In 6th grade I was attracted to someone else in orchestra class and he came along and stole my heart away with his sonorous voice. We made music together every day. I was infatuated with him, and our passion consumed my life for the better part of 10 years.

We had a beautiful life together. Every school year and every summer was spent traveling far and wide, sharing peanuts on planes, and taking pictures of the vast mountains neither one of us were accustomed to. Through all this, music is what brought us together. We were overjoyed when we were both accepted into the same music conservatory. We made fantastic friends from all over the world and grew in our musicianship together. Those were the golden years.

Then one year I had a terrible accident. He was encouraging me to push myself in my music, to exude passion. I overexerted myself and I felt white hot pain shoot through my body. The pain was nauseating, and I muffled screams of agony.

He felt terrible about it and stayed away for months because of his guilt. I yearned for him, but I couldn’t talk to him while I recovered. It was too painful. That’s when I experienced my identity crisis. All I had ever known my entire life was HIM. My whole life had been dedicated to him, to us and our music, and I started to feel angry. I blamed him for my accident.

So we broke up. It wasn’t mutual. I started to ignore him. I needed “a break”. I’d still tell people that we were in love — I just needed space — but I secretly was not sure if I wanted to commit my whole life to him. People encouraged me to go back to him, but I ignored them.
“You two are meant to be. You create such beautiful music together,” they’d say.
Why couldn’t they understand that I needed this time for myself? I needed to know what I was capable of without him in my life. I needed to seek for my identity outside of him.

I branched out and had a relationship with others just to see if I could replicate the passion I once felt with him. I could tell he was jealous. He’d stay locked away in his room and the few times I interacted with him our interaction was brief and passionless. At first I had fun with the others I dated, but they were really possessive of my time. I felt like they were helping to mold me into the person I thought I should be, but was not. I realized I was falling into the same trap I had been in, so I let it all go and turned to the Lord. He healed me of my physical pain and began mending my heart and relieving my confusion. The Lord taught me who I was as His precious daughter, and I am an invaluable part of the Kingdom, whether I was with that boy or not.

After some time, I found myself missing him – my sonorous boy. What did our passion feel like? It had been so long. I called him up and asked if we could take things slowly. He agreed, and we started seeing each other again. It wasn’t easy. I was terrified the pain would somehow come back in his presence. I felt wary, but over time I realized that my dependence on him had lessened. Now that I had found myself apart from him, I knew I could be with him without disappearing into him. I had grown as a person, as a Christian — my identity was no longer wrapped up in him, but in my relationship with God. If our relationship didn’t work out, or if I was hurt again, I would survive. I knew this now.

I started telling people we were back together, and they rejoiced with me. So now I have taken the plunge: I have committed to him. What we have together is beautiful, unique, and passionate. If you see this girl with her cello now, you know she loves him, and they were meant to be. We went through the worst break up, but now we are stronger than we have ever been. Our relationship is music to my ears. More importantly, I play music not to satisfy myself, but to worship the Lord and bring others the same joy that I experience in music. There is something powerful and spiritual about music, and I intend to reveal that to all who care to listen.