Tag Archives: sadness

01.21.17
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Newton’s Cradle

balance

That’s me in the middle…well, to be more accurate, the middle left.

I’m the one who keeps reaching for the next ball…which, in turn, reaches for another.

There is that moment of connection – so brief, yet, so real – when it seems we are together and alone and no other forces are playing upon us.

And then everything shifts.

She moves to the right…toward not me…and I’m left hanging once again.

I wonder why I’ve found myself suspended here…in this order of nowbutnotyet…in this lineup of yearning and poor timing. And I have no answers. I know I don’t handle it well. I’m a mess most of the time, in fact. I hold myself together for a few moments/days/weeks and, then, I lose whatever is making it all almost make sense and things go to hell.

Like last night.

Like this morning.

I’m some werewolf who gets lost when the moon is full and wakes up in a cold forest wondering where my shirt is. And I feel like I have no one to give me my bearings and welcome me home to sanity.

How I yearn for that…for welcoming arms.

For a lifetime version of that moment of connection.

But, now, I’m just that suspended ball on the middle left.

Wondering what hit me.

IMAGE SOURCE: balance by Evonne

01.19.17
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how?

How do you (and by you, I mean I) close a door you don’t want to close?

A door you were (and still are) convinced was the right door?

How do you move from now…to not now…to not yet…to, maybe…never?

How do you reconcile the hopes and the sadness? The beauty and the loss?

How do you believe that God is in control and His timing is perfect when everything inside you is reaching and wanting and feeling the heavy emptiness next to you?

How do you learn these lessons and grow beyond childish impatience?

 

I wish I knew…

01.18.17
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Home in the Range

Well, there they are…those glorious five stages of grief:

denial >> anger >> bargaining >> depression >> acceptance

All being played out in rapid succession…overlapping…loopingbackandforth…

The past week and a half has involved a lot of discovery for me, and much of that discovery has been painful. I’ve walked into some inyourface realizations…while other realizations have begun to dawn on me more gradually…but, either way, ignorance was a hell of a lot more enjoyable than what appears to be the truth.

I guess that’s why I lived in that denial range for such a long time. Much like I’ve done in the past, I deeply believed that patient love and faithful service would win a heart that didn’t want to be won. As the shape of reality showed itself, I would shake my head and reaffirm my confidence that I WAS THE MAN TO CHANGE IT!

But I wasn’t that man.

And I jumped right to depression when I saw that fact without veil. If we lighten the term a bit and call it “sadness”, it’s the space I’m in most of the time now. The recognition of hopes that will stay deferred and plans that will never be brought to fruition…it drains a great deal of spring from my step and flattens the lines of my smile.

The anger has just been salted in there along the way, bubbling up every couple of hours as feelings of how little I must have meant creep in…along with thoughts of how eagerly my gifts and acts of service and words of affirmation and quality time and physical touches were received, and then – it seems – cast away. It sucks to feel used and unappreciated. It sucks to feel like more than a year of adoration was so easy to turn away from. (In all fairness, this may not be the complete case…but it feels that way.)

So…Anger. Frustration. Irritation. Gritted teeth and boiling blood and hemorrhaging heart. I’m trying hard to rise about it, but it’s mostly vain effort right now.

There have been filaments of bargaining…IF this happens, I’ll try again…IF that is evident, I will hang in there… But, ultimately, bargains require two parties and – when no one else wants to try – there isn’t much point.

I haven’t found my way to acceptance yet. That’s gonna take some time. I’m doing a little better with it today than I did yesterday…and far, far better than I did last week… I am determined to not emote constantly as I move through my day (like I did most of last week…ugh). But, it’s still a process and I’m pretty sure I’ll be bouncing back and forth through this range of emotions for some time.

So, instead of trying to trust my own navigational skills, I have to look to One Greater. This morning, I read the words of Psalm 61:

Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer; from the end of the earth I call to you when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for You have been my refuge, a strong tower against the enemy*.

Let me dwell in Your tent forever! Let me take refuge under the shelter of Your wings!

I’ve been hurt before. I have healed before. And the Source of that healing was Jesus. He hasn’t changed, so I know I will be okay. It just takes time and patience and a willingness to trust that He knows infinitely more than I do about what I truly need.

So…here I am…home in the range of grief stages…looking forward to a better future.

(*One quick note…please, please understand that I’m not seeing that word “enemy” in this passage as representing the person I’ve been writing about. She is so not my enemy. She is a woman who loves the Lord and is doing the best she can. We are just in different places with different heart economies.)

01.13.17
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moses, by the river, with coffee

A couple mornings ago I sat huddled over a cup of coffee, reading some words that were penned a few thousand years ago by an old man. An old man who, as a baby, survived a solo river rafting trip by being plucked from the water by a princess and raised in royal courts.

