Crazy

Lately, you hear how crazy the world is, how crazy people are, how all these crazy things are happening - how crazy people make crazy decisions...blah, blah, blah.

This is a crazy world we live in right now in more ways than one. However, I take solace in the crazies. Sound odd? Well, in the past, I looked at it all wrong. In life, there will always be something in your life that does not line up with who you think you should be, what you think you should be doing, how your life plans do not work out your way or even how people perceive you. But, if everything were perfect and your path went down your own well-meaning, self-intentioned plans, then we wouldn't even know how to appreciate it when God rocks our world despite the crazies.

The choices we make, the choices others make that affect us - well, it is what it is. Often, we look so deep into things that we miss the simple, every day blessings that move us forward. We often focus so much on looking behind us and recognizing past mistakes, failures, or regrets of where we should be in our life, that we plow right through the here and now. I often remind myself of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah - remember they [Lot & his family] were told not to look back but his wife did and what happened? She turned to a pillar of salt. I sit and think about this new life of mine and feeling all alone and get into the shoulda, coulda, wouldas. I wonder how in the world will I ever put life back together the way I need it to be and the kids need it to be? But, you see, I think on those things based on looking back not looking at the here and now - basically trusting in what has been, not what is and what is to come. So, the every day blessings right in the midst of the crazies just passes me right by and I miss out. Make sense?

Sometimes, the best-laid plans are what we want and not quite what God had in mind. Other times, the perfect path set before us, we just ignore and make our own choices anyway. There may be consequences, it may become difficult but always, always, always, it will work out in the most amazing, CRAZY way - becoming a much better fit than anything we could have ever imagined! So, just call me crazy... :)

Forgiveness

A really awesome man said to me, "forgiveness is the currency of love." This statement has resonated within my head and heart ever since.

I ask myself if I offer forgiveness in every area of my life, both to myself and to others. Do I accept when God and others forgive me? Do I accept and move forward even when I have done all I can and others do NOT forgive? Heavy questions for a weighted subject, for sure.

The bible says we must be willing to forgive seventy-seven times. This is basically representative of an infinite number. Being willing and actually applying that are two distinctly different things. It is tough to be hurt or offended and move past that in a friendship or relationship. Especially in the instances where it seems to be a repetitive trait of that relationship.

In youth group this week, the story was of Peter [Simon] and how and why Jesus forgave him as well as the struggles Peter had in forgiving himself for denying his friend and Lord three times on Jesus' way to the Cross. The realization that he let him down, let himself down must have been a heavy burden to bear. But the day Jesus made that appearance along the shoreline, Peter literally jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. Of course, he was excited...maybe a little frightened of facing Jesus after what he had done. But what drove him to jump out of that boat and swim to shore was his love for Jesus. Everything else was put to the back of his mind as he recognized the voice calling him. By the time he made it to shore and stood by the fire, his heart must have been racing and his mind must have, again, been filled with thoughts of what he'd done. Despite that, he did everything he could to be of help, to just be near the risen Christ, his friend. I am certain he was just waiting for Jesus to say something, possibly expecting rebuke in some manner. But Jesus, knowing the turmoil in his disciple's heart and moreso, KNOWING his heart intimately, asked Peter to join them to eat and later, to take a walk. Jesus asked him three times if he loved him and told him to feed his sheep. Peter must have been pretty perplexed, wanting badly to explain...to somehow make it up to Jesus. But the three questions of "do you love me" were a loving response to the three denials. You see, Jesus believed in his friend and offered forgiveness in a manner that did not recognize the weaknesses of Peter but responded to the strengths [thanks Emme for laying out the story this way!].

Just like Jesus did with Peter, we should recognize and respond to the strengths in our relationships, flashback to the love we feel for that friend, family member, or individual and who we know them to be. If there is an issue, address it not with the accusation of weakness but the statement of strength.

Different

I received a phone call this morning about my previous blog. I was told that it was wrong to post and everyone thought I was an idiot...hmmmmm.

Everyone sees things differently and the experiences you share are, obviously, from your perspective. They can either hurt, heal or encourage. As a writer, your main intention is to encourage. You weave together your life as you know it and try your best to unfold a story in such a way that the world can feel your emotion and be encouraged by it - whether that is pain, hurt, anger, sorrow, elation, joy, happiness - after all, if you cannot be transparent enough to share your hardships and hope others learn from your mistakes, what is the point of going through it?

I will clarify that I do not write for the approval of others. I write because it is what I do and what I have always done. In the past several months, I have refrained from my passion for various reasons - misplaced priority, fear, even pain. It is my opinion that is when you should write. But, I have not because I wanted to ensure that it would not be for others' judgement but for my own processes in life. If that doesn't make sense, I have no other way to explain it.

I will not be censored by what others feel is right or wrong. I will not be censored on my life experience and sharing it with others. I will, however, be sensitive to others' feelings and I welcome input. If I am wrong, I have no problem taking the criticism. However, life is what life is. Your reality may not mesh with some but others may see it as an opportunity to learn from.

