Broken Promise but Unbroken Me
Today would have been our 32nd wedding anniversary. It's been a difficult day for me. So much reflection and remembering.
On the day we were married, I put a ring on his finger and inside I had engraved the words: Bombs Away! SSM, I love you, SAM. (Pearl Harbor Day). We sang a song to each other at our wedding entitled "A Love Until the End of Time". We looked deeply into each others eyes and hearts and made a sacred promise to keep our marriage covenant forever.
I remember celebrating our very first anniversary so clearly. We dressed up kind of fancy and went to a restaurant on the river in Mequon, WI and felt completely out of place and over-dressed when we got there. Since then, we have celebrated in so many different places and ways. Some years, especially the early ones, we didn't have much money to celebrate. One year, we went to NYC for the weekend. We ate at a fancy steak place, stayed at The Pierre and took a carriage ride in Central Park. We saw Les Mis for the first time. Just 2 years ago, we celebrated our anniversary on a two-week trip to Italy with dear friends. Sometimes we exchanged presents and sometimes not. But always, there were cards. Some years we just wrote letters to each other. Some years they were mushy cards but always with handwritten notes inside.
Sometimes it doesn't seem possible that seven months have passed since our marriage broke. In some ways, it feels like this all just started and in those moments when I first wake up in the morning I still catch my breath when I realize I'm not married anymore. In other ways, it feels like it's been forever. I feel like the person I was before and the person I am now and there's a big, bold dividing line between the two. It is the oddest feeling; knowing that for 32 of my 56 years I was married to the person I thought I'd grow old alongside and then realizing that the person I thought I knew the best in all the world, turned out to be the person that broke my heart and threw me away.
Some days I feel like I'm starting to breathe again and starting to smile again and starting to have hope again and on days like today, there are many tears and I feel like I haven't made any progress at all. But, I know I have. I have made HUGE progress. For most of the days in the first months, I struggled to cope second by second. I had to make so many MAJOR decisions and clean out and sell a house and I did all of that in a very short period of time. I think I was mostly in a state of shock, but lucid enough to know that my heart had been broken in little pieces and I didn't think I'd make it. It was my family and a few very precious friends, my faith and the Christian music station on pandora and sirius that got me through.
Here I am 7 months later and I am starting to get to know myself again. I'm not the person I was in that marriage. I don't ever have to feel as if I am not enough again. I have no depression. I have no deep down fears that I might be discarded because that already happened and I'm still here. My children are so loving and tender-hearted with me. They are protective and loyal and don't ever want me hurt again. There is a new freedom growing inside of me that says I can do whatever I want to do! What do I want to do? I don't know yet but I'm starting to want to find out! My relationship with God and Jesus has become so much deeper and fulfilling. When you are stripped bare, you find out what it means to rely completely on God for your next breath.
There are now days strung together when I don't cry at all. I am starting to feel like my marriage was very unhealthy for me and I was becoming a person I didn't know. My identity and my person-hood had ever so slowly, over 32 years, become buried down deep because my security was being eroded by the insecurity I was feeling in my marriage. When someone I loved so much questioned his commitment to the marriage and to me every 5-6 years or so, I started to feel a desperate need to hang on no matter what. I had children and a social work degree. I feared I wouldn't be able to support myself. I feared for what our lives would look like should there be a split. I couldn't be one of those moms who had to share my precious girls. I started accepting or putting up with certain things I never would have in my earlier days of strong self worth. I am realizing these truths slowly every day now. I have become stronger. I know that happy times are ahead, maybe even happier than on the happiest days in my marriage.
I am no longer feeling like a broken down junk heap by the side of the road. I am dusting myself off and getting back on that road. And I think I'm going to like who I am again. I am a precious child of a God who wants me back on the path to health, to life and to happiness. And I'm starting to really believe that is possible for me. I am trying not to worry about how I will pay bills and what kind of job I'll be able to find.
So, yes, so much progress from seven months ago. I am not broken anymore. God is in the business of new life and He is creating in me a new way forward, a new life, a new me. Today while I was driving, I heard a song I haven't heard now in a few months. It so perfectly tells the story of these past 7 months for me. The lyrics to this Danny Gokey song, Tell Your Heart to Beat Again:
You're shattered
Like you've never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you're never gonna get back
To the you that used to be
Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again
Beginning
Just let that word wash over you
It's alright now
Love's healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
'Cause your story's far from over
And your journey's just begun
Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again
These words are the story of my last seven months. And my story's FAR from over! And my journey's just begun! And where I am right now is just a description, not a prescription. God is in the business of making all things new!
