Tag Archives: Divorce

Fears, Phobias, and Fairytales

06 Friday Jun 2014

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profile_236971163_75sq_1350264225I have been away from the blog for quite a while. Moved one daughter home from college, and the other one into a new apartment, and then she graduated from her college.  In the middle of it all, my mom had surgery, and was in the hospital.  Throw in a graduation party, and our own packing because we have to move soon, and endless financial aid requirements for the next round of classes for everybody in the fall, and you have an idea of how our summer is going to go.  We sleep, shower, and run.  We’re tired.

The graduation party.  In my mind, I love parties.  I like to plan them, go to them, dress up for them.  I’m a very social person… in my mind.  In reality, I have social anxiety, and this is how it plays out:  I plan a large party for one of my kids, and buy a lot of food, and decorations, flowers, and balloons.  Then I freak out and don’t invite anybody because I can’t make phone calls.  There is no help for this;  I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.  It’s embarrassing, and frustrating.  I have a hard time going to their school events, or anything else that involves large groups of people, or strangers.  Graduation parties, weddings, receptions, reunions, work, school, church, you name it, I get sick over it.  Not with friends and family, and never in counseling, but pretty much anything else.

My counselor once said she really wouldn’t have time for someone like me until she was at least partially retired.  A fair, but cringe-worthy observation.  I am not an easy problem to solve.  I never really knew myself what was wrong with me, until I went to a clinical training on children and anxiety.  I ended up in the back of the room, which was a good thing, because I cried all through it.  It was the first time I had ever heard myself described so accurately.  Turns out there are a lot of people who grew up just like me; afraid to make phone calls, uncomfortable around anyone except close friends and family, too afraid to go to school.  I don’t do well in staff meetings at all, and my internships were so anxiety-provoking  (because of the performance aspect) that I was sick most of the time.  I wouldn’t have made it through at all except for two things:  an absolutely unshakable knowing that this is what I am called to do, and my own weekly appointment with my counselor.  How I will manage grad school I don’t know, but hopefully this situation will be resolved by then.

Anyway, we have to move in less than twenty-five days, and once again, we have nowhere to go.  I miss owning my own home so much.  I just want to be able to paint my bedroom the color I want it, and plant my flowers, and actually see them come up and enjoy them.  I miss our yard, and our trees.  Losing our home has been the single biggest factor in our financial security.  Well, okay, losing my husband was THE single biggest factor – many women who experience divorce immediately plunge below poverty level, along with their children.  One minute I was eating appetizers with local politicians and celebrities, and the next thing I knew I was sitting in the Civic Center downtown, waiting to meet with the domestic-violence worker who would sign us up for food stamps and other social programs.  Nothing prepares you for that;  what in the world do you wear?

I’m tired of living in other people’s houses.  I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but  it is depressing to live everyday in an environment that isn’t yours to change, or to make pretty.  We have had our share of slumlords, and terrible problems with mice, bees, and squirrels.  (In the house.)  People tend to not take care of their rental properties, but because of our limited finances, we have had few choices along the way.  It’s been a matter of we-have-to-take-whatever-we-can-get-because-we-have-to-move-next-week for the most part.  The last house was the best so far, but, as has so often happened, the house was put on the market, and it sold to someone who wanted $400.00 more a month than we were already paying.  (Oddly enough, I think I saw her in church tonight, too.  Weird.)

What do I want?  I want what most single moms want:  a house, a home, a husband, security.  Peaceful, quiet, private, and safe.  I want to drive, for once, with the gas light on the dashboard not always on.  I want to read a recipe, and actually have the money to buy all the ingredients.  I want to plant flowers, and paint walls, and unpack boxes, and rest.  To stop this incessant moving.  Everyone is telling me I have to be realistic;  that I can’t keep expecting God to help me out of all the messes I seem to get myself into;  that God doesn’t always give us what we want, and I have to stop expecting so much, and asking God for more than what would be possible under normal circumstances.  I already know this.

I serve a big God.  That’s all I can say.  Do I deserve anything?  Nope, not on my own merit.  I have messed up more times than I can count, intentionally or not.  I don’t even feel particularly loved most of the time, and sometimes I question if God even exists, or if I’ve fallen for some kind of fable, or fairytale.  But at the very core of my being, under all the doubt and disbelief, I know that God exists.  I do know that He loves me.  And I know He delivers.  Every time.  Always has, always will.

Good-early morning people.

 “In the day that I called, you answered me.  You encouraged me with strength in my soul.” ~ Psalm 138:3

A Collage of Many Colors

11 Friday Apr 2014

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CIMG0396In order to tell the whole story, I have to go back to how I met my counselor in the first place.  On July 8, 2000, I was invited to an event by a friend, who was, at the time, attending the church I go to now. This all came about because of something that had happened at my old church.  When my marriage fell apart, I started meeting with one of the elder’s wives.  This was not for counseling, but for spiritual guidance and accountability.  I made it clear in the beginning that this was all I was looking for.  I did not want to become somebody’s ‘project’ and said so.  My doctor had suggested that I talk to her, because I refused to go to a counselor, and I finally agreed.  I found out much later that this woman was in training to be a counselor for the church, but I didn’t know this at the time, and she never mentioned it.

