The most painful time of my life so far (all my own fault)
It seems appropriate for my first post in almost 2 years to be about failure. I launched this blog out of the courage I found to follow my dreams. Only to have another aspect of my life that I was avoiding facing for so long come to a painful end (something I hadn’t found the courage to face yet, and why I stopped writing).
I haven’t really shared anything personal publicly; I’m just not really comfortable with that type of sharing. I’m a pretty private person, and it takes a lot for me to share personal things with people, typically. That has been changing over the past few years, as I’ve realized that telling the truth and revealing personal things actually helps other people. And if I can just help one person by sharing my story, it’s worth it! 100 times, it’s worth it. No matter the fear, the negativity, the unwanted judgment or criticism, if one person can find hope, healing, or courage from me, my entire life will have had an amazing purpose.
That being said, this outlook is new. When I was living in survival and trying to stay safe (but actually doing the opposite), I was not sharing out of fear. But when there was no other option anymore, to get help, to share, but to tell the truth, when revealing was the ONLY option, I learned that it is the thing that I was avoiding that would bring me the closest to the life I wanted to live. A life of authenticity, connection. We cannot feel connected if we don’t allow ourselves to be seen (if you haven’t read “Braving the Wilderness”, I highly recommend it!).
Another book that helped me on my journey the past few years was “The Mountain is You”. That book cut me like a knife, and I listened to it on repeat, because it’s exactly what I needed to hear. I was stuck in so many negative patterns that I was completely unaware of, but I know that it was revealed to me right when I was ready. It breaks my heart that so many people live their whole lives never truly experiencing what they deeply desire to experience (because I lived so much of my life that way). I’m still trying to unlearn all of the things, but I feel like I have made some progress over the past few years. And I’m eternally grateful for that progress.
So what was I doing?
I was in a very unhealthy relationship with someone who was never going to see me, never going to be the person that I needed them to be. That wasn’t fair to them, or to me. No one’s needs were being met, and it was an awful cycle. But we both stayed for so long because of the concepts and character that we believed in. As a Christian, divorce is the ultimate shame – at least it was for me. I was ashamed of my failure and how it made me feel, and how I felt like I was failing everyone who ever believed in me, or looked up to me, or worst of all, my children, who had to witness this terrible failure for so long.
But God
God forgives us; He knows that we will try and fail miserably. That’s why divorce was created, it had to be. Two imperfect, sinful people, trying to make a marriage work, it’s inevitably going to have a pretty high failure rate, unfortunately. But he forgives us. Thank God his mercies are new every day, because every day we fall short. God has brought me through this season stronger, more patient, more graceful, more courageous, and most of all, much closer to him. We cannot take our blessings for granted, or his forgiveness for granted.
In this new season of my life, I’ve dedicated myself to being more patient with myself and others, to building better relational skills and more self-awareness so I don’t choose something that is not good for me again. We must learn what we need and choose people to be in our lives who are a good mutual fit for our needs, our dreams, and where we are heading in life. This happens in many relationships – people grow apart because they were never heading in the same direction to begin with. Their paths just crossed in a season that they were taking the same detour, but their destination was never going to be the same or anywhere near one another. This is sad and makes it much harder to find people who are on the same path. But we aren’t meant to join teams with everyone; not everyone is for you. And that’s okay. You’re not for everyone. When we put God first in our lives and seek his will for our lives, amazing things happen. I’ve been reading Psalm 34 every morning for the past few months because I need it to sink in in this season that I’m in, “…for those who seek him lack no good thing”. When we seek God first, we realize that he’s all we need, and everything else we also need, he provides. When he is in the right place in our lives, we find peace that surpasses all understanding. He guards our hearts and our minds; he is our strength, and he is EVERYTHING. I never would have been able to truly feel this if I hadn’t been through this failure. So I hope my story inspires you – if you’re going through a dark valley right now, rely on God. When I truly surrendered it all to him and prayed and sought him in every step I took, that’s when everything changed.
Closing
I’m still not really comfortable sharing this, but I feel like God creates beautiful things out of our messes. So I’m sharing my messy story with you in hopes that you are inspired to share yours with someone who might need to hear it. I’ve realized, as I’ve made a lot of amazing friends on this journey, our stories connect us. They make us more human. They help us realize that we serve an amazing, miracle-working God, who works ALL things together for our good. It’s when we have nothing left but God that we realize he was all we ever needed in the first place.
So, on the other side of an awful failure, I tell you – it was worth it. It was worth it for all the amazing people who helped me, and I was able to help. It was worth it for all the amazing internal work that I did on myself. It’s made me a better person, a better mom, a better friend, a better employee, a more courageous leader, and most of all, it’s helped me see things in a new light. We are called to be a light in this dark world, and we can’t show our light when we’re hiding our failures.
“I didn’t fail the test, I just found 100 ways to do it wrong.”
― Benjamin Franklin
“If you fell down yesterday, stand up today.”
― H.G. Wells
“Failure is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again.”
― Henry Ford
Perceptive Zeal 
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