BanAnna Crossing

God,

I’m sorry I’ve been away for so long. I haven’t written anything, and maybe I forgot. I couldn’t stand feeling so alone. I’m ashamed right now and want to hide even though I know you see me all the time and know me. There’s something more that I don’t have. I’m not the same person I was the last time I spoke to you.

But today someone talked to you for me, just to start me up again. I’d say I love you, but I don’t think I do, yet. I’d say I want to go to church, but I don’t think I do. It’s not that simple, anymore. Give me a reason and make it easier. Make me want to do it this time. Don’t let me fall down again!

~From the Anna Archive

A guy in my English class asked me my phone number today.  You are so totally jealous.  Yes you are.  I wanted to say no thanks I’m engaged and pregnant but that probably would have sent him screaming or made him huddle in the fetal position.  I’m letting you know that your fiancée is still totally hot stuff.

Could you edit a couple papers for me?  Please?  I’ll email them to you soon.  Let me change a few things so I don’t look like a complete idiot.

My devo today was on the first chapter of Ruth.  I’m moving all over the place, but it was really good.  I think it was in here because of commitment.  One of the questions it asked in the end was how life would be different.  Like if you were for some reason to be gone from my life, would I try to go back and live like I did before?  That was really tough for me to answer because so many things have changed!  I’m in New York, I’m going to have a baby in the spring.  I think it was trying to say that Ruth had been changed for the better when she was with her husband and Naomi.  She came to know God and even though she was a foreigner when worse came to worse she stuck with her convictions.  She stuck with Naomi out of loyalty to God.  Will I stay with God when you aren’t around?

It’s very relevant though!  Circumstances have us apart for this semester even though it is probably going to be very tough.  I know you’re always there for me, but I feel alone sometimes.  Am I going to stick with God?  When someone says it will be easier if I do it another way, am I going to listen to them or remember what I committed to?  Promise that you’ll keep me going.

~From the Anna archive.

Back in summer before my Senior year, a lot of things happened.  The first was an epic adventure in Northeast Minnesota called Leadership Quest.  It was a program that basically taught high school kids their strengths and weaknesses in a Christian environment, and also focused on evangelism; both cold and friendship-based.  You know, bridge diagrams, breaking down Romans 6:23, and just being Christian to other people.  And this place also taught me a lot about prayer, and I would say a three hour period of prayer in solitude was a life-changing experience.  Hey – I still remember it.

At the end of the camp, many of us wanted to stay in contact and gave away personal email addresses.  I was still back in the dark ages, so I had to give away my parents’.  Upon returning home, I immediately set up my own personal address.  It felt so cool.  “Hoppy,” unfortunately, is a common nickname for all beings Hopkins, and I had to add numbers, so my moniker was my nickname and the last four digits of my cell phone number.

I still keep in touch with a couple people from that camp… in fact, pretty much only the international people.  Japan, South Africa, New Zealand…

Then I went to hurdle camp.  And you were there.  You were the first person with whom I shared the Gospel.  Crazy the coincidences, aren’t they?  And then I gave you my email address after it was all over.

And then you had to create your own. 

And you took the mispronunciation of your name and capped it off with four numbers eerily similar to mine.  Just to mess with me.

Believe me, it did.  I actually slowly leveled off our email conversations because I felt guilty – I already had a girlfriend at the time.  Maybe we both realized that any kind of relationship – friendship, romantic, or even discipleship – wasn’t very practical over 250 miles.  So once a day turned into once a week, then a couple times a month, then during important events like birthdays and finals.

I really wish I could have done more and been there for you during those long years.  But I am glad I went out on a limb and asked for your home address to send you a support letter.  That single act probably changed my life.

I miss you.  I’m going to post some of your stuff every once in a while.  I don’t think you’ll mind.

~Me

I’m jealous.

Stephen

Maybe it was later than you think.

It wasn’t so many years ago (the age divided by two plus seven rule does not work).  It wasn’t in the park that first day.  It wasn’t when I blurted “I love you” for the first time.  It wasn’t that rather eventful night.  It wasn’t when I brought you the flowers and it wasn’t when you lit that park bench by candles.

It was on the day about you.  Ironically, it was the happiest day of my life.  You remember it, don’t you?  Maybe not all of it, so I’ll tell you again.

That morning, you called me and your tone told me something was wrong.  I panicked when you said, “Don’t panic.”  Ten minutes after entering your house and going to your room, I was trying to fill my head with good thoughts; memories when people said that I would make a good father.

And then our hopes and fears were both realized.  And when you said you were going to go through with this I was scared so much I thought I would need to change my pants, but at the same time, all I wanted to do was dance with you.  And then I told you that today was all about you.

And we played the piano downstairs, and then while you waited in the car, I asked your Mom to find out your ring size.  We ate, we went to that park, we played miniature golf, we went went to the batting cages, we saw a movie, we ran, you received some flowers, and then, for a while, we went back to the park again.

