Since I moved to Boston a couple of months ago I’ve found myself looking forward to Sundays more than usual. I’m not exactly fond of waking up at an obnoxiously early hour in the morning, or dashing down the streets to curious stares as I try to catch the train to make it in time for the 9 O’clock service. What I do enjoy is the fluttery feeling in my stomach as I look around the sanctuary and wonder who among these people might become my lifelong friend. I also look forward to the only day of the week I give myself permission to wear a dusty-gold shimmer of eyeshadow in the inner-corners of my eyes without feeling like I’m trying too hard. Go figure!

A couple of weeks ago I found myself skulking into the building a little late. I sat next to a Kenyan lad who had a few too many questions to ask about my “background” and proceeded to extend an indirect invitation for me to move to San Francisco where he’s headed to work after he graduates. I smiled, and head cocked to the side said, “Who knows?” If you think that “head cocked to the side” description is a little too clear for something that happened weeks ago, you should see all the various renditions my memory has served me over those weeks. In the same breath I remarked “Who knows?” I had changed the trajectory of my career into something that’ll make more sense in the Bay area— UI/UX design, pictured the delightful chocolate faces of a Ghanaian-Kenyan mixture of babies, and had exchanged my last name for an unknown, probably multisyllabic surname I now ached to know. My doom.

It’s a feeling I know all too well. I’ve always envied girls who can risk multiple dates and spare a kiss and still be unsure about how they feel. In High School I had a crush on a guy I had never spoken to, for 2 years. I knew his birthday, knew how many siblings he had, and when he got arrested for substance possession I was tempted to join the #freeDeen frenzy on my Facebook timeline (seriously!). Whenever I confess this boy-crazy part of myself to people they think it’s cute. But being deceived by a wicked heart is not. The pain of deferred hope is real and shattering.

My relationship with God has gradually become the magnetic force that’s heaving me away from this quicksand of fantasy and doom. When I feel most lavished with love, when God’s doting on me feels more visceral and less like an abstract disembodied concept, when my heart doesn’t remember what it feels like to be lost in anything other than the grandeur of His love, I actually forget what it feels like to want a guy’s attention. But life happens. And disenchantment ensues. I find myself fighting harder than ever to be quickened with zeal for fellowship and some of the simple things that I once adored about my union with Christ. And in my quest to fill this chasm, I entertained the idea of a potential relationship with a guy I’ve met only twice in my entire life.

I hoped for things I had no business hoping for. I crafted this faultless idol of a man, who would rescue me from my anti-climatic life in a city I still don’t know how to make my own. He would help me carve out my own space within it. He would take me to the ICA after-hours and I would finally eat some of that “good food” Boston is supposedly known for. The thrill of anticipation is intoxicating and I love to gulp it in mouthfuls. It was all very exciting— giving in to the flesh and neglecting the Spirit’s admonition. I would find myself exclaiming out loud “Jesus help me!” but I knew I was loving every bit of dreaming up this fantasy. I neglected the counsel of the Holy Spirit, created a false image for myself, and bowed down before it in my own way (Ex. 20:1–3). To borrow the language used in Jeremiah 2:13, I forsook the fountain of living water and hewed out a broken cistern for myself. It’s evil and treasonous and there’s no way around it.

Now as I find myself reeling from the anguish of unfulfilled expectation, eyes dimmed with disappointment, and insides turning with humiliation from perceived rejection, I experience the mercy of God for His redeemed. I’ve been meditating on Psalm 107, and looking at the steadfast love of God for those who once shunned him in favor of worthless idols. He delivers them from their distress when they repent and cry out to him. As I find myself licking my self-inflicted wounds, knowing fully well that I deserve all the pain, I cry out to God. He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things (Psalm 107:9). I praise Him for seasons like this because it reveals in my heart a deep longing for something no human can ever satisfy, and that’s Him.