The Distance Between

I was the girl who was everybody's friend. I was funny and nice and smart and loud and weird. I played the saxophone in band, the piano in chorus, and the hussy in school musicals, but in real life, I was completely chaste. I'd like to say it was because of my strong moral fiber, but mostly it was because there weren't any inquiries. It was easy to maintain my virginity when no one was interested in procuring it.

Most of the time I could convince myself that it didn't matter. I embraced my weirdness. I did things that would insure that I would still have friends, but that any lack of interest in me wasn't because I wasn't pretty or desirable, but instead because I was just too much for a regular high school boy. I joked with the boy I liked at the cast party, but I went home and cried after because he confided that he wanted to date my friend, not me.

I wasn't exactly rejected...I just wasn't pursued.


The distance between 16 and 30 is almost indistinguishable sometimes.

I was sitting in a living room with two people who had told me that they loved me. They had told me that they supported me. They had told me that they wanted me to be a part of what they were doing.

But when I showed a little bit of who I was and people in their congregation were frightened by that, these people reneged on everything.

Oh, they didn't say that. They didn't kick me out of the church. They still said that they loved me and that they supported me. I just wasn't submissive enough. I wasn't embracing the vision of the church. I was just a little too different, too loud, too weird. I could go to church there, but I couldn't do the one thing that I was created to do. That was for other people, not for me.

I wasn't exactly rejected...I just wasn't pursued.

These stories are not the full measure of me. I have been pursued. By a faithful husband. By an unfailing God. By people who refuse to allow me to be counted strictly by what I can provide for them, but rather for who I am. I cling to these relationships because they allow me to know that my value is far greater than what I can see on my own. But the pain of lack of pursuit still gnaws at me.

The distance between being ignored and being rejected is almost indistinguishable sometimes.