It turned into a nightmare.

Somehow, she got the idea that the extreme grief I was experiencing as a result of what I was going through with my husband was really because I had been abused as a child;  specifically, ritual abuse.  (If you’re not familiar with this, bear with me, as this could all sound a bit odd.  If you are familiar with it, well, I’m sorry.)  It all culminated with a meeting in the Pastor’s office one day, when he was out of town.  I had thought it odd when she said that she wanted to meet there, instead of in her office, as we usually did.  When I got there, my best friend was already in the room.  I found out later that she was also being mentored by this woman as a counselor-in-training (I hadn’t known this, either) and, lo and behold, I was the person they were practicing on.  I have no idea what transpired between them, or how or why my friend came to be in the room that day, and had no idea what was about to happen.  As we sat down at the table, the elders’ wife said, with a nervous laugh, “If he (meaning the pastor) only knew what we were doing in here today, he would never allow it.”  That should have been my cue to leave the room.

I don’t know what made this woman think that grief from a broken and abusive marriage warranted a ‘deliverance’ session, but apparently she believed it did.  It was a humiliating and painful hour;  I sat frozen through most of it.  I could not look my friend in the eye, and the friendship ended soon after.  I had never, to my knowledge, told her anything that would have led her to participate in such an event, and could only imagine the talking that had happened between the two of them behind my back.  At one point, before they started praying and ‘casting out demons’, the elders’ wife put a wastebasket next to me, as she had heard that “people sometimes throw up when the demons come out.”  Really.

To my knowledge, the pastor never did find out what happened in his absence, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell anybody.  I did, finally, tell the elders’ wife that I had heard that she was in training to be a counselor for the church, under the leadership of the person teaching our biblical counseling class.  I only found this out when I signed up for the class myself;  the unwitting secretary had told me, and suddenly, everything made sense.  So, when I asked her “Do the other church leaders think that you are my counselor?” she became very angry, and said she would no longer meet with me, or help me in any way.  And so, we were done.  Immediately.  And she stopped speaking to me completely, even in church.  But, she kept something of mine, and hid it in her husband’s office without telling me, or asking if I minded that she put it there.  (Since my husband golfed with her husband, I would have minded very much.)

At one point in meeting with this woman (before the casting-out party) she had asked me to make a collage;  it was a project from a book that she had ordered for the bookstore.  I thought it was somewhat juvenile when she suggested it, but went home, borrowed some of my daughters’ glue sticks from her home school supplies, and sat down with a pile of magazines and a pair of scissors.  I started cutting out pictures, and little snippets of headings, and parts of sentences.  I couldn’t find anything sturdy enough to use as a backing, so I took the cover off an old copy of the church directory, and glued the pieces around the logo of the church.  So much of my pain was about the church, and my experience there, that it seemed fitting, and made the finished collage make sense.  To the right of the center fold was everything about the church and my divorce, and my adult life, and the left was about my childhood and growing up.  (For the most part).  This wasn’t really planned, but is just how it worked out.  I worked on it for at least three days straight, and did very little else during this time.  The collage really created itself, as most artwork does.  I can remember it clearly, if I think hard enough, but it, too, is gone now.  I cry about that, a lot.

After I finished the collage, I took it to her, and we did talk about it a little, but it seemed to be a bit too much for her, so we put it away.  Actually, she put it away, and that was how it ended up in her husbands’ office.  When I finally asked for it back, she told me where it was, and went down the hall to get it.  But it was ruined;  without even so much as asking me first, she had put it through the laminating machine in the office.  She said she was worried that all the little pieces of paper would come unglued, and she had hoped it would come out of the machine okay.  Then she said that she was going to use it to show to other people she was meeting with.  There was nothing about ritual abuse, only a lot of hurt and confusion, all poured out on paper.  Some of it was spiritual, and some was about abuse, but none of it was intended to be about the things that were in the books she was ordering.  (About ritual abuse, which I had never heard of until I met her, and started reading these books.)  I have no idea how many people in the church she showed it to, without my knowledge or consent.  Only God knows.  To say I was embarrassed is an understatement.  So, this is how it came to be that my friend, out of sheer desperation, said she wanted me to meet this counselor, who went to her church, and was going to be speaking at a women’s event in July.

I don’t believe that all therapy needs to be an intensive archeological dig, but mine did, only because of what I brought with me.  I brought my collage, and wanted my counselor to help me make sense out of it.  I desperately needed help.  I was a confused, depressed mess.  Although, come to think of it, that is how most people end up in a therapists’ office, so I guess there’s nothing all that strange about that.  What is strange is how it all ended.  But we’re not making a collage of that.  Or anything else, for that matter.

