Rest, Renewal, and Letting Go

Have you ever second-guessed yourself?

Have you ever wondered if decisions made in the past were the right ones?

While I know reflecting on past decisions does no good because they cannot be changed, even so, that’s where I’ve been the past few weeks.

Reflecting. Seeking. Praying.

It’s very quiet in my house right now. The only sound is the whirr of the ceiling fan above me. I look out my window to see an overcast, gray sky and the grass in my backyard turned to yellow as it has gone dormant for the winter months. The temperature has dropped and leaves are falling from my dogwood tree. It, too, is preparing for its long winter’s nap.

Seasons change. The grass and trees are doing exactly what God created them to do. Last Spring, new leaves and new grass emerged from their slumber to remind me that although things change, God brings renewal. Now, those same leaves and grass from last Spring have accomplished what they were created to do and are dying back in order to get ready for their reemergence next Spring, renewed, refreshed, and beautiful.

It all seems so effortless. God’s beautiful and amazing creation knows exactly what to do each Spring and each Fall. No one has to tell them when to emerge from the ground or return to it. It’s just how He created them. They just do as their Creator instructs them.

Oh, that life could be so effortless from a human stand-point. To just be and do as our Creator instructs us. But God did not create us with a seasonal pattern that we follow year in and year out. He created us for fellowship. He created us for relationship. He created us with a mind that can think and reason and relate. He created us with an innate desire and urgency to seek Him. But He also created us with a free will. A free will to choose His path or our own. A free will to seek a relationship with Him or pursue our own selfish desires.

He created us with emotions. To feel contentment when all seems to be going well or to feel concern when someone we love is hurting or is sick. To feel love for another so deeply you can’t imagine life without it then feel pain so tangibly when forced to do so. To be grateful for all God’s blessed you with yet feel sadness for what was lost or what could’ve been.

We are emotional beings. There are situations that happen to us in this world we can’t understand and bring us to our knees yet somehow we know God is in control. There are decisions made in the moment we think are the right ones and trust God with the outcome. We go about our day to day lives, doing our best to be a witness and an example of the gospel of Jesus to those we come into contact with. We do our jobs with diligence and integrity in order to bring God glory and to pay the bills. We raise our kids and set an example for them to emulate so they can then pass those same convictions on to their children to carry on a legacy of knowing Jesus and making Him known.

Over the past five years, I believe I have experienced every emotion common to the human heart, at least once. Emotions ranging from being ecstatically happy and content to being the most broken and devastated I have ever been. My heart has known both incredible happiness and incredible loss. Such it is with living life on this earth. Life is not without its ups and downs; good days and bad days; good seasons and bad seasons. What makes the difference in these ever changing life situations is how I choose to look at them but also, how I choose to deal with them. It’s very easy to choose to stay down and depressed because somehow this brings comfort to my humanness. To wallow in the why’s and what-if’s of yesterday as opposed to embracing where God has placed me now. Embracing the present has been difficult, I have to admit. Because embracing the present means I must let the past go. Not forget it or the lessons I have learned from it but to store it away in my heart as a season that is gone forever, cherish the good memories, and realize God is ready for me to move on to the next one.

Oh, how much easier it would be if God had written how to do this into my DNA when He created me. That the ever changing seasons of life would come as easily to me as they do to my grass and my tree. But that’s not how it works. Instead, in my humanness, I experience life as it comes, sometimes being effected and influenced by the life-choices of others, filtered through the hand of my Creator, in order for me to turn my eyes toward Him for His strength, His guidance, and His will. That is, if I choose to do it that way. Sometimes I don’t and I opt for the pity-party or the wallowing-in-the-past scenario. But I’ve learned I don’t always realize I’m wallowing until I open up and share my heart with another to help me sort through the myriad of emotions I’m feeling.

I have learned that letting go is also a process; just as healing is.

Earlier this month, I took my first vacation of the year. I usually head to the mountains for solitude to enjoy God’s beautiful creation, write, read my Bible, and rest. This year was different. With the cost of everything being higher these days, I decided on a stay-cation. There were stacks of boxes I’d moved from my old house that had been piled up in closets and in the garage from when I moved into my new house five years ago. I knew I needed to go through each one to sort and separate what I wanted to keep and what needed to go. To my surprise, there were a few boxes that contained memories I thought I’d long since disposed of but, evidently, had not so those were some difficult ones to sort through but I did it without too much drama. I built shelves in the closets so I had a place to organize and store the things I decided to keep and had lots of garbage bags on hand for the things that ended up in file 13!

