Well, that didn't last long.

I've been around the block a time or two.  Sometimes it's easy for me, and for people that don't know me all that well to not realize the breadth of the experiences I've had.  Nobody's seen it all but I've seen quite a bit in my half-century on the planet and for the life of me I will never understand what happened to me.

At the outset I thought it was just a test to see if I would and I did.  I talked about why Cindy was back in my life and I won't talk about why she's not; mostly because right now I still don't understand why she's not.  I doubt I ever will.  But I will tell you how it happened.

I was talking to my dear friend and I told her point blank that I was dating Cindy again but it was weird.  She told me Cindy had to go.  Four hours later, I called Cindy all happy and started asking about our plans for this weekend.  Three minutes into the conversation, Cindy and I were not dating anymore.  She asked me if we could still be friends and I said yes, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized, no, no we can't be friends.

This(?) is where it gets weird.  I get a text from Cindy asking if everything is OK with me.  Yeah, you broke my heart again, it's six billion degrees in the hangar, and my life is topsy-turvy but other than that I'm fine.  She said to try her life and I pointed out that I did and I was politely invited to leave it.  I did take the opportunity, one last one, to ask her not to do this and tell her that she was making one hell of a mistake.  In the rowboat story analogy, that was the same thing as "the flood is coming, get in the helicopter".  At this point, we were still Facebook friends.  

On my evening break, I checked my Facebook page and she'd posted that something was wrong or something wrong was going to happen.  Well, I know what the wrong was but I didn't choose that for me.  That she did on her own so I said everything on my end was fine and I asked her if she'd like me to mail back the photos of her I asked for as a birthday gift and a sweater she left here.  That made her mad, I think.

When I woke up this morning, we weren't Facebook friends anymore and we exchanged a couple of notes.  I would have preferred to have the conversation face to face but this is the new century and I guess we don't do that.  I got a note from her but when I logged into my Facebook page I noticed something was different.  Yup, got unfriended for the pictures remark.  But she unfriended me and friended someone else, so for her it was even.  

So that's the break up story.  

Here's where it gets really weird.  I received my own friend request tonight from someone who really and truly is a friend of mine.  Circumstances have changed and are changing fast in both our lives and I'm praying like there's no tomorrow about what's going on in my life.  I looked at some pictures my friend has online and some of them were from an outing I took with her and her kids to a lake.  It brought back a funny memory when I desperately needed a laugh.  

This thing with Cindy hurt.  I could have lived my life without it, from my point of view, but I still believe God is sovereign and that it didn't catch Him by surprise.  I see a lot of things coming together that still don't make sense to me but I'm praying and seeking good counsel about them.  I was able to tell my friend about the crazy dream that messed me up and the odd stuff that happened after I had it.  

We are both very clear about what our relationship is, before anyone starts reading things into things that aren't there.  My friend is dealing with a terrible mess not of her making and is getting godly counsel from people in her life, as am I.  Each of us needs time and space to heal from broken promises and broken relationships.  There are many, many miles separating us which is a good thing.  No rebounds for either of us.  But my friend is that, and my life has been missing something with her absence from it.

I told her not to read anything into the stuff I told her; that I was just telling her a story and hopefully she can help me make some sense of it.  I can't to this day.  And I took my hands off the steering wheel of my life.  At this point, God has the wheel and I'm not making any more decisions.  I'm taking care of what my responsibilities are and keeping my side of the street clean.

I'm sad at the loss of Cindy.  I'm sad things didn't go well for my friend.  I also know that God has His hand in the middle of my life and that tonight, even though I have a bit of a heavy heart, that I'm right in His will for me.  

And He gave me my friend back.