My mistakes in life are many - in my marriage too. I do not take the position of innocence or consider myself exempt from fault. I can only write what I know and what I feel and hope God uses it in such a way that it impacts my life and others' lives for good.

My previous blog was not meant to hurt anyone or put the blame soley on my ex-husband, whom I do love very much and always will. My intent was to put our story out there to encourage those of you who are married to recognize the mistakes that can be made and, in an instant, destroy the foundation that should be well-kept, pruned, and always producing fruit.

This is my passion and I will pursue it with as much transparency as I can muster at any given time. That is who I am. Judge me if you must but, truth is truth. Different is not always a bad thing. :)

They say...

They say that if you love something set it free and if it was meant to be, it will come back. Others say if you love something, set it free, if it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it. LOL.

Focus on the journey and not the destination...I have heard it a million times. Sometimes, that is a good thing but this past year, I would tend to disagree. This journey called life presents twists, turns and potholes. But the good book says count it all as joy so I am. I know that the destination is set, as long as I continue on the path set before me.

Really, all of this reflective thought is just premeditated banter deciding what I should and/or should not write...what will be drawn as negative...

The fact of the matter is that I am positive but it has been a hard, negative road to get here. A year and two months ago, my world fell apart...well shortly thereafter. You see, I believe fully in the fairy tale endings - those miracles we least expect. I did not get that. I have not written about it directly prior to this for fear of judgement, perception or who knows what. People that think you can get over divorce or get through it "in time" are wrong. A year and two months later, I still find myself with questions and emotions I do not know what to do with.

Let's back up first. 14 years ago...well 13 years and ten months ago, I married a man that I knew had an alcohol problem and rage issues. Of course, I thought love conquered all and there we were. I spent the first two and half years of our marriage being degraded and emotionally/ physically abused. The target of his affection as well as his aversion. Where this rage came from...well, there were many sources but it all boils down to a disrespect for women and most likely, dislike of self. I carried the burden, justifying his actions and believing there was something inherently wrong with me. My childhood and my previous marriage confirmed to me that I was not worthy of respect, being cherished, or the proper recipient of love. During this time, I found out who loved me beyond what I could imagine and the one that saw me as beautiful - God. As you can imagine, many prayers went up and one day, two years and eleven months later, He answered my prayers. Standing up before over 200 people, my dream became reality. No more drinking. Remember though, an alcoholic can stop drinking but the personality takes a whole lot longer. I am sure I contributed to alot of the hardships, carrying my baggage into the marriage as well. However, our lives were truly touched and changed that day.

For a number of years, it was good...no great...or so I thought. Active in our church as well as outside ministry, God used us and our testimony to touch many, many lives. What a plan was in store and we were walking the path of faith with fervor and joy. Maybe I was too zealous and excited in my pursuit but as time and reality crept in, I realized not only was I becoming disenchanted but he was as well. You see people are people. You find hypocrites everywhere and often, sometimes you can be a hypocrite yourself without even realizing it until later. So the disenchantment was not with God but with people and their actions. Slowly, we allowed a door to open that at some point, we could not close in time.

Dealing with some heavy life blows and trying to continually overcome them can take its toll on anyone. The trick is gathering your strength and making it through. Unfortuantely, that would not be the case. Another lesson learned is believing you have something conquered and believing you can go back to that. In a marriage or relationship, everyone can have an opinion looking in but few can see the heart of the Truth - whether it is that they cannot see or that they just do not want to. The signs were there but I just did not want to see. About 9 years to the day, my husband believed that he could drink again and it be okay. Maybe that is true - maybe I had too many memories and insecurities from the past that I could not overcome. Maybe I, unknowingly, created the problem all over again. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. He started hiding it, going places without me to drink...friends keeping it from me - everyone in our life that did not know the other him...that believed I was too paranoid- that I should believe it was harmless. I can tell you, it escalated to the point that the rage started - I noticed, my kids noticed but everyone around us was oblivious to it. He was a Godly man, charming, responsible, loved his family right? To this day, I can tell you if that were the case, I'd still be there. When the physical anger came about full circle, I left. I believed in this man, who I knew him to be, who I had seen he could be...surely, our family would be strong enough to weather this, or so I thought at the time. Heck, we had lost our house, lived in a FEMA camper for eleven months, this was nothing. I just needed to take a step back so he could see. Wrong. From the moment I left, it was game on. The new-found freedom, the ability to answer to no one, and an entire crew to egg him on - the very people I believed would stand up for what is right. But, I guess, what's right is relative.

