Anniversary


One year ago my marriage ended.

Actually I spent a whole month after that night trying to effect reconciliation, allowing myself to be much taken advantage of in the process. It took several months before the actual divorce. I realize now, though, that really the marriage ended the night of the big walkout.

So, one year later, where am I now? Before marriage I owned my own car and lived debt-free. Now I drive a borrowed car and have yet to arrange a final settlement for thousands of dollars of debt in my name (but acquired without my knowledge) that I have been stuck with. Everything I’ve earned in the last decade or so of full employment has gone down a black hole.

I’m a decade or so older than before we married as well. I’ve given up hope of having children of my own. Technically it’s still possible. But I feel too old to start a family now, and have no one to start one with.

I’m not welcome with the former extended family any more either. I had loved those children, and they had loved me. I felt like I was helping to take care of them and meant something in their lives. Now I have no one to take care of. Over the past year I have been the one who needed the help. I’m thankful for those who have helped me, but I wish it wasn’t that way. It’s so much better to give than to receive.

I’m very conscious of being alone now. There’s nobody to go out with, nobody to hug, nobody to make love with. There’s nobody to go to sleep cuddling with at night. Physically, at least, our marriage was very successful. But that part of my life is over now.

Of course I could go out and find somebody and get married again. I’m at a loss where to start, since I know very few singles anything like my age. But there’s a bigger problem. I wasn’t some silly kid who rushed into marriage against the advice of wiser friends and family. I made a careful and considered choice that everybody supported and approved. And having married, I worked long and hard at trying to make it work. Either I’m not good at picking them even when I try hard, or it’s possible to see a good choice somehow turn into a different person with nothing I can do to stop it. At any rate, the lesson I’ve learned is that it’s just too big of a gamble. It’s not worth risking all that pain.

So I’m now living a life that feels very diminished and impoverished. My chances of being happily married and having children and living what feels to me like a fully adult life are gone now. Sometimes I get very angry at feeling that one bad apple has cheated me out of all that.

All that is the bad side of life this past year. There’s also, thankfully, a good side. A very good side.

I’ve learned in my time of need, during heartbreak and illness, just what wonderful friends and family and church family I’ve had. And through them I’ve been reminded of what a fantastic God I have. I’ve known better than to blame God for a human being’s failure. I’ve learned that in an evil world there’s just no protection against becoming the victim of evil forces. And yet no matter how terrible it gets, God will catch those who follow him when we fall, and show us a plan B for our lives. It may not be what we hoped. But it’s still a life worth living.

God still has a job for me to do. He still has things he wants me to accomplish. The evil in the world will continue to foul up some of it, but some of it’s going to succeed. Even if I should get killed in the process (and I will eventually, of course, because we all die some day), I know I’ll be on the winning side. In the meantime I’m still very much in the fight. And it all means something and makes a difference in eternity.

Meanwhile I’ve got little battles to fight every day. I’ve got a potentially destructive libido to keep locked down. It could get me into big, big trouble! I’ve got temptations to slack off and not fulfill my responsibilities in life to others.

And there’s the temptation to harbor bitterness in my heart. Sometimes when someone breaks your heart a lot of the love in it drains away and ugly things try to take its place. The cure for that is to do what Jesus said: “Bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” It’s not easy to do that. I’ve learned, though, that it’s much harder if I don’t. So I say prayers every night for the one I still love who became my enemy.

Strange as it may sound after everything I’ve said here, my life now, diminished though it may be from what I wanted, is much better than it was. I used to be a terrible worrier, always fearing the worst. Now that the worst has happened in one area of life, I don’t fear it so much. God can bring me through the worst, so it’s not something to fear. I no longer live in fear of triggering sudden rages. I no longer have to make excuses for the inexcusable. I actually feel depressed less often than I did. I have hope that some day I’ll stop missing the things I’ve lost and know the joy of contentment. I feel that joy intermittently as it is, and it’s a wonderful thing.

And always I know that wherever I am God is with me, inside me, talking to me and listening to me and guiding me. I hear the Holy Spirit’s voice better now than I did a year ago, and look forward to hearing him better still.

Perhaps the thing that best sums up life a year later is a song, written over a century ago. I first encountered it, in much-modified form, sung by one of my favorite singers, Enya. Here’s how it originally went:

My life flows on in endless song,
Above Earth’s lamentation;
I hear the sweet, though far off hymn,
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife,
I hear its music ringing.
It finds an echo in my soul;
How can I keep from singing?

What though my joys and comforts die;
The Lord my Savior liveth.
What though the darkness gather round;
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm
While to the Refuge clinging.
Since Christ is Lord of Heaven and Earth,
How can I keep from singing?

I lift my eyes, the clouds grow dim;
I see the blue above it;
And day by day the pathway smooth,
Since first I learned to love it.

The peace of Christ makes calm my soul,
A fountain ever springing;
All things are mine, since I am His,
How can I keep from singing?

I truly believe that, in time, you will no longer feel this way. A year is NOT a lot of healing time. Be as loving and patient with yourself as you are with others. You have a lot to offer and, when the time feels right to you, you WILL find love again - as long as it's something you decide that you want.