On the day we were married, I put a ring on his finger and inside I had engraved the words: Bombs Away! SSM, I love you, SAM. (Pearl Harbor Day). We sang a song to each other at our wedding entitled "A Love Until the End of Time". We looked deeply into each others eyes and hearts and made a sacred promise to keep our marriage covenant forever.
I remember celebrating our very first anniversary so clearly. We dressed up kind of fancy and went to a restaurant on the river in Mequon, WI and felt completely out of place and over-dressed when we got there. Since then, we have celebrated in so many different places and ways. Some years, especially the early ones, we didn't have much money to celebrate. One year, we went to NYC for the weekend. We ate at a fancy steak place, stayed at The Pierre and took a carriage ride in Central Park. We saw Les Mis for the first time. Just 2 years ago, we celebrated our anniversary on a two-week trip to Italy with dear friends. Sometimes we exchanged presents and sometimes not. But always, there were cards. Some years we just wrote letters to each other. Some years they were mushy cards but always with handwritten notes inside.
Sometimes it doesn't seem possible that seven months have passed since our marriage broke. In some ways, it feels like this all just started and in those moments when I first wake up in the morning I still catch my breath when I realize I'm not married anymore. In other ways, it feels like it's been forever. I feel like the person I was before and the person I am now and there's a big, bold dividing line between the two. It is the oddest feeling; knowing that for 32 of my 56 years I was married to the person I thought I'd grow old alongside and then realizing that the person I thought I knew the best in all the world, turned out to be the person that broke my heart and threw me away.
Some days I feel like I'm starting to breathe again and starting to smile again and starting to have hope again and on days like today, there are many tears and I feel like I haven't made any progress at all. But, I know I have. I have made HUGE progress. For most of the days in the first months, I struggled to cope second by second. I had to make so many MAJOR decisions and clean out and sell a house and I did all of that in a very short period of time. I think I was mostly in a state of shock, but lucid enough to know that my heart had been broken in little pieces and I didn't think I'd make it. It was my family and a few very precious friends, my faith and the Christian music station on pandora and sirius that got me through.
Here I am 7 months later and I am starting to get to know myself again. I'm not the person I was in that marriage. I don't ever have to feel as if I am not enough again. I have no depression. I have no deep down fears that I might be discarded because that already happened and I'm still here. My children are so loving and tender-hearted with me. They are protective and loyal and don't ever want me hurt again. There is a new freedom growing inside of me that says I can do whatever I want to do! What do I want to do? I don't know yet but I'm starting to want to find out! My relationship with God and Jesus has become so much deeper and fulfilling. When you are stripped bare, you find out what it means to rely completely on God for your next breath.
There are now days strung together when I don't cry at all. I am starting to feel like my marriage was very unhealthy for me and I was becoming a person I didn't know. My identity and my person-hood had ever so slowly, over 32 years, become buried down deep because my security was being eroded by the insecurity I was feeling in my marriage. When someone I loved so much questioned his commitment to the marriage and to me every 5-6 years or so, I started to feel a desperate need to hang on no matter what. I had children and a social work degree. I feared I wouldn't be able to support myself. I feared for what our lives would look like should there be a split. I couldn't be one of those moms who had to share my precious girls. I started accepting or putting up with certain things I never would have in my earlier days of strong self worth. I am realizing these truths slowly every day now. I have become stronger. I know that happy times are ahead, maybe even happier than on the happiest days in my marriage.
I am no longer feeling like a broken down junk heap by the side of the road. I am dusting myself off and getting back on that road. And I think I'm going to like who I am again. I am a precious child of a God who wants me back on the path to health, to life and to happiness. And I'm starting to really believe that is possible for me. I am trying not to worry about how I will pay bills and what kind of job I'll be able to find.
So, yes, so much progress from seven months ago. I am not broken anymore. God is in the business of new life and He is creating in me a new way forward, a new life, a new me. Today while I was driving, I heard a song I haven't heard now in a few months. It so perfectly tells the story of these past 7 months for me. The lyrics to this Danny Gokey song, Tell Your Heart to Beat Again:
You're shattered
Like you've never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you're never gonna get back
To the you that used to be
Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again
Beginning
Just let that word wash over you
It's alright now
Love's healing hands have pulled you through
So get back up, take step one
Leave the darkness, feel the sun
'Cause your story's far from over
And your journey's just begun
Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday's a closing door
You don't live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you've been
And tell your heart to beat again
These words are the story of my last seven months. And my story's FAR from over! And my journey's just begun! And where I am right now is just a description, not a prescription. God is in the business of making all things new!
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