{an open letter to the friends that saved my life}

Thank you.

i know i don't say it near often enough, but thank you.

thank you for seeing hope when all I saw was darkness, for being able to look past these messy shards of a girl and see all the beauty that could be.

thank you for never giving up on me, even when i couldn't remember what it felt like not to have given up on myself.

thank you for having the courage to reach over and piece together the fractured shreds of my past, dipping into the darkness i had deliberately hidden for all those years.

thank you for not running in terror at the demons which were exposed, demons grown diseased distorted, raring for a fight - rather, you grabbed my hand and marched right into the middle of my war, refusing to let me back out.

thank you for all the late nights, and the times you've lost sleep because of me. also, the hours you've spent on the phone with me, whether talking me down or simply distracting my overactive mind.

thank you for making me eat. thank you for making me sleep. thank you for being practical as well as an idealist, never shaming me for my slow recovery but rather encouraging, supporting, uplifting, consistently speaking truth to me even when I refused to listen to your words.

thank you for the time you begged me to eat because 'this is killing me'. you will never know how many times that memory saved me. thank you for the times you told me you were terrified for me. those words worked their way past my defenses. they broke my heart. they changed my ways.

thank you for the hours of advice, entire days and weeks spent rehashing the same issues over and over again, because your 'little one' will apparently never learn. thank you for insisting that with you I didn't have to be strong. I was allowed to be vulnerable, to break without fear of being judged.

thank you for the times you didn't trust me to tell the truth, and talked to me till 4am in the morning, night after endless night, because 'i'm fine' always meant i was anything but. thank you for your stubborn persistence, all the times I demanded that you leave and you refused to walk away.

thank you for your purity. thank you for being so upright that at times i half-hated you for it, but i cannot count the number of times that i was stopped in my tracks by the thought that if you knew what i was about to do you would not be proud of me.

thank you for being my strong and steady for so long, my rock. thank you for letting me lean on you when i could not find the light, and showing me who i was through your eyes even when i didn't believe you.

thank you for putting up with all my moodiness, my doubts, my fears, my questions, my insecurities, my paranoia, my pain. you never held any of it against me, and i am still in awe of your ability to forgive the vicious anger and hurt which was unleashed upon you.

thank you for never letting me settle. thank you for your anger towards those who had wounded me, your passionate insistence that there was more to life than the abuse that i had grown familiar with.

thank you for all the times i scared you; the nights you called me or made me call you because i was too drunk or drugged to type straight, and you didn't know if i would survive till morning.

thank you for your truthfulness. for never promising that we would 'always be friends' or you 'would never hurt me'. i had heard those lines too many times from the mouths of those who left first.

thank you for all the times you could have quite justifiably walked out, because i repeatedly treated you like trash despite everything you'd done for me, but you didn't leave. you stayed. you forgave. you showed a jaded heart what faithfulness and Christlikeness looked like, practically, consistently lived out.

thank you for understanding and never losing patience with me when i demanded that you prove yourself over and over again, or slung thoughtless accusations at you, maligning your character, mistrusting your heart.

thank you for the moments of laughter, the teasing comments, the times you told me i was ridiculous when it came to my looks, and the way you could make me smile even with tears streaming down my face.

thank you for making me say the hard things. for letting me ask 'why?' and also asking it of me. there were times when i dreaded discussing things with you, because i knew i couldn't lie to you. you would dig until you found the truth, and i thank you for that.

thank you for knowing what was best for me even when i could not see past the Jericho-walls i had built for myself. thank you for taking a sledgehammer to those walls and rebuilding them with windows to let the light in.

but most of all, thank you for your love and your care and your faith and your hope and the way you always pointed me back to Jesus as the ultimate healer of my soul. you always reminded me that i am loved because He loves me. i am worthy because He deems me as such.

thank you for years of prayers, of songs, of bible verses, of 'don't you dare give up'. thank you for unconditionally loving me, for showing me what real love looks like - true love - the kind that saves and heals and holds on until the loved one is whole again.

thank you because i am alive today to write this letter to tell you that you were right after all. you were right about everything. there is hope. there is more to life than pain. there are people who love me, and a God whom i am infinitely loved by.

and for all that and so much more,

thank you.

thank you.

thank you.