Just Give Me Some Peace

May 25, 2011 by Ruth 3 Comments

*Part 8 in The Tour Guide Series.  You can read Part 7 here.

As you can imagine all sorts of things were running through The Tour Guide’s head at this point.  He was thoroughly confused.  Because he’d never been exposed to the fundamentalism of Southern Baptist Christianity he had no idea what I was going through.  No matter how much I tried to explain it, it made no sense to him whatsoever.  In fact the more I tried to explain it, the worse view he got of Christianity.  These concepts were so foreign to him they were almost unbelievable. He was just sure I’d found somebody else and was trying to let him down easy.  That couldn’t have been farther from the truth.  If I was going to be with anybody it was going to be The Tour Guide.   It didn’t take him long to realize that.

I was depressed and I was drowning in it.  So The Tour Guide thew me a life preserver.  He made the conscious decision to stick by me, to be a rock to anchor to.  Even if he didn’t understand all I was going through he could see I needed a friend.  So he dug in, gave me a shoulder to lean on and waited.  He backed off of the romantic relationship because he could see I was in trouble. 

My friend, Tessa, knew I was in trouble, too.  That’s when she drug me to North Georgia for deliverance.   When that didn’t work I fell even farther down the hole. The Tour Guide and I were still speaking every day. On Thanksgiving weekend I admitted to The Tour Guide that I was struggling in my faith.  I was having a crisis of faith that nearly drove me to a breakdown.  Everything I’d ever believed was challenged. 

  

He wasn’t in a position to answer my doubts or calm my fears.  He never tried to sway me in one direction or another.  But he always listened to me as I tried to wrestle these things out.  He was exactly what I needed him to be.  By early December I felt I was ready to give the relationship another go.  “Can we start over?”, I asked.  “We’ll have to take it slower, marriage is off the table for now. Do you think you can do that?  Take your time and think about it.  You don’t have to answer me now.”  “Let me think about it.  I don’t know.”, he said. I understood that.  I’d already snatched the rug out from under him and left him in whirlwind wondering what the heck just happened.

I decided not to pressure him for an answer.  In fact I didn’t bring it up again.  I waited for him.  “I’ve thought about it and I really want to give our relationship another go.  I love you so much.  But I’m trying to think about what’s best for both of us.  I need to be sure you’re ready to do that.”, he said a day or two later.  Finally he said, “Yes, I think I can do that.”   

It proved to be more difficult than he thought.  He was tentative and guarded.  And after Christmas he told me he thought we should just be friends.  He couldn’t take the wondering when I might freak out and break his heart again.  I couldn’t fault him. Now it was my turn to be patient and wait.  

I made an appointment with a therapist because I knew I needed help.  After everything I’d been through I just didn’t think getting on my face one more time before a God I wasn’t really even sure was there anymore was going to suddenly be the cure-all that I had been so confident in before.  I needed more than anything some peace.