To all of those who came before:
Thank you. Thank you for having the courage to end things, even though it may have been hard. Thank you for recognizing that I wasn’t “The One,” even if I told you that idea was insane. Thank you for letting me go so that God could bring something even more amazing into my life. Thank you for having the strength to walk away, even if it meant some broken hearts and tears fell along the way.
Dare I say it, thank you for breaking my heart. Fulton Sheen said that sometimes the only way that the good Lord can get into our hearts is to break them. Thanks for breaking mine so that He could enter in more deeply. Thank you for shaking my life up, for opening me up to new possibilities. Chances are that when you left I had to readjust my understanding of what my life would look like. You got me out of my comfort zone and into God’s heart, the only place I ever really found rest until the right one came along.
You could have held on, you could have stuck it out and tried to make it work. You could have fought the feeling that it wouldn’t have worked out in the end. You could have held on, knowing that I’d follow your lead and stick out to the bitter end. But instead you walked away. Honestly, I probably didn’t appreciate it at the time. I was probably pretty mad at you and thought some horrible things about you. I may have thought you were a coward for walking away. I’m sorry for that. If I’d had any idea what your walking away opened the door for, I wouldn’t have been so harsh. But that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? That we don’t know what’s coming, but we should be more charitable anyway, which is exactly why I’m writing you this letter.
In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m getting married. As I prepare for the wedding and the marriage, I realize with stunning clarity how none of this would have been possible if you’d stayed. We might have been happy, but you ending things when you did made the stars line up just right for this beautiful relationship to fall into place. If you had stayed even one day longer, I might still be bitter. I might not be writing this letter at all. I might not be marrying the man God made for me, and I for him. If you hadn’t walked away we might still be together, but we probably wouldn’t have been that happy. Who but God knows? All I know is that today, as I sit here and joyfully countdown the days until my wedding, I’m grateful for you in a whole new way. I’m grateful that you walked away so that all of this bliss could fall into place. You played a part in my fairy tale, and I hope I played a good part in yours. I hope one day, if it hasn’t happened already, that you find your reason to write a letter like this. I hope you are thankful for all of the ones that came before. Thanks for touching my life in the way God called you to, and for having the strength to let me go.