During my spring-cleaning-in-the-fall stay-cation, I found two boxes full of loose pictures, negatives, some old emails I had printed, and a few other odds and ends that didn’t have a place to go and, for some reason or another, ended up in those boxes over the years.

I decided I needed to go through each of the boxes and sort them out for the kids. I thought my daughters would want the ones back of their children they’d given to their dad and I over the years as well as some of them when they were kids themselves. Talk about a walk down memory lane. I sat on the floor of my guest room for hours, looking at picture after picture after picture and re-lived some of the best years of my life. For the past 5 years, I’ve thought my entire marriage was a lie.

It was not.

I went through every picture and each one reminded me of a different season from our lives together. From candid wedding photos at our reception and our honeymoon, pregnancy pictures of me with each child, snow, sleds, and glaciers in Alaska, Easter Egg hunts in Japan, playing in the leaves in the Fall in Iowa, to high school graduations, weddings, and grand babies in Alabama. Happy memories of love and togetherness washed over me.

I sat there, with tears streaming down my face, and, for the first time in many years, was actually able to thank God for the man I married and for the three amazing kids He blessed us with. I was just barely nineteen when I married him and he was 28. I used to tell people he raised me and I truly believe he did. He taught me how to do so many things. Even to this day, when I start a project, like building those shelves in the closets and in the laundry room, or I use my cordless screwdriver, I think about him and the way he taught me how to fix things and use tools in order to take care of the things in my home that I’d otherwise have to pay someone to do for me. He taught me the importance of not ever being overdrawn in my checking account and to always pay my bills on time. I can honestly say, for the past 40 years, I’ve never bounced a check and have always paid my bills on time. (Even after I lost over half of my income in 2019! I trusted God to provide for my need and He did. He always does.) He taught me how to split firewood (didn’t catch on to that very well) and how to stack it in the shed so the rows stay even and don’t fall forward with the weight. He taught me how to take care of my vehicle and make sure I have the oil changed every 3,000 miles or so. He taught me how to can food using a pressure cooker. (I don’t really have the need to do that since it’s just me but I could do it if need be.) He taught me how to build a retaining wall and how to use a level to make sure it stays even so the blocks stack correctly. He taught me how to drive in rush-hour traffic on a six lane highway in Mexico while we were on our honeymoon. (That was scary!! I’d only been driving for a week at that time!)  He taught me how to mow the lawn and how to take care of the lawn mower by ensuring I knew how to add both oil and gas for it to run properly. He taught me how to plant flowers in a flower bed by loosening the roots before putting them in the dirt, in order to give them a good start. He taught me the ways of the Army, what was expected of me as an officer’s wife, and how best to support him in his career. (I think I did that well.) He taught me how to be independent because he’d be away for much of the time and I needed to know how to take care of myself and our children without him. (I think I did that well, too. Perhaps a little too well.) He always told me I could do anything I put my mind to because I was sharp and that I was even smarter than he in some ways. Oh, my goodness, I could go on and on about all the things he brought to my life because there were many.

Sitting in the quiet of my guest room that day, pouring over my past by way of pictures, I realized the timeframe of when everything started to change in our relationship. He went on an unaccompanied tour for a year to Kuwait in 1997 and when he returned to us in 1998, he was a completely different person. I don’t know everything he experienced while he was there but, suffice it to say, I know he suffered enough trauma for him to have severe PTSD when he arrived home but he didn’t seek help for it. I think he thought he could get through it on his own without any outside help. I believe he went to one session with a counselor and never went back. However, this realization, in no way, excuses his behavior and what he eventually did to me and the kids by having an affair, choosing another family, and walking away from us. It does, however, explain and answer a lot of questions I have had for years that now seem to make sense.

I found some closure on that day. It felt refreshing and brought healing to know there was a time when my ex truly did love me.

