I don't want to change this blog this month. The one posted is too good, too complete, so well said and so true. It sums up the essence of being you--finding your authentic s,elf.
It's my daughter's words to her little boys. I just read it again, and thought how does she do it? It just pours out of her like that.
Perhaps she is so full of it because of the pain she has just gone through--is still going through. She has chosen to embrace it and it has developed her. The heaviness, and dullness is mostly gone. There is new energy, new light in her eyes, new wisdom. The wisdom one only gains by going through your sadness, embracing the pain, hanging on tight to the belief that God is here and cares desperately for you.
Does God call you out of a marriage, a partnership, a relationship, a business? Certainly, out of a business, partnership, or a community that is hurting you, but a marriage?
I wasn't so sure in the beginning, even though I believed God released me from my first marriage. (I wouldn't have said I was called out of it.) But I trusted her and her relationship with God, and the more I have watched and listened, I am convinced that sometimes He does.
She married to complete her, to assuage her fear of not being enough, interpreted from a father who left. The wrong reason to marry. She needed something to do, something she could control--creating a perfect life and home with someone who was willing seemed like a noble project.
Except as the years went by, he became angrier and angrier. She couldn't figure out why. Even he couldn't figure it out. But one day when I was visiting, she asked me what I saw. And as I thought about it, the behavior seemed to fit an attempt to separate a self from a parent. Only the parent was her!
Now it makes so much sense. Their life wasn't his idea, his dream, or his passion. Most of the time he wasn't even there--escaping into video games etc. or work.
In the beginning, he was happy enough to go along for the ride. He knew she was smart and good. And capable at most everything she tried. But year after year, he felt less himself, more disenfranchised.
The more he worked to find himself, the angrier he became that he had to fit her mold--couldn't be him--whatever that was. He'd never been allowed, or maybe wasn't interested enough, to fight for himself. As he gained more self, he felt more trapped, less accepted, and couldn't put words to it.
Then a new stressor entered. Their youngest son almost choked to death, and two weeks later had a seizure that was diagnosed as Breath Holding Spell. (I believe it was the body's reaction to the trauma of choking.) The stress and tension multiplied exponentially, magnifying every flaw in both of them.
She saw it then. She had become his mother. She had felt it and fought it, but not really accepted it.
She pleaded with him to grow, to fight for them and himself, but it only made him feel less accepted.
Meanwhile she faced a lie she found in her, that she wasn't worth fighting for. Upon her request God healed it, and from there things rapidly changed.
Finally one night she said she couldn't live with him being there but not there, and would he fight to find himself? and the answer was no. He would find another place to live.
She was crushed and cried all night, and in the morning decided to accept it. She couldn't change him and he didn't want to. She wouldn't hold him any longer.
It, of course, didn't end that simply or easily. Over another month their was back and forth, he was going to change, but hit the wall again that he was doing it for her, and she just watched, open to it, but not believing it would last. It didn't, and finally they separated.
Thank God they are doing well sharing the kids, who seem to be doing better themselves. There parents have gotten through the "angerism" of divorce (Called that because it is so crazy and dramatic.) with seemingly little fall-out to the children. They were my main concern.
On a good day, she has no regrets for any of it. The mistakes, the lessons learned, the suffering. It's all part of the whole picture that has brought her into discovering her true self and a sweet and powerful intimacy with God, she probably couldn't have gained without it.
Predictably, her path is very similar to my own, but she has surpassed me in the tender relationship she has found with God. I have been happy with my own, but hers sometimes makes me jealous! I want to trust Him like that! It is sweet to behold, especially for a parent.
So yes, I guess sometimes God does call you out, when it's healthier for everyone. As I responded to a friend of mine who quoted scripture to me when I was getting divorced, "Yes, God hates divorce, but there are a lot of things he hates worse." And losing you or Him is much worse.
