IN AND OUT OF ASHES

I'll never forget the relief.  The decision was made April 27, 1984.  For two years I had struggled over whether to get a divorce, to pursue it.  I prayed, sought counseling, cried, screamed, made possible plans "if"-- and all the time hated the thought of giving in to failure and breaking up the marriage. There truly were a number of serious reasons to be in this serious mess.  Married as a Christian, 15 years earlier, it truly was the last alternative I wanted to face.  In fact, I had gone to a women's retreat that weekend in Tulsa, asking only one question of God in my heart -- "What do YOU see needs to be done about this?"  And before the weekend was over, all the pieces fit together, and I stopped churning and tossing and was at peace.

I was nervous about telling Lloyd, but I needn't have been.  When I told him I was going to file for divorce, he, true to pattern, shrugged his shoulders and said offhandedly, "Whatever."

After the relief, euphoria enveloped me.  I spent 10 weeks operating in that unreal fantasy realm--not knowing it was fantasy at the time.  I thought I was finished crying forever and ever and now could joyfully go on with life.

I. was. wrong. 

My friends would have told me I'd crash if they thought I would believe them.  I was flying.  It was great!  Months later, I remembered an Emergency! episode from the television show in the 1970s.  A man at a loading dock was pinned by a truck from the chest down.  He was smiling and said he was fine; he didn't understand the fuss.  The paramedics standing to the side said, "We better be ready, because when they move that truck the pain is going to hit."  Well, they were right.  The truck moved and the man screamed in pain and passed out..

My "truck" moved, too.  And the pain hit...but I couldn't faint, and I couldn't die, and I couldn't understand why I had so much pain or what caused it, or what to do with it.  All I knew was it was there--all the time-- one LONG contraction, broken occasionally by a painless moment, just long enough to allow me to catch my breath and steel myself for the next onslaught.

Gradually, that, too, changed.  After a few months, a swing began.  A few days without pain, a few days with.  A few weeks of dull pain, a few days with extreme pain, and a slow return to normalcy.  Almost exactly a year from the women's retreat I felt more complete--most of the time--although I was aware of the enormous hole in my "self", and VERY aware of the loneliness.

But I had HOPE.  The hope buried deep in my heart that I had a real future; that, just as in nature, there would be growth and beauty from ashes.  Isaiah said,  "He gave me beauty for ashes; the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."  And, like the aftermath of Mt. St. Helens when the volcanic episode occurred, and the destruction of that indestructible "rock", when lichen and ferns and wild flowers began to push their way through that gray, brittle, gritty ash, so my "life" was returning.  It was never the same.

One lesson I learned through this:  no matter what the future holds, I know my God. And I know that I know that I know that there is always growth and I will always  rise "up from the ashes."

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I wrote this more than twenty years ago.  One huge blessing

My kids were with us; a blessing.

was that exactly a year after the divorce, I married my husband, Dave, who is a blessing and has been forever and ever.  My kids, teen-ish then, have grown through him and my grandkids love him.  My kids also have returned to their dad, keeping track of him, and forgiveness has spread around and about.  A couple years ago, when he was here for a family wedding, we actually spent a bit of time together at the church, and the anger between us was gone.  Another occurrence that "God is BIGGER".