Signpost

I used to lie in my bed at night and cry and pray for my marriage.  I would go for a drive and cry and pray.  I’d beg and plead with God.  Make bargains.  Cry some more.  I have probably spent more time crying and praying for my marriage than any other thing/person in my life.

Four days before I left, a switch flipped inside of me.  I quit crying.  And my prayer changed.  As to the tears, I think I was just out of tears.  I’d cried for my marriage for so long that when I made the decision to leave, I couldn’t cry.  Crying opened me up and made me vulnerable.  And I had to be strong.  Stronger than I’d ever had to be in my life.  My prayer became really simple, “God help me.”  I guess those words became my cry.  My cry for help, strength, courage.  Survival. 

And then there was a time after I left when I quit talking to God much.  I was really ticked off at Him.  I couldn’t figure out why He’d allowed things to turn out the way they had.  I told my mom I was angry with God.  I loved Him, but I was really mad.

I quit listening to Christian music because it infuriated me.  The words all seemed to say that if you just trusted in Him, He would work it all out.  Well, it didn’t feel to me like He’d worked things out for me.  And I worked my marriage hard.  I begged and pleaded with God for years. 

I don’t think I’d ever been angry with God before this time.  With myself, yes.  With my ex-husband, for sure.  But not God.

Eventually, we worked things out.  Me and God.  We are back on regular speaking terms though the nature of our conversations has changed considerably…which is a topic for a whole different post.

But when I quit praying for my marriage, I quit praying for my ex-husband.  Until this week.

I heard through the grapevine that my ex is having some health issues.  He had a significant procedure done, and I’m told, might have to have surgery.  It’s not a life threatening kind of thing, but significant nonetheless.

So I prayed for him this week.  Not for hours or anything.  Just some simple prayers for his well-being.  I don’t hate him.  I never have.  I don’t wish bad things for him.  I had just quit praying for him. 

I think it’s an important step for me.  I think it’s part of the ongoing process of forgiving.  And healing.  And I don’t need praise for it.  Writing just happens to be how I process things.

I’m a big believer in markers.  Alters.  Heaps of rocks piled up to mark something significant on the journey.  This is my pile of rocks.




Addendum:  Added a couple of hours after the original post.

In my last post, when I was talking about being angry with God, I said I’d been angry with myself before and my ex-husband, but not God.  I just re-read that and knew immediately that part of the statement wasn’t true.  In fact, it’s something I’ve talked to a couple of my friends about and something I’ve thought about many times.

I didn’t get angry with my husband.  I very seldom got mad.  I got hurt.  I got frustrated.  But I didn’t really feel anger toward him until after I left.  That is actually one of the pieces in our marriage that I think I own as a mistake.

I SHOULD have gotten mad.  I SHOULD have gotten spitting blind furious!  But I didn’t.  Up until the last few months, I always thought everything was my fault.  And I realize that is quite a few superlatives, but it’s fairly accurate.  I truly believed that our issues were all mine.  That I was the one who was annoying and a poor communicator, and a long list of other things. 

I should have gotten mad in the first few weeks.  I didn’t.  I tried to please and smooth everything into niceness.  And that is what I continued to do for years.  It kind of reminds me of frosting a cake.  You can smooth over lots of imperfections with sweet, fluffy icing.  Make it all look smooth and dreamy.  That’s what I did.  That is the reason so many people were stunned when I left. 

But the person I was fooling the most was me.

Ok, more than enough deep thought for one night.  =]