Holy Week (Pt.1)
Written on 2025 Apr 26th.
This article shares a personal spiritual journey—not to promote miracles or judge anyone, but to remember what God has done in my life.
Because it involves others’ privacy, if you choose to read it, please do so with reverence, and pray for me and the people mentioned.
I have never felt, as I do while writing this piece, that my words are not meant to be read by anyone. It is difficult to write because it involves the privacy of others and reveals mysteries of the spiritual realm.
But this Holy Week was my coming-of-age ceremony, and I must record it.
It has been almost two months since I began to truly feel my own existence again at the end of February. When I look back over the past decade, it truly feels as if I were wandering lost through a misty wilderness.
But now I have stepped out.
I remember clearly who I am, and faintly sense that something awaits me ahead, something meant for this restored version of myself.
On April 9th, a Black sister whom I had met not long ago invited me into another Thursday fellowship group that was more spiritually mature.
On April 12th, YouTube recommended me a video from a stranger’s channel, speaking about destiny and embracing one’s calling. Soon after, it was time for the first Sunday service of Holy Week.
I handed Tina a belated, customized birthday gift—a handmade keychain crafted by a church sister far away in China. Embedded inside it was a design: two deer with their heads touching, drinking from the living water flowing out of the cross.
It was based on a mosaic photo she had taken at the Tibidabo Cathedral during our first trip together. She had said, “These two deer are us.” I had carefully cropped the image into a perfect circle on my computer and sent it off for the custom keychain to be made.
As I had expected, she was overjoyed and hugged me tightly.
We heard a very powerful sermon preached by the pastor director, accompanied by a medieval painting and lighting effects, presenting the crucifixion of Christ in an almost fantastical way. For a moment, Pastor Paul seemed to me like a Gandalf casting spells.
Tina, during the sermon, was so moved she even gripped my hand.
After the service, we happily left messages on the Easter memory board: I wrote words of gratitude to the church; she wrote about her longing for her beloved.
But one hour later, all this surface harmony shattered during a dispute at a bubble tea shop.
She had hidden a major experience from me, yet used that very experience to undermine my words, suppress my thinking, and dictate the direction of my life, growing impatient that I would not unconditionally submit to her older “life experience.”
Finally, my refusal to yield forced her to blurt out the truth.
And in that moment, everything from the past few months—every interaction—flipped in my eyes into an extreme “imbalance,” underpinned by her deep defensiveness and condescending control.
At the same time, all the doubts I had about her words and actions, all the “strange” things I had felt but could not explain, suddenly fell into place.
I forced myself to understand, even encourage her, despite my growing discomfort.
But she seemed completely unaware of how she was exploiting asymmetrical information to gain psychological advantage over others. After her secret was exposed, she only became more unrestrained in her demands and manipulation, dancing recklessly over all my boundaries out of her deep insecurity.
That night, unable to bear it any longer, I threw my phone aside, ignoring her endless self-congratulatory messages. Instead, I stayed up late rewatching an old movie I loved, Have Dreams, Will Travel (2007).
The next morning, I woke up with a heavy chest. I sent her a message:
“Before I fell asleep last night, I kept wondering whether I should end our friendship.
But then I realized: this is not something I can decide on my own. I just want to explain things to you as clearly as I can.
Since you said hardly anyone knows your real story, and since our relationship has reached this critical point, if even I can’t help you see these issues clearly, I doubt anyone else will have another chance.”
After breakfast, I sat on the balcony, opened my laptop, and calmly wrote her a long letter.
I tried to use the most piercing language possible, like a surgical knife, to precisely dissect the core of the problem: the errors in her self-perception and relational patterns, and the psychological roots behind them.
I wanted to sound ruthless, to defend my own subjectivity and boundaries;
yet I restrained my anger and disappointment, refusing to turn the letter into a mere venting of emotions. At the same time, I worried that if I sounded too gentle, my words would not pierce through her defenses and make her see the gravity of the situation.
I knew this letter would hurt her, but the pain was necessary—otherwise, she would continue to harm not only herself but those around her.
As I wrote at the end of the letter:
“Right now, the importance of our friendship in my eyes is far less than the importance of bringing it to light.
Because this might be the last bit of responsibility I am able to fulfill for you.”
When I finished the letter, it was already afternoon.
I ate a little, then went to nap, my mind still replaying our months of interactions, pondering how to define her behavior as a professing Christian.
After waking, I sorted through the other keychains I had ordered from the sister in China, planning to give them out as Easter gifts to the old Wednesday group members who had once frequently hang out with Tina, as a way to indirectly apologize on her behalf.
The tightness in my chest lingered. I felt sorrow for our friendship. But deep down, I sensed that the Lord intended to separate me from her—that He would not allow me to remain under her shadow.
On Tuesday morning, I obtained the names of the old members from a brother.
There were exactly as many names as keychains.
I did a deep cleaning of my room, sorted my belongings, and packed away the items that had recently arrived from China. Then I went back to polishing the details of the letter.
I kept recalling the past few months, like someone receiving a missing puzzle piece, realizing they must tear apart the falsely completed image and rebuild it correctly. I still could not deny the authenticity of her Christian faith, nor her past affection and assistance toward me.
To the real, tangible people around her, she did offer real love and care. Yet she failed to realize that these relationships were the actual, God-given reality she was called to be responsible for. Instead, she idealized distant figures who did not require accountability, turning them into undoubted “soulmates.”
I saw that in relationships, she was both highly defensive and desperately hungry. In order to protect herself, she had turned her “discernment” into “defensiveness,” her “worldliness” into “condescension.”
Thus, I left the ending of the letter as a door slightly ajar, allowing her to keep her dignity:
“If you are willing to walk toward ‘loving your neighbor as yourself,’ I am willing to catch your pain. But that person doesn’t necessarily have to be me.”
That afternoon, I felt a calmness, a clarity, and an independence that exceeded my former self.
It was as if God had deliberately used this incident as a touchstone, to show me my own maturity—
that everything that happens ultimately works for my good.
Now, I was fighting not against Tina herself, but against the darkness operating in her—and if I won this small spiritual battle, it would mark my coming-of-age ceremony for the first anniversary of my rebirth.