A Love story Continued

December of 2001 was when I had that moment of realization that I thought Todd liked me. For a while I was floating on air. Very excited at the possibilities to come. But slowly as weeks passed and nothing else happened my heart began to sadden. I found myself utterly depressed at the end of December. I was uncharacteristically down. I could not shake the feelings of sadness and I, honestly, spent a whole day in bed because I could not stop thinking about it. I tried to spend time with friends, to pray, to read my Bible, but these feelings were overwhelming.

On New years eve I went to a party at a friends house. Todd was there and seeing him only made me feel worse. I went into a room with a friend to pour out my heart. She listened attentively and encouraged me to talk to Todd. There was no way in the world I wanted to do that. I always knew the man was "supposed" to initiate. He was supposed to be the one to talk to me. My friend prayed with me and I prayed a prayer something like this, "Lord, if you want me to talk to Todd please make it very clear." We left the room and joined our friends. When I walked back into the party Todd looked at me and said, "Are you ok, Jessica? Would you feel better if we talked?" Ok, God obviously was working here. I told him "sure" and we went into another room.

When we got in there my mind was a whirl. I was scared to death to say what I had to say, but felt like this was the right thing. I remember the scenario like yesterday. I even remember the shirt he had on because I could only look at the letters on it. I could not look at his face. He tried for a few minutes to ask questions to get me talking and finally I said, "Do you want me to tell you what is going on?" "Yes" was his reply. I managed to spit out these words as quickly as possible, "I like you as more than a friend." As soon as I spit those words out I saw him relax. And he said, "Do you want to know how I feel?" "Ummm... Yes.", I said. "I feel the same." he said. "But there is more." "I also like someone else."

I must admit that at that moment I felt very conflicted. On one hand I felt absolute jubilation at the thought that he liked me. But I also felt a little confused and annoyed that he liked someone else. He told me he wanted us to continue being friends. He wanted to be friends with both of us girls for a while and see where God would lead. We ended our conversation by praying together for God's leadership. We found out as we re-entered the party that we prayed together just as 2001 moved into 2002.

To be continued...