feeling something...

“You can’t experience change without feeling something.” 

I’m not entirely certain where I came across these words, but I definitely didn’t come up with them on my own. Even still, they have brought me a certain sense of relief and release over the past few days.  One of my very best friends is getting married this month. THIS MONTH. The entire engagement was only four months long, so it always sounded soon; but now it sounds immediate, tangible, and that looming closeness has prompted the surge of feelings. 

There is such a deep joy - I absolutely love Amanda and have gotten to walk so closely beside her throughout this process. I have gotten to hear her heart, to watch that bridal glow, to dive head-first into every blissful detail - even today there have been a myriad of emails and a flurry of texts related to the wedding. And yet I know the silence is coming. On the other side of the aisle and the “I do” is a honeymoon and a time of distance to establish her new life and identity as Mrs. Amanda Roth. I want this for her with every single ounce and yet, there is this part of me that fears the upcoming goodbye. I have watched many a friend walk down the aisle, and inevitably the friendship changes. Sometimes it resurfaces and is even stronger and more beautiful than before and other times it disappears almost completely. Amanda has promised me I’m not losing a friend and I so badly want to believe her. And yet, even as I type this I find my heartbeat quickening and the tears beginning to brew. Will there still be space for me when there isn’t a wedding to plan? When there is a husband to come home to each night? She will have that built-in best friend to tell all her stories, to recount her day, to pour out her heart. She will have that friend, but will I have lost mine?

You can’t experience change without feeling something. Perhaps right now it is such a mix of somethings that I can’t really even make sense of it. There is joy and excitement and anticipation and a tiny hint of stress, there is so much love that my heart just might explode, there is hope and profound gratitude. And in the midst of all that glorious and rich there is also sorrow and disappointment and longing and loneliness and this looming sense of sad. I am totally and completely happy for her and yet it is still hard for me. Oh how I wish it didn’t have to be both. And yet I cannot even begin to wish I didn’t feel - it is the very essence of me and the basis for so much of my existence. I am all heart and I am so glad to be that way. I want this heart wrenchingly beautiful reality even if there are many tears in both laughter and pain. And I want this friendship even if only for the next 17 days. She has been one of the greatest gifts the Lord has ever seen fit to give me - and I will cherish and celebrate and come alongside for every single moment she’ll have me. Lord I just pray there truly is a lifetime of moments still to come.