Holes.

I have one more story that I think needs dredging up now.

Retreat was held at Carthage College. I rave about running through Pioneer Park, but Carthage is where I fell head over heels in love with God's inexplicably beautiful creation. This is where I felt the purest compassion and remorse, the shaking grip of my soul being violently cleansed by what I know to be the Holy Spirit. This is where I was okay. This is where the rising sun ceaselessly floods the lake. This is where I sat on the rocks, utterly alone, singing I Will Rise to the crashing waves.

This is where I stood, one year later, behind the doors of the sanctified praise and prayer night room. I was trying to forgive someone; I was confessing; I was crying; I was giving up the iron fist of my sins. But none of these thoughts were heard. He wasn't listening. After so long, he still didn't understand. One of my best friends turned down my offer to pray for her. And it went on. People did not want me to pray for them. I was terrified because something was wrong. Something fundamentally wrong with me made itself so obvious. Our pastor warned us about people of other belief systems. Their prayers brought demons. These people... like me.

But I want to say this. Regardless of my questionable, endless corruption, there was one moment during last year's retreat that shook me. It happened outside those doors. Another friend asked to pray for me. He was a character intertwined complexly in the realm of relationships, especially this one. It was not to his fault; my affections for his friendship are completely assured and without a single thread of anger. He prayed not in tongues but in truth and ingenuity and absolute friendship. We sat apart, hand in hand, and the tide of unprecedented, unstained understanding and gratefulness washed through. And then we stood not even an inch apart, and everything I thought I believed about my circumstances was broken.

Although hindsight bias can make moments a lot more dramatic than they are, I spent the rest of the night shivering uncontrollably and in mass confusion. And this is where I could no longer tell anyone the truth, and so then, two holes were shot through my life. One is bitterly crumbled in stitches, closed. One is vacant, and I expect it to never be fully occupied again.

We can bump heads. We can have the hardest conversations about love and hurt and pick up emergency Skype calls immediately. We can build memory palaces together. We can run and sweat and you can surprise me from behind and tell me your deepest faults. You can tell the most wonderful, stupid jokes in the world. You can teach me everything about those forbidden topics. We can be blatantly honest and wholeheartedly loving, but that little hole is reserved. Reserved for no one left.

Its best this way.