Hey Ladies,

There is a specific kind of pain that comes when someone walks away from you.

It doesn’t just break your heart, but it rewrites how you see yourself.  It makes you feel insignificant.  Replaceable.  Forgettable.  Like no one is choosing you and maybe never has.

I just experienced loss in many forms, but the one that’s hitting the hardest right now is the one who chose to leave.  He said it wasn’t me.  He said all the right things.  We parted amicably.  But I still feel like I’m not good enough because he didn’t choose me.

He cares about me, but not enough to stay.  Not enough to value me or what we had.  Not enough to make more memories and plans for things we’d do in the future.  It’s over and the hole is huge.  Will I really never see him again?  I can’t bear that thought.  Especially while I’m feeling like if I had done better, tried harder, did something different, or was good enough, maybe he would have stayed.

I don’t have a large community or a long list of people to call.  So when someone leaves my life, romantically or otherwise, it creates a noticeable absence.  A gap that feels louder because there isn’t much noise around it to soften the blow.  And it’s even more unbearable when the person I lost was the one who I’d turned to for the best and most loving hugs when I’m sad.  The one person who could make it all better no matter what it was.  And now he’s gone.

Loss, for me, has rarely been abstract.  It has felt personal.  Repeated.  Patterned.  Historically nobody has chosen me for the long road.  I’m divorced.  I’m single.  I have nobody.

And that pattern is what hurts the most.

It’s not just that one person didn’t choose me (although that one person is huge and deeply impactful and current).  It’s that it feels like no one ever does.  Not for the long road.  Not permanently.  Not when it gets hard.  I keep being loved in moments or for only certain things and situations, but not in long-lasting decisions.  I’m wanted in pieces, but not chosen in full.  There’s no permanent seat for me at anyone’s table.

And when that keeps happening, it stops feeling like coincidence and starts feeling like a verdict about who I am and what I’m worth.

Even when I know in my head that a relationship might not have been right, my heart still aches with the same questions:  Why does it always end with them leaving?  What did I do wrong?  Why am I never good enough?  Why does nobody choose me?

And those questions don’t stay confined to relationships.  When I’m grieving, they also start to creep into my faith.  As a believer, I know in my head the “right” answer.  I know Jesus died for my sins.  I know God loves me.  I know I am valued.  But in the sad times, my mind twists that truth into something that seems to make more sense in my heart at that moment.

He didn’t choose ME.  He chose everyone.  It was a blanket salvation for all of us.  Nothing was personal.  Nothing was special just for me.

And then I feel guilty for even wanting it to be personal.  Desiring to be uniquely chosen by God or by a person makes me selfish and faithless.  But that’s not true.  Wanting to be chosen doesn’t mean I doubt God.  It means I’m human and suffering.  And the truth is, Jesus may have died for everyone, but He still saw individuals.  Here’s what I’m slowly learning, even through the tears and this unbearable heartbreak I never asked for:

He still stopped for the one woman at the well.

He still wept for that one friend.

He still left the ninety-nine for the one.

He still chose ME.

Even when my worldly person didn’t.

Love lost by a significant person does not cancel personal worth.  Being left by people does not mean you are unchosen by God.  And maybe the real work of grief isn’t convincing ourselves that we aren’t good enough, but learning how to hold our worth steady even when others choose to walk away.  Grief is inevitable in this life.  But we can’t let it steal our self worth or our joy and maybe that’s the point of grief and the lesson we’re supposed to work on.

I don’t have this figured out.  I’m writing this with a broken heart, not a healed one.  The pain I’m in today is new and raw and real.  But I’m trying in these first few days when I feel disposable and unloved and not good enough, to remember that my worth isn’t proven by who stays.  It isn’t erased by who leaves by choice.

And maybe being chosen by God doesn’t always look like being spared from loss.  He never promised that.  Maybe it looks like being carried through the heartache, like a subtle hug that’s so very needed, and like someone’s weeping with me even though nobody is physically present.  Even when you don’t feel strong, faithful, or special at all, He’s still there.  Despite the person who chose to leave no longer being there.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; He rescues those whose spirits are broken. Psalms 34:18

To the person I lost, I miss you already.  More than a little.  I don’t know how to have a life that doesn’t include you.  You’ve always existed and now you left.  I just wish I was enough for you.  I wish you chose me.  But even though you didn’t, God did.  I’m suffering, but He’s with me and he chose me.