I cried out on the forest road, on a sultry night late in summer. I dropped the last one off and waited until I was out of view before stopping the car. I could no longer support the weight of myself, and I lowered my head onto the steering wheel. The air escaped from my lungs, as well as all the hope and patience I had been carrying.

I had never felt more alone.

It's a weird feeling to be sitting a table full of people that you know hate you. When you're the designated driver and you still have your logic and your wits, but it's fading slowly and surely in everyone around you. When they feel confident enough to talk about you while you're still in earshot, to shoot you down because they think you can't hear, but you can. You can hear it all, every word, joke, remark. None of it good. All of it questioning your character and then making you question yourself. But you don't say anything. You pretend not to hear, because they're just drunk. They don't mean what they say. They're all you have left. If it's not them, it's no one.

You try not to think about how your life was just six months ago, when you were happy and loneliness wasn't even something that was a thought in your mind. Try not to think about how this is as good as it gets, that these are your people now. This is what life has to offer. It's dangerous letting those thoughts run wild.

So you keep quiet and turn up the music as the drunk girls sing along. They jump out of your car and you wait until they can't see you any longer before you let yourself let go.

I cried out to God for the first time in a long time. I asked him why he would give me such joy just to take it away. I had tried to follow God's plan, I waited years and I guarded my heart. I waited for the Christian boy and I had him. Why would God take that away? Why would he leave me here all alone, with no one?

It wasn't even the when. I could live with the when. I could handle not knowing when.

It was the if.

What if it never happens for me? What if this is as good as it gets?

What if I never find my person?

It had happened. It was a thing, something that was prominent in my family. Maybe it was a generational curse, but the women always seemed to end up alone. Unmarried, independent, and I was seemingly destined to follow in their footsteps.

Why would God do this to me?

So I started to pray on that forest road, for the first time in too long. I let the injustice I felt fill the air and I cried for reassurance from a God I wasn't even assured existed. There was nobody that could absolutely guarantee me the desires of my heart. As much as people tried to comfort me, nobody actually knew.

It'll happen when you least expect it.
Will it?

You gotta stop looking for it.
How?

I needed something, anything. I needed proof. Something I could touch. I needed the heavens to open, for God to reveal to me that he was real, that I wasn't alone. That the desires of my heart mattered, that my current situation wasn't my final destination. That it got better, that there'd be a day where loneliness was the farthest thing from my mind.

So I prayed. I prayed harder than I'd prayed in my life. I prayed selfishly, desperately. I asked God to open the heavens, to give me a sign. To let me know that everything was going to be okay. That he could keep the when, but I needed to know for certain the if. Just let me know if. I'll give the rest to you, if you just let me know if. I asked for a sign, anything, something that I would know had to be from God. A sign. Something significant. I saw the deer crossing sign flashing yellow and black. That could be it, God. Send a deer. Make it jump in front of me so it's obvious, so I know it has to be you. Make it run in front of my car at the last second so I have to break, so it gets my heart racing and then I'll know it's you. Give me a sign, Lord. Give me something.

But that's not how God works. He doesn't bend to our command, and he doesn't give us what we want, especially not in a seconds notice, and especially not to a girl who hasn't  prayed in month until she felt so ungodly alone.

So I numb myself and I drive home, alone. Sober, hurting, broken. Knowing that the future was just as uncertain as it was always going to be, and there was nothing I could do to change that. Knowing that somewhere the future I once thought was mine was somewhere else, holding tightly to another woman; a woman who outdid me. A woman of more worth because he chose her. A woman whose friends didn't talk about them within earshot at the same table. A woman who was in the arms of the man that I loved.

So I keep driving, because that's all we can do. I stop praying, my thoughts wander, and I know I'll be asleep soon. I wonder if he's thinking about me. I wonder if anything she does reminds him of me. I wonder if he even gives me a second thought, because he's all I think about every second of everyday.

I pull onto the rocky gravel road, the road half a mile from home. I'm tired but I'm almost there. As my car bumps on the road that hasn't been redone in too long, I see it.

At first it's just a movement that pulls my eyes to the left. Then I see a small reflection of light. Then the headlights engulf it, and everything releases. My foot hits the break and I start to scream.

Rocks fly as my car comes to a halt as the deer runs full speed in front of me. And I'm floored, unable to move as the shock moves me to my core.

Then I hear it for the first time, the voice of God.

It's going to happen for you.
__________________________________