Lost and Found: Finding Hope in the Detours of Life by T. D. Jakes, Sarah Jakes Page B

fear.
    ———
    To this day, when I look back on the beginning stages of heartbreak with Robert and how early in our courtship it was, I have to soul search to discover how I gave up on my dream of love so quickly. If I’m honest with myself, it was my insecurity. Part of me had quietlygrieved that another could never fully accept my situation. Robert was the first guy who, when I told him about my son, didn’t let it affect how he felt about me, and a part of me swooned. I didn’t think anyone could so easily accept that I had a child so early on in my life.
    Robert, a linebacker for our university’s football team, was popular around campus and appeared so comfortable in his own skin. His indifference to my father’s status was, at the time, attractive. Although now I view his attitude as a warning, then it seemed like a relief. He was the first person who didn’t elevate me to some heavenly pedestal. Still, I grieve the fact that my insecurity didn’t injure just me. Unintentionally, I inflicted wounds on so many others. I allowed myself not only to be degraded but to degrade others because I decided he was more important than their hearts.
    I take ownership for those wounds.
    I apologize for every text, call, date, kiss, and other selfish acts committed to feed my own insecurity. My self-doubt made me an assailant. And in these decisions I reaped everything I sowed.
    When I first began the journey of healing from my heartbreak, a part of me was bitter. I felt like the women he used to hurt me went on to live happy lives while I suffered picking up the pieces. Since then, I’ve learned the “other woman” never gets away. No matter how well things look on the outside, until you confront your wrongs, you cannot create rights. There is no honor in betrayal. I couldn’t share honestly about my life now without acknowledging the role I played in my own heartbreak and that of other women.
    It would be so easy to say I was young. It would be even easier to say, like many do, that I had no responsibility at all because I never made a commitment to his fiancée. After having had the bitter taste of my own medicine, though, I now see that you cannot desire trust and sow betrayal.
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    When he told me he was moving in with his fiancée, my heart imploded. I tried to hush the internal voice that told me the rumors were right about him and that I should just cut my losses. At the very least, I wanted some answers. I wanted to know how he could’ve made me feel so special and then just walk away like I was nothing. Without seeing my relationship with him clearly and objectively, I was dangerously close to feeling like I would never recover. All my hope had shifted to getting his affirmation; he had become my savior. I believed that I knew and understood him like no one else. We had something different and more special than what he had with his fiancée—or anyone else.
    He reinforced this odd kind of relational purgatory. He told his fiancée that he and I were friends and that she would have to adjust. I didn’t care whether she liked it or not, as long as I could be around him.
    Most of the athletes at TCU had to enroll in summer classes to stay on course with their degree programs. My parents had a very strict either-school-or-work policy, so I enrolled in courses over the summer to spend time with Robert, work toward my degree, and take care of Chi in the evening.
    After going to summer school in order to graduate early from high school, I felt like I could handle the responsibility. In hindsight I realize how childish it was to juggle a dysfunctional relationship, college-level summer courses, and a growing toddler. I felt like I could do it, though.
    How often do we add burden after burden, then complain about the weight of it all?
    My mornings started with taking Malachi to day care, “carpooling with friends” (picking up Robert for class), and then spending every possible minute with Robert until I had