In his humanness, my ex experienced horrific life-situations that brought trauma and pain into his life, which were filtered through the hands of his Creator, and instead of said events turning him towards God for healing and restoration, he chose the world instead. I know God was ready and waiting to restore him and heal his heart and his mind but he chose to run. In my heart, I believe I was too much of a reminder of the past. A past he could not return to in his current mental state. He blamed me for “making” him (his words) go to Kuwait and his resentment toward me grew. From there, he just continued on a downward spiral. I knew he was struggling greatly with a heavy burden but he wouldn’t confide in me or ever talk about it. I know there were and are things he can tell no one due to his oath as an Army officer, but he desperately needed, and still needs, to do so. Then came his choices to seek out other women for “comfort and happiness”. Once he did that, I know he felt tremendous guilt whenever he was around me so he stayed away from me as much as possible. Which is exactly what he did. He even told me one time, “I’m not a good man.” I think the combination of the severe PTSD and all the hideous life-choices he continued to make and wouldn’t stop making, eventually led to him to the point of no return. He didn’t fight for me, our marriage, or the family we’d made together. He gave up on all of us and everything we had. All he wanted was to escape his current reality and live a “simple life” (his words).

I can honestly say I have forgiven him. I wouldn’t be able to remember and reflect on all these good memories of him if I had not. My heart misses the man he was before he went to Kuwait and it prays for the man he is today. He desperately needs healing and restoration that can only come from Jesus.

That season of my life is over. Never to return. Never to be repeated.

“But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,”

~ Philippians 3:13b ESV

I’ve spent the past few weeks second-guessing myself and have actually wondered if I made the right decision to file for divorce. I can honestly say that yes, I absolutely did. I know I have said many times since then (even on this blog) that God removed me from my ex but now I’m not exactly sure what transpired during those last days we were married. I obeyed God when He told me to move out of the master bedroom, fully expecting to go to counseling and start working through things. But God knew what was going to happen. He knew my ex would walk away and leave me devastated. Perhaps my ex had already made up his mind and was determined to leave no matter what. Perhaps God had already “turned him over to his reprobate mind” (Romans 1:28) and there’s no coming back from that. That knowledge will probably always be an unknown this side of heaven. But the fact remains, he made his choice. I don’t know what God was doing in the unknown on my behalf. All I do know for sure is that I trusted Him with every detail and knew He’d work all things out for my good. And He did.

“And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.”

~ Romans 8:28 ESV

In my humanness, I truly wish that things would’ve turned out differently for me and the Major. He was the absolute love of my life and he will always hold a special place in my heart. No matter what he’s done, he was my first and only love and he’s the father of my children. However, I do not want nor desire him to ever be in my life again. In the end, he was my abuser, he treated me horribly, and I do not trust him. I do not need nor want that toxicity to be part of my future.

In my spirit, I know things turned out exactly as they should have. In this world, we have trials and heartache. Jesus told us we would. We get hurt and disappointed and betrayed. We suffer due to selfish choices made by those closest to us and those things effect us, sometimes in catastrophic ways. It was not an easy road to get to the point where I am this day. I have cried many tears over the past few weeks, and even the past few days, in my struggle to truly forgive my ex and let him go. I really didn’t want to let go. Truth be told, I was comfortable in my sadness and missing the man he was.

I said before it would’ve been easier had God written an automatic “let go” gene into my DNA when He created me but I’m so thankful He didn’t choose to make me like that of my tree or my grass. God created me in His image. He created me for relationship. He created me for fellowship with Him. He’s teaching me what it means to be His child and how to grow in the midst of pain and suffering. He’s teaching me to trust Him no matter what the situation is. He’s teaching me how to have joy even in the heartbreak of losing the love of my life to another woman and to the world. He’s given me the strength I need to let go of a man who’s no longer in my life even without putting it in my DNA because He didn’t need to. He is enough. He is always enough.

I will press on, I will experience life as it comes, although sometimes it may be effected and influenced by the life-choices of others, but those things will always be filtered through the hand of my Creator, in order for me to turn my eyes toward Him for His strength, His guidance, and His will.

I have seen God do miraculous things in my life that only He could’ve done. Things that don’t make sense, and yet, in my heart, they do because He does.

 

Click here to listen to a beautiful song by Point of Grace that I have sung several times in church over the years. Never before have the words to this song been truer in my life than they are today.

Jesus Will Still Be There