Altar Of Remembrance

Happy Martin Luther King day. I got the day off work, hence the late post here, but I can’t believe we are trailing down January already. It was this exact time two years ago when I went on a walk with God and my dog. I scaled a pretty big mountain since that walk, and just like recalling the last decade of my life in an earlier post, I am able to recall with similar clarity just what it is I accomplished. If you haven’t noticed by now I am a huge fan of memorializing significant times in my life through writing. I HIGHLY recommend you try it for yourself! 

Writing for me has been something I have done since I could write. My mother still has my first books at age 9 and 10 that I would made. It’s not only the way I process what is happening to me and on my insides but how I express myself fully. Most importantly, writing has been the way I recall where I have been, and where I am headed.

This practice of ‘writing to remember’ is practically as old as dirt. In the Christian Bible the Israelites often set up altars, not for sacrifice, but to mark and remember important events, times when they saw God’s faithfulness to them. In Joshua (Chapter 4 for the enthusiasts out there) The story holds that God had parted the river Jordan for the Israelites to cross through. Afterwards  they built an altar of 12 stones (one for each tribe that crossed through). It is recorded that Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over…He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” 

Now, I am currently going through a bit of ‘de construction’ with my long held faith (Christianity) and so the topic of the Bible in general is on shaky ground for me (this post is not going to be a Bible lesson) but that practice those people held so long ago, that practice is precious to my heart for the very same reason it was created. Back to that walk in January of 2017…

I was crying and smothered in shame and guilt. I didn’t feel all that guilty towards my husband at this point- I felt anger towards him. But I did feel the pain, the torture I had a part in creating for another women. An innocent woman who I had never met,  whose husband I had kissed. I was struggling to keep my head above water every single moment of every single day. My religion was going up in smoke to my suprise (this is a whole book on its own), my marriage was over, my kids hearts were delicate and fragile and being exposed to far more trauma than they ought to have been. My soul was destroyed because it feel deeply in love with someone I was not supposed to be in love with. And so, that guilt. It was particularly heavy that day as I was still in shock that a few months before I had actually willingly and knowingly hurt another human being. 

Guys. I have spent my entire life being overly responsible for other people’s feelings, trying to create a space for everyone anywhere to show up and be who they are. I had never ever cheated on someone and I certainly would have agreed with you that a women who would have an affair with a married man  was definitely a ‘homewrecker’ (which I would later be called on my social media pages). Now, obviously I have hurt people’s feelings over my lifetime- I am no saint- but I have a deep core value that when I do mess up, I will show up and take responsibility for it. In some cases, I will take responsibility for all your feelings even when I should not. I have been told over and over again “I care too much” I am “too nice,” etc. And let’s make one thing VERY clear, I am not telling you this to convince you I am great human being after I cheated on my marriage (In fact I have come to learn my co dependency on how others think and feel is not an attribute) . I am telling you this so that you can feel the length and depth of my own shame and shock in myself at this time in my life. I wanted a penance for the first time from God. 

The God my mother handed me was NEVER EVER about shame. He (God was also introduced as a ‘he’ when I was young) was a father and a friend. I did not relate to God as a ‘ruling master from the sky.’ I knew I was always safe with him, that it was OK though it be painful to mess up with him. I understood forgiveness the way King David did when his own baby died with my God. I was however, about to experience a much deeper level of this amazing grace, this amazing forgiveness on this walk, and it would play out over the next two years.

I begged God to give me some sort of punishment that day so that my anguish and more still, the anguish I knew this woman was feeling on account of my actions, could be silenced. I was desperate that her pain and my shame would end. I was lost in not knowing what to do, or how to proceed in my life. Then God’s voice came to my whole body. I heard him say “Au contraire my love…” (God does not usually speak to me in French but he did in this moment) “I will not give you punishment, but favor. I am about to release so much favor on you {over the next two years of your life specifically} that even your good religious friends will have to question me. And I am starting with your job.” I. Was. Floored. I sobbed, paralyizalled on the side of the road and felt a love deeper than I have ever known wrap me like a heavy fur coat. I knew this was truth…..my religion could be burning up with my marriage, but this God- this was the God I knew and he was showing up to do only what He could. 

The next several months were littered with God’s promise to show me favor starting with that new job that would not only put me closer to my kids but paid significantly more. I experienced favor in relationships I was needing, favor in the place I would eventually move into, and then again a year later. There are SO many significant moments of favor I couldn’t list them all (though you know I have!) It really has not stopped.  Even in the pain, he is near and giving me favor and the great grace to make it to the other side. 

Last Friday my life coach and I talked for 45 minutes about this journey of the last two years. We built our own altar of just how far I have come. It’s not the ‘things’ per say that God has given me that are the most significant either, but the work that has been done on my insides. I mean I LAUNCHED A BLOG. I giggle writing that, because although there is about five of you who read this, what it has taken for me to get here is nothing short of a miracle. I am learning how to forgive myself every single  day in the places I fell short. I am supremely aware of my own humanness and able to love those around me that ‘can’t seem to get it together’ with so much more space and intensity. 

I know that some people may read this one day and think I don’t deserve to be forgiven for my affair, or for getting a divorce. I know some already think I am selfish mother and that my kids deserve better (also been told that on my social media pages) but I also know – and let it be marked here in writing- that  YES I DO. The last two years are showing me that, and frankly I am a better human being on this planet because of it.

I can see myself clear as day standing on top of a mountain. It took me two years to get to the top of this one and I am sweaty and tired, but I am smiling. I can see another mountain bigger than my last just in front of me. I am at the base of it, and bigger mountains beyond and around this one show their silhouettes. There is a coolness and a calm at the top of this mountain and I am alone, at peace. Two years later, I am now looking forward to the next climb. It will be steeper and higher in elevation, but I think I have been prepared and so it will be easier in some rights. There is so much out there for me …the possibilities are endless and without this last two years and my great fall from grace, I would not know this was here. That this place was for my feet to mark. It takes practice to wake up every day and forgive yourself for things others will not let you live down, but dammit if I am turning around now.

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