Testify - You GO, God!

Goodness I'm so sick of this roller coaster of divorce. I'd like to get OFF, already! For the love of all things holy, people. I'm so DONE with feeling sad, jealous, angry, vengeful, lonely, hurt, betrayed, [insert your favorite negative emotion here]. GAH!

Earlier this week - I don't recall which day, exactly - The Boy finally started asking more pointed questions about why I can't love daddy like a husband any more. Guh. I specifically didn't plan for this because I didn't want to over think an answer and muck things up. I figured God would put the words in my mouth. And he did.

The Boy was asking why can't I love daddy like a husband. I repeated what I have told him before - daddy lied to me and hurt me very badly. It's very hard for me to get past that. Well, that may have worked before. But not this day. Well, what did he lie about? Um....er....I uh....well, daddy never really loved me like you're supposed to love your wife. But he told me he did for lots of years and I believed him. So when I found out he really hadn't loved me all that time, it just really hurt me and blah blah blah blah. By the blank look on his face and the mental sound of crickets I had in my head, I knew this meant nothing to The Boy. In his mind, he still had not heard anything that could warrant a mom & dad breaking up their whole family. And I could read it in his face - Mom, why can't you just LOVE DAD AGAIN?! I could tell that he was thinking, if mom can just find it in her heart to love dad again, we can all be a family again. I knew I had to give him the hard evidence. SO I said, look, I wasn't going to tell you this until you were older. But I think you need to know. Daddy fell in love with someone else. And when you're married, you're not supposed to fall in love with someone else. His eyes got rather large and he just said, "Who?" Ugh. I didn't want to name her to him. I didn't want to give him this woman to romanticize. I mean, if daddy loves her, she must be pretty special, right? But I said, "Well her name is {she who will remain unnamed} and she lives in Boston. That's why daddy left to go to Boston for a while." He just sat there thinking. I didn't know what to do. I just prayed. So he finished his breakfast and we went about getting him ready for school. A while later I asked him if he was ok and did he have any questions or concerns. He just said, "Well not really. But now I finally understand better." He said it with such conviction, I totally believe him.

So he knows the truth. He knows I'm not asking him to hate daddy. And he has something concrete that he can think, "OK...THAT'S why mommy is so hurt. THAT'S why she can't love daddy any more."

It put future ex and his girl thing in my head a bit more than I wanted but I was ok.

On Friday, I spoke to future ex to discuss custody weekends and some legal stuff. We've been keeping a very healthy distance since he finally got a job. As I started explaining which weekends would be his, etc., he asked to switch one in October. Like an idiot (mostly from 16 yrs of habit), I just asked, how come. His tense answer of "I just have plans," made me realize he just has plans with the girl thing - ie: she will be coming to visit him here. There are so many levels on which this bothers me. Not the least of which being that their continued relationship represents such pain and evil to me. In my head, I keep expecting God's reap-what-you-sow to manifest in their relationship crashing and burning on such a large scale that you'd all see the flames from your windows. It is times like this I have to remind myself that A) I am not God [and you should all join me in thanking the real God on this point!] and B) I don't know what he has planned. I think that point B is always the hardest for us humans. Like, if he could just show me what he has planned for me - I don't need it right now. Just let me know what I'm heading toward...that would be enough. But God knows best and just says, "Um...yah, I'm God. So you need to kind of trust me, ok?" And so I'll wait to see what's in the big present under the tree.

But I'm losing track of my line of thought here. Good thing I'm just blogging and not trying to write a book here. So after my chat on Friday, I was seething. I was angry. I was mad. I was hurt all over again. I was mostly mad because the jealousy can still grip me. The man treated me like DIRT. No, worse than dirt! Why do I even WANT to be JEALOUS of such a bucket head? Honestly! But there it is. That green monster gripping your heart in such an all encompassing way, you just think you'll never be rid of it and how can you ever possibly survive this kind of pain? There are times when you just think it will NEVER end. You'll just feel like this forever and I can't live feeling like this forever.

So back I went to God. Throwing myself on him. Seriously, I'm so thankful that God is not like us humans because I'm sure that, by now, any other human would be screening my calls - running the other way - remembering that roast in the oven. I kept asking God to please take it all away. Make me stop loving him. Make me stop caring. Take the feelings of vengeance away. Take the anger. Take the sadness. Take the loneliness. Take it ALL. Just move me on - get me past it. Let's GO already - on to me being fine with being alone. Let's get to that I'm-so-incredibly-strong-on-my-own part of the story. Let's move me to that so we can get a little closer to the Prince Charming part of my story that I know will come. I feel like God has told me that is coming. But not yet.

It wasn't helping. The bad feelings weren't being poofed away. I wasn't instantly happy. It didn't even pass in one day like things have been for me lately. It was sticking, this yicky feeling. And I didn't even notice. I was denying it all.

