Show Up at the Doors of Good Men

I wrote out that I was sorry in a McDonald’s parking lot.

He said he didn’t need it, but I knew I had to give it. Because at the end of the day, he taught me how to give and take apologies. He taught me how to show up quietly with grace and say, “What did I leave that might have been heavy?” Even if they didn’t demand that I do better, love learns to look for the opportunity to weigh out what someone else might need.

He is, was, and has always been one of the good ones. And I think if there’s one thing I need to show up here and say, it’s that there are some good ones left. We live a world that’s throwing a lot of men under the bus (and maybe some of them are throwing themselves under there). I want to tell you there are good men left in this world.

I recently, unintentionally, crashed into some wisdom that changed my life. Show up at the doors of good men, whose love will make you better, even if it’s not the kind of love you want it to be. 

From the girl who went around the world begging you not to be someone’s backup plan, I still believe there are good reasons to ask you that. 

There are good men left and I’ve spent enough time complaining that there aren’t or showing up at doors where I knew I was going to leave angry and confused.

I think it’s about time we start showing up at the doors of the men who live in the arena of good character and whose love isn’t the stuff of storybooks but is the stuff of the Story Writer himself.

But no matter how good the man, they don’t have to choose you. You will learn to be better and love more deeply when you let God have all the frustration that you might feel about that. There are good men left in this world, but even when you’re a good woman, sometimes you might still look or feel alone.

There is a temptation to become bitter, but the way we become better is to show up at the doors of the good ones. To allow the love they carry, in whatever form (friendship or more), to help make us better.

I told him I was sorry in a McDonald’s parking lot and because he’s a good man, he told me maybe the other words I wrote were worth saying to a few more people. So I will leave some of those words here.

“I think all we can ever ask for in a bittersweet pain is that we become better. I can honestly say I am becoming better, and yes, more whole. It’s funny how something I never intended to happen could become something that God could so easily crack open and use to break my heart and teach me more than I ever anticipated. If anything, it has given me an incredible amount of relief to know the access He has to my heart, to use it and move it at His will. The beauty of life and loving people is choice and what an incredible thing it is to find ourselves grateful at His feet when He teaches us how to choose Him, over and over. Even when people can’t choose us, or we can’t choose people, or all our other choices don’t turn out the way we expected. No matter how many times I’ve learned it, no matter how many ways this heart has broken, I find that I see Him there letting me choose Him and choosing me still. I truly do become more whole in a deeper way and somehow I end up thanking Him for the heartbreak. It’s the greatest miracle—every single time: to thank God for heartbreak, for pain. It turns all the bitter into sweet. It makes me realize how thankful I am to keep running into human beings who give me the opportunity to learn God’s heart in a new way, even if it wasn’t what I ever “intended” to happen. I’m grateful. It is worth it to know Him more fully and to see just a little greater glimpse of how He chooses me. So while the sting of the temporary might have been less than fun, it led to the glorious truth of the eternal. You don’t have to be sorry for any of your choices, but thank you for offering the comfort.”

There are good men left and they know the One truly good man who came into this world. The love they carry, in whatever form, if we let it can make us better.

Thank God for the heartbreak that has made me better. Thank God for the good men, with genuine love, who have made me better.