When I received the call from my friend about driving their car out there I jumped at the chance. I saw it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! All of my expenses would be covered. I saw it as an adventure. The last time I had a road trip out West, it was a family vacation out to Provo, Utah, up to Seattle to visit family, through Sioux Falls after a wild tornado chasing us through the plains, and back to Cincinnati. I was 5. My memories, like the towns in South Dakota, are a little sparse. When I got off the phone, I could hardly contain my excitement!
All of that excitement went up in smoke after a brief conversation with my dad about the trip. He thought that it was a baaaaaad idea. For two weeks we went back and forth about it. I was set on going, he was insistent that I not. In addition, my mom was completely terrified- I mean, terrified- about me making the journey all by myself. I even received a phone call from my brother in Afghanistan telling me not to go and that I "need[ed] to find some new friends." I was hurt. Hurt that my family didn't trust me, hurt that they didn't approve of my choice of friends (trust me, these friends are compassionate, loving, faithful friends of mine from church, friends who were there for me during a very lonely and difficult time earlier in the year), hurt that they wouldn't support me, hurt by the way they approached the situation, and downright disappointed. They treated it like a crisis in which they had to intervene.
About a week before the trip, my dad arranged to meet me somewhere between Cincy and Nashville so that we could talk about this in person. I was hesitant, but knew there was no way out other than to completely blow him off, which was not an option. My dad has always been my biggest cheerleader. But after dinner that night, he said to me, "I have always supported you. When you moved to Nashville, even though I didn't want to see you go, I supported you. But I will not support you in this." It was at that point I had a complete emotional breakdown, right there in Cracker Barrel. I refused to let him comfort me (he was the catalyst for my immediate pain), and so, he paid the bill and we finished the conversation sitting in his car in the dimly lit parking lot.
I didn't know what to say. I didn't want to say anything. Mostly what I expressed was how I had been so excited, then let down by my family's opinions. In the back of my mind, I knew that things were hard and that I'd been going through a lot for many months. Unemployment. Loneliness. All of the emotions of it came crashing down in uncontrollable waves as I sat, silently.
In those September days leading up to my meeting with Dad, I spoke with several friends about the matter. I knew women my age and younger who had driven across the country with one or two other ladies, one friend even by herself (to Colorado and back) many times. They had taken different routes, not through the northern states, but they had done it nonetheless, and they would do it again, even choose to take the solo adventure I was hoping for. But my family would probably say something to the effect of, "Your friends don't love you the way we love you." I wonder what they would think if I were a full-time touring independent musician. What if that were my calling? In the end, I didn't make a better decision by not going. I crumbled under pressure, and that's why I chose not to go.
All of this leads me to something else almost entirely. Faith and..... blame.
When I was in the seventh grade, my mom left my dad. After months of heartache and my dad talking about it in nearly every blame-filled conversation, I finally said to him one day, "She's not coming back to you." To which he replied, "Because you don't have enough faith in God." He threw that at me like a major league curveball. Like it was my fault, like my faith was not good enough. And honestly, on that night in September, I wanted to send it back his way. He was scared for my life and disapproving of my decisions because he didn't have the faith that God would see me there, provide for my every need, and keep me safe. I believe that's partly true. But because I'm a broken person, I would've sailed that ball his way blaming him for my all-encompassing pain.
I could talk about trusting in God's provision at length because of all the times He has provided for me in ways that left me without words other than "Praise the Lord." But the point is that in all practicality, sometimes circumstances work out in a different way than we hope, and that we can't blame anyone even if they have grieved you or me in some process or another. Blame doesn't do a thing for you. It is a false oath and the most un-healing of practices.
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