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.