But that was all ancient history by the time the old guy wrote what I was reading. He’d lived a crazy life and seen things that would make most people run for the hills…but not him. Not Moses. Because Mo had known the one true God up close and personal and knew – beyond all doubt – how great and good and terrifyingly beautiful He is.

So, Moses and all the people of his nation are camped on the banks of a different river and he’s reminding them of everything that had taken place during the past forty-something years. They had been rescued by this all-powerful, holy God and set on a path toward greatness. But they blew it. OH did they blow it. Time and again. They kept trying to do things their own way and chase after stuff that God hadn’t set apart for them.

Doing things like that…all that stubbornstupidchasing…it doesn’t end well.

And Mo…well, he’s getting his people ready for finally…finally…entering into the land that God had promised them. And here is what he said:

10 For the land that you are entering to take possession of it is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated it, like a garden of vegetables. 11 But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven,12 a land that the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year.

13 And if you will indeed obey my commandments that I command you today, to love the Lord your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,14 he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain, that you may gather in your grain and your wine and your oil. 15 And he will give grass in your fields for your livestock, and you shall eat and be full. – Deuteronomy 11:10-15

And there I was…thousands of years later…feeling like I’d just been whacked between the eyes by Old Mo’s shepherd’s staff.

Because I have spent my share of time trying to sow seeds and water them and force things to grow out of my own effort. I’ve been trying to chase after things that may not really be what God has prepared for me. I’ve been using all this crazy energy to shape a future of my own design, and it has failed.

Thankfully, I don’t think God is going to make me wander in the desert for forty years like he did Moses’ people. At least I hope I’m correct about that… But I’m finding that I have been wandering in my own kind of way. Lost in the boondocks of well-meaning stubbornness.

A bit more than a year ago, I began falling in love with a remarkable woman. A beautiful person who hit pretty much every criteria I’d set for the kind of lady I’d want to spend the rest of my life with. I’d just come away from a failed second marriage and that reality covered me with thick layers of shame which I continue to carry around. But meeting this incredible woman – we’ll call her Hazel – changed everything. It reminded me that I wasn’t a lost cause…that I wasn’t doomed to be alone…that my past failures weren’t life sentences. I wasn’t completely sure how she felt about me, but I knew she liked me at least a little.

Days, weeks, and months went by and I laid my love on thick like a heavy handmade blanket. It was, I think, too thick. But that’s what a man who has been drowning in hurt tends to do when he sees a lifeboat in front of him. Ultimately, it didn’t work for her. It only chased her away.

And it left me on the banks of a different river singing the same songs of loss and lamentation.

And that’s where Old Moses’s words came into play. He reminded me that my first priority can’t be chasing after a beautiful girl and trying to make her love me. No, my first priority has to be loving God with all my heart and with all my soul and trusting that He – in all of his great and good and terrifying beauty – will lead me to a place I could never make on my own. A place where my heart desires are realized, where my need for love is met, and where my hand matches another’s with precision and design.

Maybe Hazel is that person. Maybe not. I honestly don’t know. I’m trying to not worry too much about it right now and find some healing as I redirect my priorities toward obedience.

Stubbornness hasn’t done much for me, but I have every reason to believe that God will provide. I just need to love and serve and wait.

07.03.16
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brokenness & beauty

The past few days have been difficult.

If I’m being honest, the past few years have been difficult.

The summer of 2011 is when my first marriage began to noticeably unravel. It was the fruit of several years of growing distance and inattentiveness, of course, but I failed to really see it until then.

The summer of 2012 was a time of healing. I was riding my bike nearly everyday, my heart was being pieced back together, and I was seeing – tangibly – how God was shaping in me a new hope and strength.

The summer of 2013 was a season of new love, confusion, sadness, perseverance, and the ups and downs of a relationship with a woman who struggled with depression and inner turmoil. Those ups and downs continued through our marriage in December, 2013, to our divorce in the autumn of 2015. It was a period of life where I prayed fervently, loved patiently, lost myself in concessions, and experienced both mountaintop elation and shattering pain.

The summer of 2016 finds me back in that haze of wanting something so deeply that I allow myself to look past obvious issues and construct an imagined potential reality. I have this pattern of trying to make things happen…of using my patience and my optimistic endurance in an attempt at engineering something beautiful.

But, I have to remind myself, that beauty can’t be forced. Happy endings can’t be fabricated. Love can’t be demanded. And recognizing this uncovers and adds to a woundedness deep inside me.

