Dangerous desires birthed inside our
unsettled disappointments are nothing
but a setup for a takedown. A quick
rise to a hard fall. She shut her eyes and inhaled sharply.
Then there was a long breathy exhale
that made her lips fall into a frown and
her shoulders slump.
A dear friend of mine has lived this
and wants you and me to see what she
didn’t see until serious destruction and
devastation happened. “I’ve done something awful. So awful
I feel as if I’m going to die. Honestly,
some days, I want to die.”
This friend moved out of town five
years ago, and though we had the
best of intentions to stay connected,
life happened. We kept up through
occasional phone calls and text
exchanges, but it was hard. We drifted.
I missed her, but the long distance
made staying close harder than we
had expected.
So I was thrilled when she texted me
and said she was coming to one of
my speaking events a couple of hours
from where she now lived.
My heart started drumming against the
bones of my chest. Suddenly it felt as
if the air was being sucked out of the
room. I made myself mentally recite,
“Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic,”
as I reached for her hand.
A story of compromise, deception, and
marital betrayal spilled from her lips
while tears spilled from her eyes.
The week before we were going to see
each other, I bought a cute new outfit
and didn’t eat any bread. Because, hey
girl, you are so worth the effort! I t ’s h e a r t b r e a k i n g t o l o o k i n t o
someone’s eyes you deeply love
and see sheer terror. She had made
choices that slammed into her life like
a wrecking ball. Her life no longer had
soft edges and gentle places to land.
Her choices had demolished what
once was good into the sharp reality
of a nightmare.
I was in a playful mood when we first
sat down at our reconnection lunch.
And while she smiled and played
along, I sensed that something was
off. Really off. I knew the enemy was doing what he
does best: stealing, killing, destroying
(John 10:10). When he sniffs out our
interest in dangerous desires, he prowls
around us with great intentionality.
I could feel it. I could almost smell
the smoke of destruction. And where
there’s smoke, there’s always a fire.
So, I refused to brush it off. I couldn’t
brush it off. Alarm bells were going
off in my mind and making my hands
sweat. I looked deep into her eyes, and
I simply said, “I know you aren’t okay.
Let me in.”
“
S i n i s s u c h a l i e . It
promises to fill the gaps of
our disappointments with
satisfaction. In reality, it just
goes straight to our hearts
and fills them with shame.
Solutions • 19