I’ve struggle writing. I’m stuck. I lack the words. {And I love words}. I stumbled upon this quote and it gave me hope, that one day, I’ll heal, and have the words and run to God rather than validation.
This Quote? Gave me hope.
Lord, give me the words….when I’m ready.
Let me run to you.
Healing.
A late, Happy Birthday to me.
May God’s grace be even more evident this coming year.
Growing older is freeing.
“It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do.”
― Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Most writers encourage many of those to write after they are on the other side of what they’ve been through.
I agree.
I believe I might have given light to words that were not ready to be shared.
But I own them. I own that. And writing those words were cathartic and important. And still important. Important for me to read back and feel, viscerally, how I felt in those times. In those moments.
But I am planning on giving more time and space to my words.
I’m doing OK.
Simply? OK.
But I will be in a holding pattern until I can, by the grace, wade through these waters.
This sums up perfectly why church has been such a struggle. I don’t blame the church, really I don’t, as who the heck knows how to handle divorce? I don’t even know. But the lack of acknowledgement aches. Even if I don’t need a casserole, I need to been *seen*
Separation. What an awful word and even more of a painful process. I was 22 when I got married. Oh the hopes and dreams I had. Those dreams, at the risk of being hyperbolic, feel pulverized.
I wouldn’t trade those 18 years, in spite of the indescribable pain, for in them they produced the most amazing children. My kids? Man, they are crazy incredible. I am strenuously and daily trying to create new dreams and goals. And to be honest? I am failing. Failing like nosedive failing. I am tired. I have no platitudes or Bible verses that are delivering me comfort. Though, I’ve tried. Lord knows I’ve tried. I have a million decisions to make, kids to take care of, and bills to pay.
Awaiting that peace. The one they tell me surpasses.
“Make sure you’re taking care of yourself,” people are often telling me. How does one do that when your heart is in shreds and you still have to hold it together for your children? Yes, they do see their mom cry, but they need to know that they can rely on me for the support they need in this. This season {do people still call them “seasons?”} has caused me to think of the scene in “Saving Private Ryan”:
Captain Miller is asked by his men, about his own complains.
Private Reiben: Oh, that’s brilliant, bumpkin. Hey, so, Captain, what about you? I mean, you don’t gripe at all?
Captain Miller: I don’t gripe to *you*, Reiben. I’m a captain. There’s a chain of command. Gripes go up, not down. Always up. You gripe to me, I gripe to my superior officer, so on, so on, and so on. I don’t gripe to you. I don’t gripe in front of you. You should know that as a Ranger.
Private Reiben: I’m sorry, sir, but uh… let’s say you weren’t a captain, or maybe I was a major. What would you say then?
Captain Miller: Well, in that case… I’d say, “This is an excellent mission, sir, with an extremely valuable objective, sir, worthy of my best efforts, sir. Moreover… I feel heartfelt sorrow for the mother of Private James Ryan and am willing to lay down my life and the lives of my men – especially you, Reiben – to ease her suffering.
I want to gripe up. I want to take my complains to God and be a soft place to land for my children. Even if I’m not feeling the comfort I want. I don’t want to lie or to minimize this difficult situation, but I desire, with all that I am, to be the mom-leader they need.
I want to be the widow that keeps knocking on the judge’s door for justice, for answers, and for peace. {Luke 8:5}
Help.
I need to ask for help when help I need help. And asking for help? Asking for help is hard as hell for me. There, however, is no pride in divorce. Divorce takes you to a place of utter dependence. On people; people speaking truth, grace and practical help. Ultimately, I know that this awful circumstance is birthing a dependence upon God, that only groans could describe. And although I feel no peace {I cannot lie on that one or create a nice tidy bow for this post}, I know that God is the pursuer. He is the one who will seek me out.
I will, I will knock, I will fight, I will be a soft place for my children to land.
I will gripe up.
June 15th, 2019, would have been my 18th anniversary.
I don’t know if it still ‘counts’ because the divorce isn’t final.
But the ending? It is final.
I actually planned to write about the day, on the day, and beat myself up for not being able to articulate the deep and agonizing sorrow of that day and the days leading up to that day.
I’m amazing at grace.
I still don’t know if I’m ready to talk about that day. But I thought I’d try.
To try to remember that I got through it.
To try to remember that I was able to spend it with the most amazing 6 blessings of my life.
To try to remember that, even in my anguish, I was allowed to think back on where I was, who I was; the hopes and dreams had, on that day, 18 years ago.
To try to remember that it was OK, to not be OK on that day.
To try to remember it was and is, acceptable, normal, to mourn.
The truth of that matter is that, the celebration of our anniversary had been declining.
It has been a slow disintegration.
Going through a divorce, or really any other life circumstances, be it highs or lows, I often tend to look at how other people deal; how one copes, celebrates, or mourns.
I have a weakness for stories. A deep love for the visceral. I want to hear narratives. Whatever they may be. However they begin or end.