Today I went to church like normal. Packed the back of my car up with a ton of food for church and off we went. It felt like any other Sunday. I got there, started setting up the food service with one of my friends. And she asked, "Are you tired today? Or is something wrong?" I was like, huh? I'm fine. Later, someone else asked if I was ok. Was there anything they could do for me. What is WRONG with all of these people. I'm FINE, I tell yah! A third person mentioned I didn't seem quite myself and I swear I almost yelled, "I'M FINE FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!" which of course would have totally convinced them of my mental stability. So when one of my closest friends in church looked at me as I tried to read the lesson for my toddler class and said, "Are you ok today?" I just teared up and said, "No. No I'm not," and proceeded to tell her of the impending visit to our area from the girl thing. She was changing her baby on the changing table and told me, "Oh I want to come over there and give you a hug but she'll just roll off the table!" Which was pretty funny to me but I couldn't muster the chortle. So I retreated to the ladies' room and quietly sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and hoped no one heard me. And I couldn't stop. The damn broke. And I'm thinking, oh great. I have to teach the toddler class in like 5 minutes!

As I stood there with my forehead pressed against the cold cement wall of the ladies' room, I remembered, oh yah! There's this God who totally loves me and wants me to bring all of my burdens to him. So without any of the flowery talk, I just cried on God as if he were in that stall with me (which he obviously was). I just said, "Oh God, I can't TAKE it any more. I'm so TIRED of being sad and lonely and mad. And I'm so sorry for all the stupid things I've been thinking about future ex and his girl thing. And I just need you to take it away. I'm trying so hard to give it to you but it's so HARD. I'm HUMAN. Why'd you make me HUMAN?! I give it all to you, God. In the name of Jesus, I give you my life, my children's lives, my marriage, my family. I give you future ex and his girl thing. And I accept whatever you have. Whatever your plan is. Just help me deal with whatever you have planned."

And then I heard someone come in and figured I better mop up my face, pull it together and go pretend I was functional. I talked some more to my wonderful friend who just stood there, loving me so completely and not caring that this was the 942nd MILLIONth time I had cried on her. Then I went and taught the toddlers. Those goofy bunch of miniature people. And when church was over, both of my boys ran up and gave me the most sincere hugs, verbally declared their love for me and how wonderful I was, and ran off to play. Then, I went with my parents and kids to my sister's house. We stayed there all afternoon and celebrated the birthday of my Impossibly Tall Brother-In-Law. It was so much fun. What a wonderful day.

As I drove home (man, this short blog entry is turning into yet another War & Peace tome), my cell phone rang and I saw it was future ex calling. Now, a few hours earlier and my heart would have just twisted up. But it didn't. Although, I didn't notice that at the time. He was calling to ask if he could take the boys to dinner - which was perfect because I could use a little alone time. And when he showed up as I pulled in the driveway, my heart still didn't twist into that black hole of pain. And when I saw him, nothing. Didn't bother me. Usually, when I've been in one of my emotional pits, I am cold as ice to him. I give very unsubtle body language to make sure he understands the cobra hood is wide open and he should tread VERY lightly. I didn't do any of that. I was pleasant, polite and that was it. When he returned the boys, I was planting mums in the front yard and again, didn't care when I saw him. It was THEN that I realized - HOLY GUACAMOLE! God is doing it! God is poofing me! I honestly didn't care when I looked at him. Normally, I see him and my heart sinks. Or I want to rip the stupid glasses (that the girl thing picked for him) from his face and crush them under my heel. Or I want to shave his oh-so-precious "cool" sideburns right off. Or I want to think of the perfectly cutting acerbic thing to say that will just wither him to an insignificant lump of dried dung. None of which I ever do. But today, it was just, oh...here he is to pick up the boys. Or oh, there he is dropping off the kids. YAWN.

Once he left, I walked around just going, "Wow God!! I can't believe this! I didn't feel a THING! You are AMAZING! You totally ROCK! I love you so much! You are totally the BOMB, God!"

When I told my mom this story a little while ago on the phone, it was she that kind of recounted the timeline of the day. She's the one that showed me, look what a mess you were around 10am. And look at what a happy perfect rest of church he gave you. And the fun day at my sister's house. And then the total no-pain experience when I saw him!! I mean, I was just devastated in the ladies' room at church. And here I was just la-dee-da-dee-dum.

I love that I can just dump on God. I can talk all unpretty to him, bawling, snot running down my face, ugly cry-face and all. And he took it. And he honored it. And he poofed me into a gorgeous wonderful day. And he poofed protection around my heart. And he is showing me over and over, "This guy is NOT who I have for you. I have something much better for you." Not some ONE. Some THING. What ever it is, I know it is SO much better than what I've already tasted. And I know he'll honor my boys in this plan. I know he'll bring them through this to be strong honorable young men who know the value of commitment and understand that wives and marriages are not disposable.

God rocks. Completely.

You GO, God!