Brave Enough To Be Bliss

I’m the person who has believed in your goodness through thick and thin, the one who is turned on by your mere presence, the one who does give a damn about you no matter what. The one who you’ve trusted and shared things with, had fun with, laughed with, cried with, and opened your heart to at times. I miss listening to you tell me all kinds of things that cross that gorgeous mind of yours. And likewise, you have given me advice, patiently listened, held me, carried my bags, washed my hair, danced with me, encouraged me to try new things, taught me what it feels like to be free, accepted me and my own kind of crazy. I am so far from perfect, but I’m ok with that now and no longer even want to try to be. I just want to be the perfectly imperfect person I am . I may be sensitive, but that’s also why I can feel everything I do when you touch me, so it has advantages. As I’ve read back through the emails while writing this book, I’ve come to realize that most of the time, it was just the way I processed hard things in my mind. It was like he was a one-way pen pal who only listened — just like I only used to only listen when he expressed himself verbally. It was easy to say whatever I wanted to say because 95% of the time, he wasn’t going to respond. In eight years, I can think of maybe five times he responded. Not sure if the percentage is correct, but the point is, it was a safe bet I could say almost anything and wouldn’t hear back. And most of all, my innermost thoughts were safe with him. Sometimes it would be months in between messages and then I would have a flurry of thoughts and send several messages within a short period of time, and then nothing again for a while. I did think about writing my thoughts in a journal or just sending emails to myself instead of him, and sometimes I tried, but it wasn’t ever the same. The writing wasn’t as raw, as real…it just didn’t feel the same as when I wrote to him, so I wouldn’t write unless it was to him because that’s when it felt like the writing meant something. When I wrote to John , I could share things that I wouldn’t have shared with myself at that time. Sometimes I thought it was because he needed to hear those words, or I told myself it was, because I could do really hard things if I thought it would help someone else, but I couldn’t always do those really hard things just for me. I felt he was worth anything, but I didn’t think I was at that time. There were a few times when I allowed fear and control to lead my communication, but the vast majority of the time when I wrote to him it came from the very depths of my heart and soul. I haven’t been able to articulate that until now as I’m writing this book, but that was the difference. I wanted to give him the best parts of me. Sure, he could also have the parts of me that were ruined at 17, but the only parts that mattered to me were my heart and soul because they were still pure and lovely, and those were parts of me that had never been fully known or touched by any man. I was giving him the very best of me in the only way I knew how at that time. “If you do the work, things happen. If you don’t, they won’t. I wish it was more complicated than that because then I’d have a better excuse to not do anything. The more I work out, the healthier I get. The more time I spend writing, the more pages get finished. The more times I grab coffee with a friend, the stronger our relationship becomes. Turns out the secret to hard work is work hard.” Jon Acuff

On Wednesday, September 19, 2021, 11:48 AM, Ginger Bliss wrote to John: Getting my office area organized this morning and guess what was on the top of one stack? I swear things like this just happen to me. I’ll be minding my own business but then something pops up right in front of me and immediately makes me think of something someone has said and I just feel like I’m supposed to share it. I have saved every email Ginger has sent to me in an email folder labeled Compassion, so it was easy to find and forward.

John, please always know that I share stuff like this as it comes to me simply because I listen to you and when things like this just come to me and seem like something that might in some way be helpful, I can’t not pass them along. As I read through it just now, I got to her examples of how some people visualize managing their thoughts and one example was of a swimmer she works with which again made me think of you because you’re the only person I know who routinely swims. So anyway, as always for whatever it’s worth, here’s the email that at least I thought was so valuable I printed it out and have kept it since January 8, 2019. Coincidence, a God whisper…I’m never sure, I just listen and respond thinking it never hurts to pas s information along to people. And now out of curiosity I just scanned throu gh this whole stack and there’s not one more email from Ginger that I have printed. I sent an email last week to a young guy I’ve worked with that I’ll send you as just another example of getting a “feeling” I just need to share something right then. I don ’t understand it (why) at the time, but I just listen to the prompting.

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