I spent the next 6 months hearing about where he was, who he was with, who he was doing, and still believed, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would prevail in this situation also. Well, God can only reside where we let him and in the circumstances we allow. If one person wants to exercise their free-will, God quietly watches on. The hurt, anger and the fear were enough to make me want to give up time and time again... there was the one night, last Easter, that I saw "my husband" but by the next morning, this different man was back. People judged me, confronted me but mostly just turned their heads, not wanting to see or be involved. People called me a liar behind my back, continually believing that I was over-emotional, over-sensitive and self-absorbed, I guess. They did not see what me and my kids had been watching for the year before we left. Of course, he couldn't see it either. He was hurt, angry, wounded and acting out, unable and unwilling to believe in what God had so tirelessly healed and put together. In the blink of an eye and bad decisions on both of our parts, it was over.

The difference between men and women, as I have seen and in this situation....he acted out and played the part, leading everyone to believe he was happy. I, on the other hand, as usual, wore my emotions and heart on my sleeve and dug in like a pitbull, eliminating any possibility of anything but anger...definitely leaving myself open to misinterpretation. So, here we are a year or so later, and we have destroyed our children's trust, confused their ideas of family and marriage, and scarred all three of them in ways we may never be able to fix. Not to mention, still carrying the hurt, anger and woundedness... but dealing with it in different ways. Myself, choosing the wrong men to date, seeking affection and love from the same emotionally unavailable personalities. Lord knows, I probably shouldn't date at all but it gets lonely...but really, the heavier part of lonely is the lonely you feel with someone. He deals with it by replacing me - moving someone into my house that we built with our bare hands, less than 6 months after the divorce that he pushed for [but I stupidly began out of fear].

When you lose your best friend, how do you deal with that? When you love somebody so much that you accept all of their best qualities along with their worst? When your kids were raised with a foundation of right and wrong but are helpless to do anything when they see all the wrong choices being made...when they are forced to accept things they do not believe in? When the kids have to compromise in order to keep a relationship? People have no idea what my kids and I have dealt with and gone through, what we still go through daily...all for a freedom with this high of a price tag? All for the ability to choose not to be married and drink all you want? Marriage is not a choice, it is a commitment. My ex-husband once told me that I made marriage a job...this may be true in some ways but guess what? It is a job...a continual work in progress. If you do not keep those gaps filled and your foundation from cracking, it all comes tumbling down no matter how good or Godly you think you are.

My kids and I have gone without, dealt with fear, anger, resentment...a range of emotions that truly was and is indescribable. We have been evicted, kicked out, ignored, hurt, abandoned by the very people that claimed to love us, family and friends. You see, it wasn't just me that lost family and friends a year or so ago, it was all of us. It wasn't just me that people chose to misjudge or disbelieve, it was all of us. There were and are times that I can barely hold it together but what keeps me going is my kids, is that I know God has a plan as long as we follow him, The twists, turns and potholes are only temporary. There are things we need and do without, as does everybody in this economic downturn in the world, I suppose. But what we hang onto are our happy times, that do not have price tag. The joy that each day we are starting to find. The solid rock on which we stand, regardless of the crashing waves.

In hindsight, I can see where I failed in so many areas. My priorities should have been my husband over my job, even over the kids...but sometimes we do not realize until it is too late. But, I think God wants us to share these hardships of our life so that others can be strengthened in knowing what to look out for. If my testimony can impact one couple to persevere and recognize that we all have faults but it pales in comparison to what could be, well I count it all as joy.

People. Where to start. I have learned that people most often are never who they say they are. Forgive me for being jaded but often, when you read between the lines, you see the truth. But I will refuse to be cynical because, isn't our natural tendency to believe the best in everyone we meet...to believe in the core goodness of humankind? The saying goes that the world is going to hell in a handbasket - more often than not, we see it firsthand in our own 'backyards.'

We all have our faults but at some point, you just either fit in or you don't. I don't - the proverbial square peg trying to fit in a round hole. But, if I must conform to societal standards to fit in - I'd rather be on the outs.

I know that God sees me and I know that He has a plan for me - shouldn't that be enough? Well, for most of us, it is not. We want love, affection, friendship, kindness, etc and we strive for that but at what cost sometimes? Is it worth it?

I went through probably the most horrific time of my life and in some ways, I am still going through it every day. The questions with no answers...the raw emotion that you think you can handle or forget. The human psyche just doesn't work that way. You jump into friendships, relationships hoping for it to be different, better...fulfilling. However, if you have the same voids you are trying to fill...and you do not realize what to fill those voids with...well, you choose the same thing over and over again. You choose the same traits in the people you surround yourself with because, subconciously, you are still attempting to "fit," to understand why, how, what...

So, the result is always the same until you take that stand and decide there truly IS a plan, there truly is something more important - YOU. The you that you can be, are supposede to be, lost along the way somewhere. That in no way should be interpreted as selfishness but more like self-preservation. Until you see that you are worth it, that fitting in does not in and of itself define happiness...when you realize and decide it doesn't matter who likes you and who doesn't...well, THAT is your defining moment in your life.

Sometimes, it should just be enough to be yourself.