My Last Night In Lansing

It's over.

My last full day in Lansing and my last evening is over. It was a tough day, but it was a really good day. Maria and I had a few things we needed to iron out in our friendship before I headed off to school and we took the last 24 hours to pray about them and planned on talking after soccer. I didn't know how it was going to work out because Heidi was riding out to soccer with me and she usually wants to head home as soon as we are done playing.

That's where God started doing his thing, and looking back over the day's events I can see His hand in it all.

It was raining from the minute I woke up until I finally got home from Grand Rapids this evening. I wasn't happy about the rain earlier today because I thought that soccer would be called off. Thankfully the people out in Grand Rapids are as die hard as I am and they play in the rain. Heidi was just getting over a sinus infection so she didn't want to play soccer since it was wet and cold out, but the Adoration Chapel in Lansing is closed right now and they do have one out in Grand Rapids so she was willing to ride out there with me so that we could still spend time in the car together and she could go pray while I played soccer.

That gave Maria and I the chance we needed to talk about our friendship after soccer. We needed to discuss where it was going to go after I left for school as well as a working out a lot of unresolved things. We spent two hours talking after soccer and I felt so at peace by the end of the night.

We decided to just focus on our friendship and have no other expectations for anything. Both of us were able to detach ourselves romantically from each other and we're both at peace with trusting in God and allowing him to guide our friendship. I have no idea where things will go from here, but I'm excited about it either way. I feel like I'm free to go to Steubenville and completely have my focus on my life there without having my heart stuck in Grand Rapids with her. At the same time, I don't feel like I'm losing a really good friend because we are going to stay in touch and hopefully see each other when I come into town. It felt a lot less like a goodbye than it did yesterday when we decided to just go our separate ways and not really stay in touch. That wouldn't have worked for either of us.

Heidi wasn't exactly excited about me talking to Maria for so long. When I picked her up from adoration she asked me if she should 'Scream at me, kick me, punch me, or bite me'. Ouch.

She was really tired because she's still recovering from her trip to Australia and it was right around 11:00PM when I picked her up. We still had an hour trip home and then she had another 20 minute trip to get to her parents house. We talked things out during the first half of the ride home and everything is good between us. I thanked her for sacrificing for me and praying for me and let her know how important it was for Maria and I to talk.

Heidi slept for the rest of the trip home, and when we arrived in the commuter lot where I was dropping her off we got out of the car and had one last embrace before saying goodbye. Within an hour I said goodbye to two of my three best friends. Both goodbyes were really tough.

Nights like tonight make it tough to leave Lansing and head off to school. I am going to miss all of my friends a lot, but I know this is what God is calling me to do. I really look forward to seeing both Maria and Heidi again soon, but for now I have to keep my focus on going to school and doing the best I can down there.