When I was a teenager in high school, Michael W. Smith’s first and second albums provided the background soundtrack for much of my inner life. His ability to translate experiences and feelings into moving music helped me ride through a number of struggles and stressors, from dealing with inadequacy to losing friendships, from choosing to walk with God to coping with possible family tragedies. Fortunately, none of those tragedies panned out. But still, Michael’s music has continued to encourage and inspire me as the years have rolled past, and his early albums have remained fresh and continue to speak to my heart.

When I was in college, I somehow talked a girl friend into singing this song with me as a duet at an end of the year banquet for our college ministry group. My voice quaked, and I missed some notes, but practicing and singing this song out loud gave it added meaning to me (although, it might have lost some esteem to others there that night…).

Those of you who know me know that this year has been a year of trying to move on. I am working on it. On a weekend like this one, though, which is prolonged and in which I am spending extra time doing some soul-searching, I still fall back and deal with longing, and the questions that surround losing a loved one. It’s clear that, for them, time has moved on, and I am accepting that more. I think of her less often each week- although she does cross my mind daily.

To love someone means to accept their ‘Yes’es and ‘No’s, which is what I’ve had to do in this case. I have tried to honor a firm ‘No’, which has been pretty hard. And I have missed a pretty cherished friendship. Still, God is over all things- even the start and end of relationships- and I am also working on accepting that this end has been in His will. We both know Him and seek Him. What better place to park a broken friendship, than in His hands.

The relationship may be gone, but through prayer, I can still love her. Through Him.

And keep moving forward. Through Him.