People always say you can’t really explain why you feel a certain way about someone. Why you click with some people more than others or why you suddenly feel connected to a stranger. I feel like God brings us closer to certain people because these are the people we need in our lives right now. These are the people who will either teach us important lessons about life or about ourselves.
There’s a reason why God moves your heart toward a specific person and a reason why you get attached to certain people more than others. When I look back, there’s not one person I got really attached to who didn’t have something valuable to teach me or didn’t play a major role in my life. And the irony is, most of these people were temporary because their duty was to show me a different way and then set me free.
Sometimes the stage of your life determines what kind of people you attract and I think that’s the beauty of faith, God sends you the people you need at exactly the right time. He gives you the answers you were looking for through these people. He enlightens you by bringing you closer to people who bring out the best in you. He helps you when you’re struggling by pulling you closer to those who are capable of digging you out of your darkness.
It’s just that sometimes we try to turn these temporary people into forever people but that’s not their role. They’re not meant to stay in our lives forever. God called them to be there for us for only a short period of time. God called them to be in our lives so they can make us better for the ones who are meant to stay forever.
The problem is we become frustrated when these people leave because we can’t let go. We don’t understand why God would take away something so beautiful or someone who healed us but if you look at it from the perspective that if these people overstayed their welcome, their beauty will fade away, their love will die, their story will not be inspiring anymore and they will turn into a burden we’re not meant to carry, it will all start making sense.
The essence of letting go is faith. Faith that this story is better left the way it is. It’s better left the way God wrote it. Maybe rewriting it will ruin the story. Maybe changing it will not give you a happy ending. Maybe these people are angels sent to you to teach you a lesson or heal you or make you a better person and when their time is up, they fly away. They’re meant to be placed in someone else’s life.
Maybe these people are also teaching you how to let go, how to detach, how to realize when someone’s part in your story is over and have faith that the next person God brings you closer to is exactly who you need, even if you don’t know it yet.
Because I know that the day we meet the person who is meant to stay forever, we’d be able to spot them from a mile away, we’d recognize them in a crowded room because we finally understand the difference between someone who touches our hand and someone who touches our soul.
By Rania Naim for ThoughtCatalog