Happy Holidays. In April. {A Re post from early last year}
Four days out from the day the bomb dropped in my world. It’s Thanksgiving, 2018, a year from when crisis hit my marriage. It could be argued that the last five years of my life where more like walking on war occupied countryside, avoiding landmines- but in those years I was conscious of it. Choosing to remain in it. Aware of my misery and his, but choosing him and them every day, sometimes hour by hour. So ‘honorable’ right? or maybe not….maybe I was doing exactly what most of us as a society believe we should do…..stay. Stay for the kids. Stay for the commitment. Stay because you are a christian. Stay because that is the ‘right thing to do.’ Stay because you have no proof. stay because you forgive. Stay because that’s what you do. Stay because ‘divorce is not an option.’ Stay because ‘love covers a multitude of sin.’ Stay because you said you would. Stay because you love him. So I stayed. And parts of me died. Parts of me couldn’t stay and so with no other choice those parts began to suffocate and relinquish the fight. I felt them leaving me, I saw it in my daily life. It was a matter of a few years of slowing dying- half aware that was happening, and half justifying it by what I had chosen. Three kids, career on hold so husband could pursue his (for us after all). I remember locking myself in my garage and starring at the small space of blank wall in between all the other clutter. I would just weep. That blank wall felt like all of me…..empty, scared, nothing written out in the future, but surrounded by busyness and ‘important things’ like my children, my day job, the laundry, my precious attempts to write in the wee hours of day break that availed me nothing (because that part of me seemingly died awhile back). But, I was doing the good work of ‘staying’ and everyone but me was happy with my choice; and even then I was somewhat happy to stay because it fueled my pride too.
And then, I broke. I broke into a million little pieces that got washed down the shower drain, with my many morning tears. My heart, whom I had long ignored could no longer beat for everyone else. My heart couldn’t beat for the rules anymore. My heart couldn’t beat for religion, or the facts, or for the approval of all my christian friends and family, it couldn’t even beat for the ‘instagram happy’ kids I was raising. My heart began to speak up- loudly. Looking back I think my heart saved my life. That heart of mine held on for SO long. Over two decades long in fact. Two decades of me not trusting the heart God put inside me. Not listening to it, not following it one hundred percent past the flames of fear, years of telling my mind that Heart could not be trusted fully. And then, heart roared. I liken it to the rally of a person with a terminal illness who experience a brief period of marked clinical improvement just before death.
In the warrior cry of my heart I made some choices that may take me a lifetime to forgive myself for. I was going down with a fight.
During this time I spent weeks in the Arizona desert and God met me there, and taught me about my heart again. In the months following the desert trip, He taught me deep (VERY deep) lessons about mercy triumphing over judgment, and real forgiveness. It is a strange thing when God teaches you by his spirit, but all your christian community thinks you are ‘falling away.’ I have been told I am being deceived, that I ‘should run far, far away from sin.’ I have been made to feel as though I am no longer a christian, by Christians themselves. And that turned out to be OK. Despite the fear I have showing up here and telling you all this (especially Christians) I will stay committed to my heart this time around. This is my giant THANK YOU to my good, good heart though. With tears rolling down my cheeks, and gratitude to my heart and my God who gave heart such strength, thank you. Thank you for fighting for me when I did not fight for you. Thank you for shouting one last time. Thank you for not caring about the rules, thank you for not caring about religion. Thank you for caring about me first. Thank you for carrying me back to you and GOD, whom you are beautifully made from. I love you heart, and all though you scare me sometimes with your fierce desire for wholeness and absolute freedom- I promise you I will follow you all the days of my beating life I have left.
