“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.” – Psalm 27:13-14
Today is one of those days when it took even more from me to fight through the sense of fear, dread and anxiety and to finally sit up in my bed and put my feet on the floor. This feeling of abject fear has beset me now for countless months with its genesis somewhere in the midst of a second marriage the day I realized it was becoming increasingly unhealthy – in a state 800 miles from where I called my true home.
This sense of fear continued as I hoped for the best but in other ways slowly prepared myself for the worst.
This sense of fear continued when I filed for divorce and during the anguishing months of the process.
This sense of fear continued as I moved my entire life and self (and don’t forget the four cats – we can never forget them!) into temporary storage back in my homestate.
This sense of fear continues as I daily keep putting my feet on the floor each morning to do the very best I can to survive through another 24-hour period to get myself – with the help of God – back to the land of the living.
The land of the living following a divorce is both the physical and metaphorical place and space where we can see the light forward and begin the arduous rebuilding and regrowth of daily living and joy – all the things that divorce takes a demolition wrecking ball to – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
There are a number of veneers that I or others might put on such a hellish situation when we are yet feeling like the walking dead – apart from the land of the living. While some of these veneers might be somewhat helpful in pragmatic sense (“keep going”…”one day at a time…”) and some of them just plain wrong – they are still veneers – veneers that cover over the sense of abject fear and dread this type of ordeal actually is.
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It is a veneer if for no other reason than a divorce is – in and of itself, an ordeal – an ordeal of death. Divorce is a death. The losses are immense – in magnitude of the impact of death of a spouse – only the other person is still alive. That person is still alive and you – you are in some other place– trying desperately to get back to the land of the living.
Because everything is upside down in your world. The disruption that you are now engulfed in is that which you began to fear – that dread whose genesis was when you foresaw that your marriage was potentially terminally ill – before it all unfolded so badly.
Like Job, the thing you feared has come upon you.
“What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.” – Job 3:25
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Perhaps there are those who never see it coming. The ones that do not see nor pay heed to the potential death knells of their marital covenant.
When the day comes they are blindsided.
Because maybe they just never knew that words matter, for example. They just never knew that you couldn’t speak to your spouse with contempt one moment and expect intimacy the next moment.
Fill in the blank…there may be some people who just never knew…how marriage works.
For these, there was no sense of dread or fear.
Almost like one in Mathew 24:39, they know nothing until the judgement upon their marital covenant is brought to their attention. Whatever it is that they are doing, they think it will just go on in the same way without consequence. Every day is the same.
But you, you were almost like the one in 1 Thessalonians 5:4…you were not in the dark regarding these things.
I say “almost like” because these Scriptures come to mind in idea but not in specific context.
You were indeed daily learning to walk in the dark – to keep putting your two feet forward against a backdrop of abject fear and dread – and perhaps those two feet have brought you to this day.
(recommended reading: Learning to Walk in the Dark)
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What is this Day that those two feet brought you to?
For many – especially women in the midst of separation or post-divorce – this Day is that seemingly endless Day in a place where each morning your feet are searching for that dry ground. Against your back are the metaphorical chariots and post-divorce things of metaphorical Egypt and before you are constant Red Seas.
Morning by morning you fight the fear upon waking from that place of dreams and vulnerability that visits us – the place we call the Night. When morning comes your feet fear there that this time – this coming Day – there will be no dry ground. This time, maybe the Sea will not open, or when it does, and you step into it by faith, you will find those walls of water finally closing in.
Woman – this is the dread you felt at the genesis of the day the abject fear entered your being – that day when you saw something in your marital covenant you could not unsee…that day when you silently thought to yourself “My God…what will I do? What can I do? What should I do?” and a kind of terror gripped your soul.
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I address this primarily to women because I believe that for many reasons it is women who primarily find themselves in this place of abject fear and potential powerlessness. That said, I am not diminishing the fact that men can also find themselves in this place. As a woman, I am speaking to women. That is my focus. That is my experience. That is my place.
As a woman that keeps putting those feet on the floor each morning against a backdrop of abject fear and uncertainty, I know how exhausting this is. If you are a woman with children, even more so. The list of external things you must deal with to get yourself (and maybe your children) back to the shores of the land of the living may seem endless and so costly in so many ways you wonder if you will survive.
And then there is the internal list – the endless amount of self-care needed – and all that, too, has cost both directly and indirectly. You are in binds on every front – “pressed on every side” as Paul would say in another context (II Corinthians 4:8).
If you take the time for your self-care it often comes at some other cost that you fear will come to bite you tomorrow, right?
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I have a big week before me. Things I need to happen that will set the course of my next step through these seemingly endless Red Seas to get me back to the land of the living.
As I lay in bed on this Sunday morning fighting the same internal battle I have fought now for countless months – exhausted mentally, spiritually and emotionally even after another eight hours of sleep – I just gave myself over to the defeat. The defeat that this battle is just too big for me.
Just. Too. Big.
And then I lay there thinking about Psalm 27:13-14. And I reasoned with myself. I took up my own battle sword of reasoning yet one more time, knowing that a Bigger Invisible Hand is also fighting this battle for me: There is no need to despair yet. You are alive. You can wait on God yet another 24 hours. You can get up. You can take some time yet again today to write – to write for yourself and for the other women fighting this same battle. You are not alone. God is the God of Life. This promise is for you. You are going to make it girl. Your God is big even though you are quite small. You are so small you don’t even know where the land of the living is! Wipe your face girl…you are almost there…this nightmare will end…
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So I got up. I got my coffee and I got myself to the computer to write.
But before that…I got some socks on…because my feet were cold. I rooted through a box in this temporary living space that has gone awry now months past my expectation of timing – in this box I have started tossing clean clothes into without the ambition to fold and sort – and I grabbed two socks.
I grabbed any two socks…I grabbed the first two socks I could find in that mess…because…well, I don’t know! I don’t really care about the sock police right now! I just wanted to keep my feet warm in the AC here. It’s summer…and once I’m done writing I will take the socks off and shower up…and be sandle-footed.
Laughter really can be good medicine.
Surely I’m still in metaphorically purgatory to put these mis-matching socks on my feet!
What woman does that??!!!
Ha ha…a woman whose feet keep moving forward despite the obstacles.
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I feel pretty discombulated already, but I’m thinking of Psalm 27:14 as I keep walking through another day:
“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
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