. This girl had a great big heart, so big that she wanted to fit everyone inside it. Her heart hurt when other hearts hurt, her stomach got nervous when other people got nervous, and her face beamed at good news, any good news. She had blonde curls and happy blue eyes, but she didn't feel very good about herself. She figured it was possible that she'd never interest any guy, since they always fell in love with her best friends. She thought maybe it was a hidden syndrome, one that exhibited the strange symptom of always having friends that are admired by all.

This girl was mostly content her first year of school. She started to learn to like herself just as her God had designed her. She started to believe that He really did have a plan for her life. And then He gave her a name. She was named Redeemed. But she still felt lonely sometimes, especially when her roommate/best friend acquired a boyfriend at the beginning of the year. But she learned to run to her Redeemer when her heart was troubled and He always gave her solace.

Redeemed made a friend who lived miles and miles away. She never met him, but they began to be friends anyways. Redeemed greatly admired the heart of the man and hoped one day that Redeemer would bring her to someone a little like him. She liked the way he loved people too, she liked that he had poetry in his voice, and she liked that he helped her to see Redeemer even more clearly. But she didn't think very much about the friendship at first, because Man lived so far away. And then God pulled her in spring time to a land far away, a land with many hurting people, a land with dirt and beautiful rains and enormous thunder storms. Redeemed loved Faraway, but she missed some of the people she knew at home. And then Redeemed realized that she missed Man very much more than she should.

When Redeemed came home, she was brimming full of stories to tell, and Man was one of the people she most wanted to tell. She wanted to see what he had to say and what he thought about the stories. She wanted to see if he could help her see Redeemer even more clearly. But that was as far as she let herself think of Man.

After two weeks, Redeemed began to see how very much she admired him. But she prayed to Redeemer, "Please, Oh great Father, my heart is yours to give to whom you will and yours to keep as you will. Guard it and protect it and oh! take away this inkling of desire to know Man, for I know he will never return it."

Less than 24 hours later, Man told Redeemed that he wanted to know her. Redeemed, shocked and surprised and delighted at this turn of events, asked her God if it was right to tell Man how she felt, and He answered in affirmation. Such excitement and dread did this raise in her heart, for she knew that no matter what, this bend in the road was going to be a hard one. But she tasted true Peace. She was still in the palm of her Redeemer's hand.

Man and Redeemed got to know each other, trying to stay objective and knowing that their God gives and their God takes away. They remembered repeatedly how He warned them, "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.'" And so they said "If it is our God's will, we will live and do this or that." They made plans cautiously with much prayer.

Man and Redeemed still had never met. Man was hoping to come visit at the end of summer. They wanted to see if their God would direct them further in whether to continue to get to know each other or if they ought to go their separate ways. The best way they could think to find out was to meet face-to-face.

The beginning of summer began. Redeemed ran home to her family and dove into a full life of work and play, and always there was the hope of Man. Maybe she sometimes began to forget to add "If it is the Lord's will." Maybe she didn't forget. But Peace began to fade a little. Redeemed should have taken the ebbing of the edible Peace as a sign to tell Man not to come, but she didn't have the courage. She decided to continue to hope, though she didn't hear Man's voice as often as she had. "We're both busy," she said, but she knew there was more to it than that.

Then, one night, Man's voice, nervous and jumpy. "I am not coming," he said. Redeemed started to cry, quietly, and let him go, though her heart began to hurt very much. The promise to never hurt her broke, though she knew it wasn't an honest promise in the first place. She had seen enough of the world to know that Men and Women fail and hurt others, despite their best intentions. That didn't lessen the hurt of the friendship snatched away.

Redeemed kept smiling. She pushed a great deal of the pain deep inside, only to be let out when she was by herself with her God. She knew that night she heard Man's voice for the last time that this was the right way. The flow of the Peace flooded again, and she was warmed to think of the friendship as being one characterized by their God's Peace. Nonetheless, Redeemed wanted to heal, and so she removed all external reminders of Man's place in her life, continuing to thank Redeemer for His work of redemption, His sovereignty, and His grace. She thought of Man less than she thought she would, and perhaps it was because she didn't know what to think.

In early Autumn, Redeemed heard from Man again, this time only to read his words in an aquarium of text and color. Man apologized for the hurt he knew he had caused, and Redeemed assured him that he had been forgiven months before. But she wasn't sure she was ready to let him back into the great big heart that wanted to swallow everyone else. She prayed to her God and decided that the hurt hadn't healed quite enough to let Man back in, and decided that perhaps if he contacted her again sometime she would reconsider. She didn't think she would hear from him.

Holiday passed by and the chill of winter held the world in its grip. Then, once again, Man's voice was heard. Redeemed, startled and unsure of what to think and do at so unexpected a call, feared she was too short and abrupt in extricating herself from the voice. Man never gave a reason for contacting her, but she decided, once again through prayer to her God, that she was ready to attempt to let man in for friendship again, if he could give her a reason for speaking again after so long a silence. She wasn't opening herself to him for Friendship, no, not anymore. Just friendship.

So she sent her polite letter through the aquarium to Man, only asking how he had been, hoping that she would see his words in return. In just a few days, the reply was received, and he told her that he had been in an accident before Holiday and had hurt his head. Redeemed, with her big heart, was saddened and shocked by this news, and she wrote back to tell Man so. At the end of the second letter, she included a simple line: "Was there anything in particular that you wanted when you called the other evening? I hoped later that I didn't cut you off from talking about something specific."

Redeemed waited a month for a response. And she is still waiting. She fears that a response was sent and not received by fault of an imperfect communication system. She fears that she offended, and she sometimes struggles with wanting to know how Man is and why he didn't come in the summer. She does not want Man for a Friend anymore, since her God has shown her a great many things about Himself that she didn't know before. But she doesn't like being un-friends with anyone, and she would like some resolution. She is thinking about writing another letter to Man to explain her simple line and why it was asked. She did not mean to offend or pressure Man too terribly. She only wants to know where his intentions lie.