Ending what he and Christy called the
“us” part of their relationship wasn’t easy, but they both knew it needed to
happen. They went back to being just friends. They interacted at church but
didn’t act like a couple. They thought of each other as brother and sister, not
boyfriend and girlfriend.
The plan worked… for a while. Even
though they both knew what was right, their hearts were deceitful. They wanted
the feelings. They wanted the thrill of expressing how they felt. They wanted
the security of knowing they belonged to each other. As a result they began to
compromise their commitment to keep the relationship strictly a friendship. In
a letter, Rich told Christy that he loved her. She did the same. They did
nothing physically, but before they knew it, they were back in a full-throttle
romantic relationship, this time behind her father’s back.
But after several months, conviction
set in. Deceiving Christy’s parents began to take its toll on them. “We have to
tell your parents,” Rich told Christy one day. “We can’t go on like this.”
They never got the chance. A day
later, Christy’s dad walked by while she was on the phone talking with a girl
friend about her relationship with Rich.
“Christy, what were you talking
about?” her dad asked when she had hung up. “Tell me in three words.”
“Personal prayer requests,” Christy answered.
“Really?” her dad asked. “It sounded
more like, ‘Richard Guy Shipe.’”
They were caught.
Christy broke down and confessed her
deceit. Rich met with Christy’s parents a few days later. Like Christy, he was
brokenhearted at the way he had deceived them. He’d gone back on his word to
Mike. He’d stolen more of Christy’s affections when he knew they didn’t
rightfully belong to him.
Rich asked Mike and his wife, Vickie,
for forgiveness. This time, he promised, the relationship really was going to
end. He understood now that this would require drastic measures. They couldn’t
simply be casual friends. “If we didn’t pull back, we would be moving forward,”
Rich says. “You can’t stand still in a relationship like that.” They had to get
out of each other’s lives.
That when Rich asked Christy to give
back all the letters he had ever written her. Reluctantly she handed them over.
“I wanted to serve her,” Rich explains. “I wanted to take everything from her
that represented my feelings for her. Those letters were the record of our love
and all we had shared. We cherished them and reread them over and over. I knew
that in order to truly lay the relationship down at God’s feet, we both had to
part with them.”
Written By: Joshua Harris
From his Book: BOY MEETS GIRL (Say Hello to Courtship)
God Bless Us..
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