…life was supposed to turn out.
Have you ever thought this? Or said this?
This one little line keeps running thru my mind lately as I survey the “mess” of my life right now. I warned you about the construction didn’t I? Well, here we go:
I’m not supposed to be sick – yet again – or more like still…this time with strep.
I’m not supposed to be heading into my mid 30s and be single – again…but this time with kids.
I’m not supposed to be living in a strange place, in a new city…trying to figure out a new life that is at times exciting…and at other times all together extremely frightening, terrifying and more.
I’m not supposed to be alone on Valentine’s day…too tired to care or hardly even remember it is this holiday. Not that I am a typical girl about this holiday…ever since my mom died 25 years ago the day before Valentine’s day…well it is really more like a double yammy. No mom, no love. In high school, the student government would sell roses that you could send to your “love” during school…which except for a select few – was just a painful reminder that we were not the “in” crowd, not wanted by another in the only way that seems to matter during this awkward stage of life.
As I grew up and got a love – the day is still a reminder that my mom is not here. And the day more often than not would end up being a disappoint most times. I can’t even remember celebrating for the last couple of years. So years ago – I stopped caring about making this day special. But still, I am not supposed to be alone…
I’m not supposed to be a divorcee. I was supposed to be enough for the one that I committed my life to…supposed to be enough for him being willing to change along with me.
I’m not supposed to be meeting all these new, amazing people in a parallel world to the one I was just living in. This on reminds me of the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. If you can get past the -what I would consider – fairly miserable English accent…the movie investigates how one instant in life going differently can change your entire life’s path. For me, it’s like I can still see my life as a married mother of two…carting her kids from school to T-ball practice, to mom groups and church. Now, however, I see it through a window I am behind…or maybe one of those two way mirrors. On this side I am meeting people that lived a life right along side me all along – yet I had no clue they were even there. And these people, these people are healthy and good and I’m so thankful for them in my life…yet I just feel like an actor sometimes dropped into this new life, waiting for my real life to come back around. The physiology world has a word for it – it’s called “Adjustment Disorder”…I call it bollocks. This is NOT how my life is supposed to turn out.
I am not supposed to be sitting here wondering how the hell I got here. Sitting here night after night – with tears that are always close at hand. Sitting here wondering what in the world I am doing, how to grieve the past, live in the present and move towards the future.
I am not supposed to be in a class called Life Skills, sharing and hearing about all the horrible things us humans do to others…and trying to grow up into my adult self. How the heck does one really do this?
Yet, the other question that keeps going thru my mind after I am done wallowing in my self-pity for today at least (and yes, I think it is good to do some of this mourning the “what wasn’t supposed to be”)…the other question is this, “Would I go back to the way things were?”
Absolutely, positively, firmly ….no. How could I ever go back to trying to fit this round peg in that square hole? Sure I had all the entrappings of what this world glorifies. I had the world’s security I had always been missing in my life and so desperately wanted. Yet, I was more lost than I am now – in a very horrible, soul-threatening way. I was not growing into the person God had called me to…while I said I loved God, I was running away from Him. I was growing more unlike Him, more unlike Christ…and more like the worst version of myself.
No, I can honestly say I would never want any of those things again if it meant I had to give up my God, my Jesus…my Husband and my Maker. I’ve made that mistake once before and I pray I will never do it again…even if it means being single the rest of my life.
It doesn’t lessen the pain of my poor decisions and of my losses…but at least I know Jesus is right there with me, right with me in my pain, holding my hand and helping me walk out of the rubbish of what happened when I tried to do life on my terms….walking towards a life He has for me on his terms.
Can you see it? Over there in the distance? Full of color and life, where people put people first, where love is enough and sin is no more, where community is a way of being and loneliness is a thing of the past no matter if you’re married or single, young or old…
….of a lavish Garden flourishing at the work of our hands? Can’t you just see it…?
I have no idea where you are at on this Valentine’s day of 2012…but I want to leave you with this sweet treat from God that He has given me…and I think you could apply it to your life as well.
God keeps brining me back to good ol’ Isaiah…and lately this verse has taken on a new, deeper meaning. Remember my Earthquake series? Where I mentioned how everything I once had both in this world and in the inner world of my beliefs was being shaken to the ground, removed from me? Well, now I see the beautiful promise that this verse is bringing into my life. That where I had “mountains” to hold me up – where I ran securely on the “hills” that formed my life…now I have God’s love to hold me up, and I have God’s covenant of peace to form my life.
