Solutions August 2019 | Page 19

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