We stayed through the sunset, a little off the beaten path, lying in the grass.  And we watched the stars come out, one by one.  Your parents were probably worried.  But perhaps they were used to it.  After all, we had been going out for two weeks.

And then I ever-so-subtly moved myself over and laid my head on your stomach.  Now that I look back, it seems pretty awkward.  You were up on your elbows and my head was on your stomach, my face turned so I could see yours.  I don’t think that’s good for your back.

But your face was full of love, and you were smiling.  I could hear you breathing and I could make out your heartbeat.  And I realized that I was going to spend the rest of my days with you.

I fell in love with you, right then and there.

Love you still

Stephen

As I sit still, silently shivering in the dark and watching the snowflakes kiss the windows, I can only think about you. I never had the chance to see you in the winter; to see the snow sprinkled through your hair or resting atop your eyelashes; to take your hand and dance like a fool until we fell into the drifts. I cannot see the waves of snow covering my world, only the dress you would have worn just days ago. I would be yours and you would be mine, and this love burning inside my heart would be legitimate.

For a while you were like a dream. For a few days I forgot you, but the clouds in my mind have cleared and revealed only you. The words that you wrote and the promises we made sing your name. I fear your memory will always be with me because I seem to fall more in love with you every day.

Now, although I know much better, I think myself the saddest person on this earth. You are still my everything. I see your face and I know that, somewhere, God made an error in my favor. How else could our souls have touched?

Colder, still, to match my poor heart: I secretly pray that, as I sleep outside, the mercury will fall a few more inches and the world will slow down enough that I will be with you tomorrow. As always, I settle for a dream.

I need to invent a new language that can properly say how much I love you.  I am scared out of your mind when you are not here.  Just so, so scared.  I do not think I can ever love someone the same way that I love you.  How can two people so different share the same soul?  Everything reminds me of you.  I still wear that bracelet.  It is starting to fall apart, but I am going to keep it on as long as I possibly can and then I do not know what I will do.

I would trade everything I have to see you just one more time.  A minute just to hold you and say I love you.  A minute for you to tell me not to be a crybaby and everything is going to be fine.  A minute to say we would do it all the same way and a minute to pray.

I miss you and how you would just come up with stories that obviously showed your absolute lack of sanity.

I cried when Emily and Sarah gave me your letter.  Prayed with them for a little bit.  They were uncomfortable but they suggested it.  All that was long overdue but maybe that was good… allowing me to sort a couple of things out.  But a lifetime is not long enough to forget you.  Did you know?  Sometimes people just know.  A girl.  I do not even know her name.  It would have made my heart skip a beat to hear that fluttering heart.

En cada palpitar.

And you still embarrass me.  They read the letter in all its horribly-organized detail.  Thank you very much for revealing my secrets, you jerk.

I am scared to tell people.  I am scared of visiting your parents.  I think they want to kill me.  Maybe they are luring me in.  I am going to knock on the door and they will look through the window and say “He’s here!  Set the trap!” and then I walk through the door only to be lifted off the ground in a net or impaled by arrows.  I can only pray that their hearts are softened.  They were willing to tell me about you, but even establishing that basic dialogue took five weeks.

I went to one of those dating seminar things last night.  Just for the personal rebuke.  This is what you did wrong.  And this.  And this.  I don’t know but it felt right to me.  Or… it felt wrong but it felt like God redeemed it.  I was ring-shopping, you know.  I was ready to move up with you and just hug you when it gets cold.  Struggling when we were apart, struggling even more when we would never be together again.

I miss when you would randomly just yell at me.  You are so cute when you get angry.  And scary.

LORD, Why?  It was not perfect but I loved her.  We worked so hard to make it right, we were growing, we loved each other, we made that commitment, we were working toward a common goal, we had our future planned… why take her in the middle of all that?  I hate You.  God.  Where are You?  WHERE ARE YOU?  We were talking about names for our children.  She was doing a Bible study on being a Biblical mother and she read through about Judah and wanted to name our first boy Judah.  Do You hear that?  After YOUR PRAISE.

And where in my heart can I search to find anything that wants to praise, now?  Where is the fruit?  Sometimes I wish You would just kill me.

And you.  I just want you to come back.  Please.  How could I imagine?  We first met back up and you called me Hopkins and now… now we do not even have to say each other’s names.  Or anything.  We could hear each other’s thoughts.  We… did.

You are right.  The world can crash around us and love can take it.  But it hurts more than anything.  It is a stretch to live at all.  And the pain I am in is sometimes the only thing reminding me that I am alive.  I do not ever want to love like that again.  I am not strong enough.  I think I know what I will name her.  I will tell you someday.

