Week of January 7
“Some of you are feeling pretty low right now but believe me
you will feel a lot better in six weeks.”
I heard him loud and clear. I wanted this six-week Divorce
Recovery Workshop at my church to be over now so I could feel better. The
instructor was right about one thing. I was feeling lower than a reptile
slithering in the mud. I hoped he was right about feeling better in six weeks.
All I could do now was hold onto that hope.
My marriage of seven years wasn’t officially over yet but it
had ended a long time ago. Drugs and alcohol had taken their toll. I had been
the one to sober up first but all I got for my effort was more verbal abuse
from a husband that blamed everything on me,. He continued to medicate himself
while I felt a constant ache of loneliness and the pain from the yelling and
nightly name calling. There seemed to be no end. Somebody had to end this
madness. I moved out and filed for divorce.
I told all this to my Divorce Recovery small group. Each
person in the group got to share their situation. We all listened to each other
with compassion. I felt particularly sorry for the gals with young children. At
least I didn’t have that problem. A childhood disease had left me barren. I
didn’t think I could ever feel good about that but I was thankful now that I
didn’t have to go through this with a child too.
The group and our facilitator became my support base for the
next several weeks. We helped each other deal with the grieving over the loss
of an intimate relationship and to focus on what we had to do to become a whole
person again. That meant we had to let go of the anger and the blame in order
to begin the healing process. The group was there for me the night my divorce
became official by court order. I was glad to be with them and not alone in my
apartment.
The instructor was right. I did feel better on “graduation
night” from the workshop and there were plenty of tears and hugs and brownies.
Our group exchanged phone numbers before leaving. The high I felt at the end of
the workshop came crashing down a week later when I lost my high salaried
marketing position. The corporation just eliminated the entire department.
I was devastated. During all the trials of the divorce I had
poured myself into the job and had relied on the steady income to keep me
independent. Now what would I do? How would I keep the apartment once the
severance pay ran out? I went into depression. It got worse as the weeks went
by and I couldn’t find another position within the corporation or a
like paying job in the city.
I was at or nearing
the bottom of my depression pit when a friend from the divorce group called.
She asked me how I was doing and I told her. She invited me to he son’s sixth
birthday party that afternoon and I at first declined. But she insisted and I
thought maybe it would cheer me up.
The party was outside in the yard. It was a mistake to be
there. The children playing and the mother’s talking about kids and families
depressed me more. When they were occupied with a pin the tail on the donkey
game I slipped into the house. I wandered into the living room and all of a
sudden the tears gushed out and I was shaking uncontrollably. I cried out to the Lord. With my head bowed
and my hand gripping the fireplace mantle I said, “Lord are you there? Let me
know. Give me a sign or something that I can know you can hear me… that I
matter.”
The tears subsided and the shakes stopped. I lifted my head
slowly and there in front of me above the mantle I saw through moist eyes a
framed copy of “Footprints.”
“Footprints”
One night a man had a
dream and in his dream he reviewed the footsteps he had taken in his life. He
looked and noticed that all over the mountains and difficult places he had
traveled there was one set of footprints but over the plains and down the
hills, there were two sets of footprints, as if someone had walked by his side.
He turned to Christ
and said, “There is something I don’t understand. Why is it that down the hills
and over the smooth and easy places you walked by my side; but here over the
tough and difficult places I walked alone, for I see in those places there is
just one set of footprints.”
Christ said to the
man, “It is that while your life was easy that I walked along your side; But here, where the
walking was hard and paths difficult, was the time you needed me most and that
is when I carried you.”
“Call on Me in your day of trouble and I will deliver you
and you will give me the glory.” (Psalm 50:15)