When reading the stories of women, and how they coped on their wedding anniversaries, after the death of their marriage. I noted many {not all, but many} women were caught off guard. I found women who reminisced about the anniversaries they had before the demise of their marriage; the trips, the dates, the gifts, the joy. Even grieving their previous one.
And I couldn’t relate.
I cannot relate.
There was a mourning and a mercy in that reality. One I cannot give light or words to.
*****
I will remember that day as one spent with the 6 greatest blessings that have, literally and figuratively, been birthed out of those 18 years.
I thanked God, in His mercy, for the joy my children bring.
All is not lost.
God sustained me that day.
And hopefully? By the grace? The days and anniversaries that follow.
Even if they hurt like hell.
The chaos of bath time.
I *just* realized that one day they won’t be playing together in the bathtub. As they play, splash, fight and create water damage worse than Noah’s flood.
I realize.
They won’t always be playing in the tub. Together.
So I grab another towel. And I ‘mop.’ #TwinLife
Raise your hand if you’re trying to get your writing voice back?
{Sheepishly raises hand}
Like *poof* it’s gone.
Maybe that means this is not my time.
Maybe I’m not brave enough.
Maybe I’m in the middle.
Maybe I’m simply not a writer.
Even so.
I’d like whatever voice back.
Even for a second.
“Hold your words….Hold them close to Me.”
I *feel* God whisper
And I see.
I don’t understand.
But I listen.
Some words are not ready for light.
But I can live in that Light.
Even in the shadow of words that are obstructed.
And bask in the cognitive dissonance of the story being written.
Silently.
And good coffee.
Amen.
#Life
This post from Heather Land is everything I wish I could and would want to say and more.
So I’m ‘stealing’ her words to remember.
To remember this time and the ache.
To remember the power in brokenness.
To remember the power of humility.
To remember the power of Hope.
And to practice?
“Routine Benediction” Amen.
“Thank you for the loss so that I could know what true wealth really looks like. Thank you for the mess and the uncertainty and the not-knowing so that I could watch You work and move and lead and do what You do best. Thank you loving me more than I ever thought possible. And thank you for the broken things, because I would’ve never known just how beautifully you can put them all back together.”
You, God, are in the wreckage.
Anne Lamott was once quoted as saying:
“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.”
That quote has ruminated in my head since I first heard it. Do we tell our stories or do our stories tell us?
I don’t have the answer.
What I do know is that I was served divorce papers. And I don’t know how I got here. Or maybe I do and the thought of allowing myself to own all that has happened, paralyzes me.
I got served.
On Easter.
I”m getting divorced.
What. Happened?
When I started out as a young wife {and I mean young}, I had the books, the “right” pastors and mentors. I *knew* this would help lead the way to the perfect marriage. The formula was perfect. And it had been perfected. All I had to do was follow the directions, die to myself, submit, lay my life down, for my husband. {Those are the rules right?!}
I read all the books, prayed my heart out for change, and cried for the first 5 years of my marriage feeling emotionally and physically isolated.
I moved from the big city of my birth to a small farm in a bare and dry land. My mother once told me “You move where your husband is.” And I bought that idea and falsehood, hook line and sinker. And in those 18 years, birthed, parented and loved, and continue to love with the fire of a thousand suns, our 6 children.
I allowed all the books, all the teachings on what a ‘godly’ wife should be, to turn me into something that God had never intended me to be. A shell of the woman I once was. I had forgot that God loved me more than marriage. God loves the woman I am. Period.
Yes, God used those things to truly draw me near to him; to grow and study His word. But what messed me up? Those damn rules. I put aside His teaching for a lessor love. A love that I thought would finally validate and confirm that I was valuable. What I had forgotten is that I was already valuable and worthy of using the voice God gave me to speak truth.
Yes. God loves me more than something He Himself instituted as a protection and a covering for two committed people in Christ.
Brene Brown
“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.”
I wasn’t walking inside my story. I was allowing someone else to write it for me. To determine my worth. To tell me what was truth.
Is truth in marriage then subjective? Absolutely not.
God loves, God Commands, and God Designed Marriage for:
I have many things to own. I came to marriage a needy and young believer. I needed to be surrounded by people. I was surrounded by those who were not for me, but for making sure “What has always been done,” was done.
And furthermore? I’m a mess. I’ve dealt with a number of bouts of postpartum depression, mental illness, and simply have a deep and crappy sin nature.
But? I’ve come to realize that for all of those years, I’ve consistently beat myself up; if I *only* changed, if I *only* was different, I robbed myself of the joy of grace and growth. The need for the process.
But that is going change.
It has to change.
And if I’m honest? I’m terrified. For my kids, for myself. It’s easy to be brave in front of a computer and use harsh colloquiums and ornate quotes. But this will be one hell of a fight. And by the grace of God…
I will, as by friend said, words penned by the beautiful Maya Angelo:
“I will rise.”
I’ve been served.
But I will rise.
{On a side note, I’ll be using this blog to document my journey. Someday I’ll get back to mundane writing. {As if this isn’t} But today is not that day. }
iterate and repeat 