My Deceitful Heart

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: Who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 KJV

Sit down kids. Let me tell you a story.

Kirsten and Michael were madly in love.

They had grown up together from infancy and had it bad for each other and only each other from the time boys and girls first start to notice those things.

When they reached an age that their parents deemed them old enough and mature enough to date they started dating.

They were best friends who went everywhere and did everything together, and now, approaching the end of their senior year, they were planning their ascent into adulthood together.

Bible College. Marriage.  Kids. In that order.

As is expected from a couple that has been together for several years, they had a physical relationship, but that relationship fell well within contemporary Christian standards. Hand holding, hugging, kissing. Done.

Kirsten and Michael. They were expected, accepted, and predictable. No one could imagine anything different.

And then Mary got involved. Mary was their youth leader and had a son in the youth group. One night at a girl’s youth retreat, Mary pulled Kirsten aside for a very serious conversation. She told her that she had had a vision from God, and in the vision God showed her every detail of Kirsten and Michael’s physical relationship and told Mary that He didn’t want them together.

Mary told Kirsten that she was on a path God did not intend. She said that Michael was her idol and she needed to repent. She told her that if she did not break up with Michael, she would tell Kirsten’s parents all about her vision and let them handle it as they saw fit.

When Kirsten defended herself Mary told her “but my sweet friend, you KNOW the heart is deceitful. We don’t know what’s good for us, only God. Our plans are destined to come to ruin and pain. God is giving you a chance to turn back now”.

Kirsten was a good Christian. She knew she was a wicked human and wanted desperately to please God and her leaders.

With a broken heart, Kirsten broke up with Michael. She cut off her childhood playmate, best friend and first love. She threw their plans away, trusted in the wisdom and spoken word of her Christian leadership and waited for the pain to go away and life to get better.

With no girlfriend and no plans, Michael elected to move up north after graduation and start over. New city, new friends, new future.  A year later he was backing out of his apartment when he was sideswiped by a drunk driver.

Michael is dead and Kirsten suffers from PTSD and anxiety. 

Now please don’t misunderstand me. I in no way blame Mary for Michael’s death. Life can take tragic and unexpected turns and there is no way of knowing the consequences of all of your actions.

But sometimes I wonder if things might have turned out differently. Would they still be together and graduating from college this spring?  Would they have broken up on their own terms and not because some woman knew God’s plans better than they did? Maybe they would have both passed away on the way home from the movies.

The possibilities are endless. But it still bothers me.

It bothers me because the lives of two bright people that I’d known since nursery school were ruined and ended.

It bothers me because Kirsten didn’t really have a choice. Leadership had spoken. God wanted them to break up. Her options were to break up with him and have a shred of dignity or to become a social pariah and let her parents force the break up when they were contacted by Mary.

It bothers me that in the Christian church the leadership’s opinion of a teenager counts for more than any behavior they could possibly display.

And it bothers me because this could have just as easily been my story.

I met and started dating my husband in high school. About a year and a half into our relationship I got a call from a youth leader that I hadn’t spoken to for at least year. She asked if I knew why she was calling. I told her I had no clue.

She told me that God had “put me on her heart” and she had been interceding on my behalf for days. She then said that I was the object of an ongoing spiritual war and that God was “fighting for my heart” but Satan had put a big chocolate cake in front of me to lead me away from my calling to be a missionary and increase the kingdom of heaven. That chocolate cake was otherwise known as my then boyfriend.

She thought my life was on a path away from God’s calling and that “moving away from distractions” *cough* boyfriend *cough* would allow me to seek God and get back on the right path.

I listened politely, ended the conversation on a cordial note, and then I panicked.

That little voice in my head that had been planted in me from infancy told me that she was right. Leadership knew what God wanted for me. My heart was black. My flesh could not be trusted. I had no control over my own life. Why hadn’t I noticed it sooner? Of COURSE anything that made me so happy must be sinful.

I cried and I agonized and I raged at God. But mostly I mourned. I knew that anything that was against God’s will would fall apart eventually, so I mourned the inevitable loss of the best thing in my life. The thing that had pulled me from the brink of suicide multiple times. I mourned the hugs and the late night conversations. I mourned the laughter and the love and I broke inside.

And finally I got angry. I got angry at the system that had turned every happy part of my childhood into an idol. I got angry at the people that called innocent questions defiance and I got angry at a God that would tell someone else about His plans for my life before me. 

And then, for the first time in my life, I told the little voice to fuck off. And I called my boyfriend.

Of course I wanted to please God. Of course I wanted to further the kingdom. But more than any of that I just wanted him, and if that made my heart weak and deceitful and rebellious, I guess Hell would just have to save me a good spot. For once I was choosing happiness.

Occasionally I lay in bed next to my best friend, listening to my son babble in his sleep and I think about that woman and I wonder if she knows. I wonder if she realizes how many lives she almost ruined, and how many lives wouldn’t exist if I had listened to her.

I love how my life turned out. I have a great job, a near perfect marriage and beautiful kids. I almost lost it all because of my pre-conditioned blind faith in someone I hadn’t spoken to in a year. Someone that, at best, saw me for two hours a week among 50 other teens.

Today I am so grateful for my life. I’m grateful for my husband and the wonderful dating relationship we had. But mostly I’m grateful for my deceitful heart. I was a really bad Christian, and it saved my life.