I’ve been looking through my old stuff and blog posts today and I took note on what Grace did recently; she very honestly note to me at Beth’s birthday party the other day… well…
Basically what she said was this: Calvin, you’ve been around.
Then in true best-friend-cum-ex-girlfriend manner she listed the names of people since late high school.
So I was a little girl-crazed. And that (and she knows this) did not end even after the months with Grace. Even time in ministry didn’t “cure” this.
It took me a wrong relationship choice (and series of choices) to actually knock myself in the head and realise what I’ve been doing wrong.
It took God to knock me in the head, really.
Then He slowly allowed me to re-examine my previous experiences and how they’ve put me, 21 years young, in a much better place than, well, 18-year old Calvin.
I realised that out of out of the many, only very few have been able to teach me a few lessons of my own.
(Grace? yes, she still teaches me lessons, trust me)
From these very few, one was the one I made the wrong choices with and was unequally yoked.
That lesson was from God to me, straight on.
But I’d like to touch on two people today whose lives they led influenced me and wowed me, even to today.
Person One.
This girl in college I strongly pursued, albeit knowing she liked another (who has feelings for her in return, and was waiting for her). They weren’t officially together at the time so at eighteen I figured what the heck.
She was one of the first people to convince me to stop the cigarettes.
She was a strong, Godly woman.
I was intrigued by this person, and mostly, in hindsight, by her faith and faithfulness: especially in knowing how not to be unequally yoked.
I wasn’t a church-going person. At that time, I believed but I didn’t bother. I was out to live life to the full in another direction and she knew that.
She told me that God will help me get out of bad-for-health habits.
She told me she prays for me. (That I totally fell heads over heels for)
So we went out a few times. Lunches at college, and as more as she shared her life with me I began to realise that living life to the full wasn’t much what I did after all.
Now to the bad part. I knew she had this other guy, but I played my cards and we got emotionally entangled anyway.
I also knew she never had a slow-dance before.
We planned senior prom together.
There was the win, thought I, back then.
So I went up to her and asked her for a dance. Her FIRST dance. And then I whisked her away after the soft songs died down and we sat somewhere quiet. She was tired and leaned on me, and we talked. And I asked about who she was involved with.
She admitted she was confused.
But I didn’t ask her to be with me. I didn’t insist. I didn’t go Meredith Grey and say pick me, pick me!
Instead, I asked her things like: Who do you love? Who suits you best? That’s who you go for.
And two weeks later she got together with the guy who waited for her.
I gutted myself for not insisting.
But then doing that, I may not have been led to Person Two.
This one was a very public, but at the same time, very private and personal year-plus long tango which everyone has either heard a snippet, guessed who it was, or seen us together, that’s the public part.
The personal part was that I wasn’t ready, and neither was she.
This one involved a lot of drama, and totally put me off dramatic relationships for, well, life.
She taught me how to fall in love. There. I said it. Those three words though never got to her (until now when I tell it to the world).
But indirectly, she did teach me a few other things:
Early on as I first left for Australia, the distance and the presence of ‘competition’ from a good friend convinced me, at one point, to give her up. I heard he told her and she reacted positively. So that was end-game for me.
She taught me to let go, and let God.
And He has a wicked sense of humour.
I let her go, and not very long later she spilled about what really happened between her and our good friend. And no, she did not feel the same way.
And so I deduced, if she doesn’t like him, she likes…
And after awhile I told her how I felt.
And she said the same.
Then the long distance in-between began. It climaxed when I literally ran home from Melbourne at the start of the summer break just to see her.
I had to admit that first days back was the high of my life. And then it all went back to Earth.
This was because there was deep emotional entanglement coexisting with limited boundaries and not-settled-yet decisions.
We were the ultimate in betweens.
End story, she had to decide for us and said no, just before the end of my break.
That, kinda… well… Sucked. At the time. But I thank God for that decision.
Hard pill to swallow, it was, but it was harder for the one who said it, rather than the one who heard it. Speaks loads about her strength, maturity and faithfulness to go through with the hard decisions…
…Characters that I adore and try to emulate even today.
Looking back, one thought which came to my head was maybe I wasn’t man enough to insist or ask, or persist at the beginning, much like the situation with Person One…
But I thank God for making me chicken the first two times because in a nutshell… Person One and Two made me a better person for Person Three.
His plan was flawless, and the rest they say, is history. Right, Mel? (:
calvintay; unplugged. 