Wow. That was a mouthful. I have to say, though it may be the least of what's on your mind right now, you are a fantastic writer, and more than just that -- your writing is reflective of an organized, meditative mind that appears to be well versed in how to look at things from different perspectives and draw conclusions from what you see. This is an important skill to have that has already helped you deal with this lifestyle change in a constructive way.

Furthermore, your paragraph about God's plan for our lives contains thoughts I frequently find myself expressing, both to myself and to others. The pithy proverb that "God has a plan for our lives" is true and terribly misleading, because our instinct is to define "plan" by human standards. By human standards, a life plan marks such milestones as home town, marriage, children, schooling, career choices, retirement, and so on. But God's idea of a plan for our lives is laid out plainly in the Bible, and it contains definitive statements about very few of these.

I *do* think we can foil God's plan, depending on which plan we're talking about. We can't disrupt the overall plan for the universe, but insofar as his plan for each of us goes, well, part of it is that we work at a personal relationship with him, and that's something that, within God's overall plan, we are free to reject.

Enough theory. The point, besides these being great topics of conversation, is that I think you're approaching your immediate problems with a solid, firmly founded understanding of who you are, where you are in life, and where you need to be. Good job.

> It was resolved in the best way possible, in that we both are "friends" (aside from the requisite residual awkwardness) and there was no fight that ended it all.

That's unusual. I don't mean that it's unusual to remain friends, though certainly it's common for that not to be the case, but it's unusual for two people to be *able* to remain friends. Usually the emotions are just too close and strong for a friendship to be feasible to maintain. Usually the tendency is for people to cling to whatever relationship they think they can salvage, but the end result is that the nearness of all the high-strung emotions do a heck of a number on you. I would caution you to be on the lookout for anything like that. If, in the course of maintaining your friendship, you notice either one of you having emotions that just won't settle down, don't give in to the temptation to cling. You have to let it all go for the wounds to heal.

> But it's still rough. I haven't cried yet, and technically I still feel emotionally numb. I've never broken up before. I don't know HOW I'm supposed to feel, or what I'm supposed to do.

koalamom will respond to this post, and this part in particular. Listen to what she says. Probably she will tell you, in more and better detail, that there's no right way or wrong way to feel. What really matters is how you deal with those feelings. If this post is any indication, you're dealing with them in a positive manner and have the head on your shoulders to know it, once you get past all the doubts and second-guessing that result from travelling such critical uncharted territory.

What it all comes back to is this: trust God. You know several promises from God, as recorded in the Bible. Check out 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 and Philippians 1:6 for some powerful reminders. Our tendency is to cling to anything that is familiar to us, anything that is tried and true. But life, inevitably, has things in store for us for which there are no familiar remedies, nothing we can rely on to work simply because it worked before. That can be harrowing, but that's much of the reason for God's call for us to trust in him, and much of the benefit for being open to letting God's peace wash over us. Do that, and you're going to come through this situation wiser, stronger, better, and more settled and at peace. What gets me through suffering is the knowledge that it is a prime opportunity to learn to trust God better. The temptation at such times is for the trials to end cleanly and swiftly. But what enduring *good* does it do for trials to end cleanly and swiftly? When it's over, it's over, and you won't care anymore. I don't think it's wrong to pray for trials to end, but recently I've learned also to pray that I would learn what God has to teach me from the experience. That kind of prayer teaches patience, teaches one to wait on the Lord, and turns the endurance of suffering from a passive thing into an active thing. I've been through just enough to have figured out from experience, rather than simply intellectual knowledge, that almost everything I know that's worth anything in an eternal sense comes from suffering. Invariably it involves trusting God and gaining the perspective it takes to empathize with others going through similar situations. But there are a lot of details that fit under those two umbrellas. And knowing it and doing it are two different things.

God bless.