Doug Van Pelt

I SHOT MY EX-GIRLFRIEND WITH A .22 RIFLE

The author (of All The Clever Words On Pages) seems like a real nice, honest and funny guy... like he'd make a good friend. My heart really goes out to him. The experiences he describes sound so incredibly draining and frustrating... Wow!

I can relate to the pain he went through. I had a girlfriend in college that turned into an emotional rollercoaster. I discovered I liked her, I pursued her. She liked me. We dated for a while, kissed, held hands. Then it got awkward. She wasn't sure she liked me like I liked her. This was after spending some holiday time with her parents, etc. I learned all about her history and this other guy from Texas A&M (yuck) who she sorta broke up with in high school to date another dreamboat hunk sorta All-American guy. Dumping her "just friends" guy, breaking his heart. A couple years later in college, they realized that they were super compatable and a spark re-ignited. When she started dating me, she sorta left him on the side.

Not that I'm a superhunk, All American kinda guy, but imagining that I could fulfill that role felt good for the ego for a few days. So, even though I was the current guy holding her hand, I was made aware of this space in her heart that still liked Tim. So, she kinda broke up with me. I was okay with that. We still remained friends, but our friendship was so close and so every day that I couldn't help but remain in a broken heart condition for months. She'd come over about every day after school and, even though we enjoyed each other's company, I probably should've insisted for some space. Because being around her so often made me never lose sight of why I was attracted to her.

This is another story in itself, because she was kind of a preppy girl -- the kind that would be in a sorority, which is not my type. She wasn't really a knockout model type, just a clean, petite cute girl next door sorta looker. I was attracted to the Twila Paris in-love-with-Jesus inside of her. That's what I kept falling in love with over and over again. It kinda drove me crazy. A friend of mine, who was the leader of our campus fellowship, told me something one time that was perfect advice. I'm not sure he was giving it for the context of my situation, but he probably was, that wise old owl. He said this:

It takes two people wanting a relationship to work for it to work.
It only takes one of those two people not wanting it to work for the relationship not to work.

That takes all the spiritualizing out of it (which is another problem common with college-aged Christians, trust me). It's so simple. If one person in the relationship wants out, it ruins the relationship.

A year after I graduated, we were still friends. I told the story before about one time leading a door-to-door salesman to Christ at this girl's apartment. I kinda felt sleazy, because I knew in the back of my mind that my slick, persuasive communication skills (and boldness, mostly) were being used by God to help this high school kid come to Christ. I don't know if it was obvious or not, but that was kind of creepy to me, using something beautiful and innocent with the hopes of winning a girl's affection. Anyway, the win-the-affection part didn't work. We were still friends, though, because we each had a high respect for the other. She was intelligent, had a heart for missions, people, music, and the Lord. One time I was using a free week's membership at a health club to work out in the mornings before work. She joined me and one of these mornings she leaned over and kissed me in the jacuzzi. It's funny, because I kinda got mad at her for kissing me. It broke the status of our platonic friendship. I had closed my eyes in the jacuzzi and she thought it looked cute or something, so she kissed me on the cheek. Even though I was wising up to this pattern of in-and-out-of-the-dating-relationship thing, it still through my emotions for a loop and got my hopes up. It's funny, we had more than a few DTR's (that stands for a "Define The Relationship" talk...), it was hard to accept that I wasn't really her type.

Anyway, one day I finally realized that I emotionally needed to get past this relationship. In a general sense, I needed some time to hate her guts. I don't mean that literally, of course; but for lack of a better term, that's what I needed to do. I needed to stop loving her romantically and be mad at her for awhile ... and stay the heck away from her. I remembered a story my dad told me once about how stray dogs would sometimes get left on their family farm in Kansas every once in a while. The young dog would sometimes bond with my teenage dad, but his father would tell him, "You need to get rid of it," and my dad would have to shoot it. In a practical sense, they couldn't afford to feed every stray dog that got dropped off out there. Farmers, you see, don't often get caught up in the anthropomorphism that us city folks do. They see animals in their classic role in the food chain (that is, under us). Nevertheless, my dad would feel a tug in his heart as that poor little puppy would be looking up at him with those droopy, innocent-looking puppy eyes as he stared down the site of his .22 rifle before he shot the dog between the eyes. The finality of that dog's life ending and the detached emotions is the type of approach I needed to take with this unhealthy relationship.

I didn't imagine shooting her in the head or anything crazy like that. I just kind of applied that same sort of detached "Okay, it's over" type conclusion in my mind. Somehow, that found its way into my heart and I was "healed" of the emotional byproducts of this long relationship. Thank goodness, too! She ended up dating this awesome guy on the campus fellowship's worship team and they're happily married now. I'm glad for her. I had some good times with both of them and respect them both.

I doubt the author of that book will read this blog, but if I could have offered him any advice in the 2004-2006 and 2007 periods where this book was being lived out and written, it would have been to sever his emotional ties with this girl in the book in a similar way. I'm not sure how or why it worked for me, but it really seemed like I was able to inhale still hooked on this girl and exhale her outta my heart the next. Somehow my heart (my emotions, really) were able to follow the lead of my head and get on with my life. What a relief. Too bad I couldn't rescue this guy out of his circumstances (but I don't really mean that)...

I am fairly confident that this guy's journey will one day lead him back into the arms of his loving Father in Heaven. Even though this guy might identify himself as an "atheist" at the moment, I think that is just a temporary heart condition. Sometimes we get so beat up emotionally that we almost become numb as a way of dealig with it. It's a shame, but the pain that we experience can possibly help others going through the same thing.

Another thing I would have loved to have been able to help the guy get through is the confidence to throw away the compelling charismatic/prophetic/confusing mumbo-jumbo without walking away from the Lord. This is a tough one, because if we build a foundation upon experience or miracles or events or even doctrines, then if one "block" of that foundation has to be kicked out, it might scare us into thinking our entire foundation is awry. And maybe that's the case sometimes. Maybe we have to kick out a shaky foundation ... but I'm confident that we can trust God to help us put the "pieces" (or perhaps more aptly described: "new pieces") back together. And move on. It can be scary to look a well-meaning doctrine or "word" in the face and reject it, but sometimes we might have to do something like that. Not every doctrine that every Christian holds is true (obviously), and we are holding onto some mysterious things, so being willing to admit that we don't know everything can actually be liberating ... and we can still walk with God through our life without such and such doctrine.

Posted by Doug Van Pelt at February 6, 2008 02:48 PM