Early this morning, as I was looking at Instagram, I saw a post a friend of mine had made. The photo was – as all of her photos are – lovely. An excellent frame of color and form which immediately caught my eye. The real substance of the post, however, was the quote from John O’Donohue which accompanied the image:

The beauty that emerges from woundedness is a beauty infused with feeling; a beauty different from the beauty of landscape and the cold perfect form. This is a beauty that has suffered its way through the ache of desolation until the words or music emerged to equal the hunger and desperation at its heart. It must also be said that not all woundedness succeeds in finding its way through to beauty of form. Most woundedness remains hidden, lost inside forgotten silence. Indeed, in every life there is some wound that continues to weep secretly, even after years of attempted healing. Where woundedness can be refined into beauty a wonderful transfiguration takes place.
– John O’Donohue

This desire for wholeness…for beauty…for healed wounds… It is a universal thing. It is an ancient thing. We, as a people, have longed for restoration since we were first expelled from the Garden. It is a sorrowful hunger that ties together generations of souls who know pain and loss and desolation but dream of being made new. I love the text of Isaiah chapter 61:1-3…

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me,
for the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted
and to proclaim that captives will be released
and prisoners will be freed.
He has sent me to tell those who mourn
that the time of the Lord’s favor has come,
and with it, the day of God’s anger against their enemies.
To all who mourn in Israel,
he will give a crown of beauty for ashes,
a joyous blessing instead of mourning,
festive praise instead of despair.
In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks
that the Lord has planted for his own glory.

Beauty instead of ashes…joy instead of mourning…festive praise instead of despair… These are the things I want. These are the things all of humanity wants. To be made right with God…to be reshaped and replanted for His glory…to taste what it is like to be whole and unbroken.

The conversation that my friend and I had in the comment section of her Instagram post moved me to tears. It reminded me that I am never alone in my brokenness. I am never alone in my uncertainty.

Me: Those words… #profound #needed
Her: I feel you, David. I truly do. Healing is a profoundly transformative process that is only available to those willing to face the deepest, darkest parts of themselves, drag them kicking and screaming to the surface for a cold, hard look straight into their faces, and send them away with love filling your heart and beaming from your soul.
Her: #notforthefaintofheart and you, dear one, are not faint of heart.
Me: I can’t possibly find sufficient breath to tell you how deeply I needed to hear those words right now. It is truly miraculous how God will speak to our hearts through the people He has placed in our lives.
Her: I absolutely believe that with all of me. And those words came straight to you from Him. I have just been through this myself, David. I know you can do this. I am living, breathing, proof. Love can heal all. Love is infinitely powerful and powerfully infinite. With love, ALL things are possible.

Those words…”you, dear one, are not faint of heart.” Those words felt as though God had spoken directly to me. I sat there and I cried. Not tears of brokenness, but tears of relief. Tears of recognition that everything that I experience…everything that YOU experience…is within the sovereignty of Christ. It isn’t some lost, wild card occurrence that He somehow misses in the tumult of global activity. I am God’s dear one. You are God’s dear one. And, through His patiently loving transformation, our ashes are reshaped for glory and our shambles are set right and our wounds “can be refined into beauty [so] a wonderful transfiguration takes place.”

The past few days have been difficult. In all honesty, I don’t have much clarity for how to proceed…but I know my Source. I know that He will strengthen my heart and that, in His time, He will do something beautiful.

11.28.15
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it goes

things-changed-today-page-turned-signature-inked-knots-once-tied-undone-today_23229839905_o

On Sunday, November 22, at 3:00 pm, I signed divorce papers. It took about 15 minutes and just a few strokes of ink. We met in a coffee shop…much like the first time we saw each other. It seemed fitting.

On Wednesday, November 25, at 3:30 pm, we filed the papers at the county courthouse. It took about 9 minutes. It was the same courthouse where we got our marriage license about two years earlier. It seemed heartbreaking.

So many parts of the past 2 years, 8 months, and 24 days have been confusing. So many truly beautiful moments…so many heartbreaking turns. I loved as deeply as I could…as consistently as I could…as patiently as I could. And, sometimes, that love was returned. Other times, it was pushed away. I hoped that, by being deep and consistent and patient in my love, it would heal things…but it didn’t.

And, so, I sit in this house…a framework that looks familiar and feels empty…unsure of how to move forward. Every day a thousand little things trigger memories both sweet and sharp. I know in my head that things will be okay. I believe in my spirit that God is faithful. Yet, in my heart, the pain is too fresh and I’m lost.

I didn’t want this. I worked so hard to escape this. When I saw this sweet, curly-haired woman at 5pm outside a small cafe on March 3, 2013, I believed with my whole heart that God had sent her to me. I saw His handiwork all over the place and my heart was flooded with love and excitement and dreams of the next 60 years together with My Sweet Woman.

It was a losing battle, though. A drawn-out journey of disconnection and frustration and competing desires. First impressions weren’t what I thought they were. We needed different things. We had different definitions.

Last night, for the first time in quite a while, three of my children spent the night with me. We went to dinner, we flopped down on the living room floor, we laughed. They are all still asleep and I don’t want this moment to end. I don’t want them to wake and begin the process of leaving. Being left hurts too much. I know that they will return, though. Their love will stay with me.

I know in my head that things will be okay. I believe in my spirit that God is faithful. And, in my heart, I know that healing will come and pain will fade and joy will return.

I have, after all, been here before.

I know how it goes.