Speaking of sputtering, though, I must have picked up on the nasty habit. There were moments during high school when I found my tear ducts working overtime. I cried about a ridiculous number of things. My emotions where out of whack, it seemed.
I cried over the loss of my Kermit car, naturally. I cried when Joey’s car got hit by an oblivious driver and sported a nice dent. I cried every time I got pulled over by a policeman. Whether it was for expired tags or failing to stop at a red light, something about getting pulled over flipped a switch in me and the floodgates opened. The one positive side effect of these tears was the fact that I never got a ticket. I think the officers didn’t know what to do with me since I seemed to be such a basket case. They must have felt sorry for me or something.
Then there were the times I cried because of my sister, April. She ran in the house one day with something dripping off of her hands. I was sure she was bleeding, so I started crying before I realized it was just some pop that she spilled on herself. She thought it was hilarious. I didn’t.
Then one Christmas when April came home from college, she hung a bunch of clothes in my closet. I woke up super early Christmas morning absolutely positive that a car was driving through our house. I heard it. I was sure. Turns out, it was just my closet rod falling under the weight of the extra clothes, but being woken up like that freaked me out so bad that I didn’t stop crying about that one for quite some time. Not exactly the way I planned to spend my Christmas morning. My family won’t let me forget it either.
I cried when my trumpet teacher accidentally splashed me with water. Poor teacher. I don’t think he expected that. I stopped trumpet lessons shortly after that. Hence, one more reason for my musical ungiftedness.
I was an emotional creature. I felt everything deeply. Poor Joey. He got to see and experience some of my worst moments. In fact, most my worst tear-fests (and the ones of which I am most ashamed) came in front of Joey.
He was quite the catch for putting up with me. In fact, he was such a catch of a boyfriend that I often found myself worrying that other females were actively trying to steal him from me. I worried that a number of our female friends at school were close enough to observe Joey’s allure, but not so close that they wouldn’t have minded betraying my friendship if it meant getting their claws into Joey. Some of the attempts of these “friends” were more blatant than others, while most (I will admit) were only imagined in my mind.
Whether real or imagined, I had a serious issue that needed to be dealt with. Not them. Not Joey. Me. My possessive leanings had to be dealt with. I had no power to change other females or change Joey to make him less attractive to them. I had to deal with me. I prayed that God would help me, that He would teach me to trust more and that I would learn to hold Joey and my relationship with an open hand. One that was open to God’s sovereign plan.
There are some people who are good at acting and hiding emotions. I am not one of them. Even the slightest bit of anger, frustration, hurt, jealousy, shame, fear or a myriad of other emotions can easily be spotted on my face. Joey knew how to read my face so when he asked if something was wrong, he often got an ocean full of my silly tears.
Joey never gave me reason to doubt his affection for me. He helped me in the areas I struggled. He often prayed that both of us would learn how to hold our relationship with open hands. That we would allow the Lord to do with us whatever He wanted. It was when I finally learned to do this that my “sputtering” about it began to dwindle.