Back where I come from there weren’t many hills.  For cross country practice we would run a bunch of stairs instead of running up and down a hill like some teams do.  But I kinda like hills.  You lower your head and push all the way up like a sprint and then you can coast down.  I like the challenge of running up them when my legs are tired.  And there are lots of hills here.

I like to run hills because it’s hard.

So what other types of hills do I run?  Right now I’m climbing a spiritual one.  It’s kinda romantic, but Steve told me that we need to grow so much on our own.  We need to grow apart from one another, but if we are both growing to God we are actually getting closer.  We were holding hands at the base of a hill and then he said I’ll meet you near the top and he went on another path.

So it’s kind of romantic.  My fiance is currently my devo-s accountability partner, and beyond that there’s no real communication.  He’s doing this so we can have a better life and love later on.  I think I understand, but this is a hard hill.

What love do you think is unconditional?  I was upset because I was thinking about these two people I’ve been trying to patch up forever and one person really wants to talk to the other person.  But the other person doesn’t want to even try to make up!  At one point in time they were good friends, but now it seems like only one of them is being a friend.

So what kind of love do you think is unconditional?  Only God?  Okay.  What kind of love do you think should be unconditional?  Family?  Husband and Wife?  Brotherly love?  I think it’s all the same.  I think that once someone learns how to love, it all becomes the same and they show it different ways.  And it is unconditional.

So he still loves her even though she doesn’t love him back.  She says they can’t be friends and she won’t say why and all he wants is for her to grow closer to God.  So when she does that, he’s still happy.  Of course he would like to share that, but that’s the body of Christ.  So I think he’s got it a little more than she does.  But I’m biased

It drives me crazy.  I’m going running.

Looking back it all makes sense.  When I met you, you were just a kid.  Eager, clumsy… with a horrible sense of direction.  That’s right.  You got us lost!

But you were my little sister, and after that camp you were my sister in Christ.  And I prayed for you in whatever you were doing:  A big test, a race, and even with your boyfriend.

And then we met again.  And you were such a different person.  Graceful, reserved, a little bossy… but you had grown into a beautiful young woman.  And we were both broken by something.  We both had given our hearts away to other people, and they had been broken.  But we made a committment together:  That we would fight together to have God heal our hearts.

So we spent our days with each other.  My friends were all hours away in Champaign, yours hours away in Indiana.  We had each other.  Remember the time when I took you to see the fireworks?  I took my bike to your house and you rode on the handlebars like we were little kids?  We looked absolutely ridiculous!  It was the most awkward bike ride ever.  Ever ever.  And then we went to that secret place and got eaten alive by mosquitos?

And I was a little shy again.  But you became my best friend.  We grew together, just sitting on a couch, listening to sermons on my laptop (until it got destroyified by a virus).  I shared some of my experience and you shared some of your passion.  We did some really really stupid stuff, too, but it was fun and exhilirating when we had to sneak away – and we did nothing bad – but we put all that cross country training to use. Our hearts were windows; shattered; and the pieces had been gathered.

And there was something there.  Yeah, I am not that oblivious.  How flirty could you be?  You play the piano?  Teach me! But I was scared, and I was scarred.  I lost one of my best friends because I tried to take it a step further.  So you waited and built up courage.

And then there was that one night.  We were walking to your house and you twisted your ankle a couple houses away.  And you, being so very stubborn, got up and started to hop on one leg.  So I picked you up and carried you and we were both laughing and you were trying to kick me.  And I brought you up to your room and we popped in a movie to watch (because we were obviously not going to run, anymore).  And since it was late, we turned the volume down and just lay down there on your bed watching.  We were both dozing in and out, and I’m pretty sure I fell asleep first.  When we woke up it was early in the morning.  I woke up first.  I know because you were on my shoulder.  And you snore a little.  I kind of looked around the room and weighed my options.  I decided to go for the most dramatic:  I rolled you off.  Pretty hard.  And after you tried to kill me (you’re kind of cute with bed-head).  And you said in passing Ugh… why don’t we just get married.

So we went out to eat an early breakfast.  And after a couple minutes, you got this wry little smile on your face and said lets really do it.  You had trust in God.  The future was cloudy, but you had enough confidence in God to know that He works for our good.  And then you started talking as fast as you possibly could and a thousand thoughts were going through my head.  And when you finished and looked up at me, I only heard one thought:  Jump. And I went to your side of the booth and kissed you.  Sometimes things are not clear.  And those are the instances where we need to have faith and jump.

Oh, and while you were talking, this beautiful moment was interrupted by the waitress.  We ordered pancakes.

So we made the committment to pray together.  And grow together.  And grow to Christ while we’re apart.  God has taken our pieces and cleaned them with His blood.

I am excited.  I can’t believe I ever said that we should wait so long.  But I think that will make it even better when God takes our hearts and forms from them a beautiful stained-glass window.  Let’s grow to Him, and in doing so, we’ll grow closer together.