.: the space between - pt. 1 :.

(This is to be the first part of a three part post. It comes out of what most of my posts come out of - experience, feelings, and emotions, with God moving and speaking in and through all of it.)



We live and struggle and deeply desire in the space between what our friendships and relationships could be, and what they really are (less than what we had hoped for and still continue to hope for). Every relationship around us has a potential, and for those that have not experienced the probable width, breadth, and depth of any particular relationship, that person comes face-to-face with the question of what could be done to fix that, and even more, are they even capable of doing it.



So many of us have friendships that ultimately changed in the context of the other party either dating, romantically involved, engaged, or even married (the unchangeable, inevitable factor – one that has haunted each and everyone of us above 20 years old). And in those friendships, there was a limit to what we could experience with that person in the context of the given relationship. For in the end, they would one day say their vows to that third party and they would, in essence, commit themselves to a deeper friendship than anything that you two ever experienced in the past. So all along the path, up to the marriage, there is a progressing movement in their “engaging” (I intend the double meaning) relationship that moves beyond what mutually takes place between the casual, even close, friendship that you share together in.



It feels like such an offense because that perceived "intruder" is able to successfully move into the life of that person that you knew long before that point. In turn, they are able to experience and move up to and beyond what you shared as friends, and ultimately surpass you in an act of claiming the single position in their life that was formally left empty. And in the lives of those who do not possess the same quality of relationship with someone else (i.e., “single”), it is felt that much more of a violation of the heart.



(more to come...)