 

 

Scattered Pearls

15 Saturday Mar 2014

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IMG_299554994445707My husband always bought me Chanel No. 5;  he started doing this when we were dating, and continued for about ten years into our marriage.  To this day, I can’t walk by and see it on a department store counter without feeling a certain kind of pain.  And then, one year, I opened a bottle of Elizabeth Arden’s 5th Avenue on Christmas morning.  I wondered why the sudden change… until I discovered that he had bought two identical bottles of perfume that year.  Shortly after that, I found several other receipts, for gifts I didn’t receive or open.  Smart man, yes?

No.

There is so much shame and embarrassment that comes with divorce.  It would be nice if there was a safe, quiet place where we could go and heal.  Divorce also comes with a lot of upheaval;  we lost our home, and every place we’ve rented since has been sold by the landlord almost as soon as we unpacked and got everything set up the way we want it.  Suddenly, it was all gone.  There is a saying that “God is a God of second chances.”  With God, we get a clean slate, so to speak.  Not so with people.  Sometimes they’re just gone.  Sometimes we lose our place of hope and safety.  Or we lose our voice, instead of finding it.

In the very beginning of counseling, I had an extremely difficult time trusting that my counselor was honestly not going to just quit and disappear.  After everything I had just been through with my husband, I just did not believe that she wouldn’t do the same thing, and I wasn’t about to go through anything like that again.  I was already extremely sick, and tired, and it just seemed like to much effort to go digging into the past.  Nor did I want to dig it all up, and then risk being left alone with all of it.  I told her that I was afraid I would ‘come apart’, and all of the pieces would scatter, and I would never in a million years be able to get it all back together.  When I said that, she did the most wonderful thing;  she left the room, and then came back with a small package of Skittles.  She opened the bag, and let the candy fall all over the floor between us.  Then she got out of her chair, and knelt down, and started picking them up, one at a time.  She looked up at me and said:  “And if that happens, we will pick up every one of those pieces, together.”  When she had them all, she sat back down.  She had heard me.

Some time after that, she gave me a small, beautiful bracelet made of pearls.  She said that she was giving it to me so that I would know that I could trust her, and that she would never just quit and give up on me, and walk away.  She said that she understood that I had a hard time believing her, and that I would learn over time that she could be trusted.  I loved my bracelet, and I finally believed her.  I did wear it, and it did help.  Had I known what would happen in the end, I would have handed it right back and left the room, but at the time, I really did believe her.  I think she did, too.  Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out the way she promised, and now all of those little pieces of my life are scattered everywhere, like little beads from a broken bracelet.  Most of this is all my own fault.  I wish I could go back, because there is so much I would do differently.  For the last couple of years, I have been trying to pick up all of those pieces by myself, without a counselor.  It isn’t going very well, mostly because  I didn’t get to take them all with me, the way you normally would when you finish counseling, in some kind of integrated whole.

After the horrible day in her office, the day she was so very angry because of my email, I waited and waited for her to call and say that what she did was wrong;  that she had made a mistake, and we would talk it out at my next appointment.  Instead, she called, and said that she would meet me at Panera Bread when she got out of work one night.  Why we met at Panera Bread, I will never know.  None of it made any sense, and still doesn’t.  I don’t know what the purpose of any of this is, and it’s all still such a confusing mess.  It hasn’t served any purpose, Godly  or otherwise, other than to make me wish I had never asked for help in the first place.  When we got there they were closing soon, so we didn’t have much time.  She explained somewhat hurriedly over coffee that she had read something in her devotional that morning, and that she took it to mean that God had given her an ‘out’ so to speak.  (That is not how she worded it, but is in essence what she was saying.)  She had brought a copy of it with her;  I read it, but didn’t see what it had to do with what had happened in my session.  I still don’t.  I felt like I was watching our conversation from the ceiling, or another part of the room;  the whole thing was surreal.  When she was done saying what she had to say, she promised that nothing would change, she “would still be there” (I haven’t yet figured out where) and that we would be friends, and have coffee, but we just wouldn’t “do therapy.”  And just like that, she was free.

She kept a part of her promise, for a while, and even sent an email on my birthday.  We were actually going to go for coffee (she said) but before that happened, she read a couple of the posts I had written about how hurt I was.  I regret it, but don’t know what to do about it.  There’s nothing anyone can do.  Needless to say, everything has changed, and all I want is to go back and finish my therapy.  It’s not about her, it’s about me.  I want a second chance.  Now we are not even friends.  She just disappeared.

I was heartbroken when we left Panera Bread.  I also sent the bracelet back to her, but can’t remember if it was before or after Panera.  She told me that as she took it out of the envelope, it broke, and the pearls scattered.  She said that she took it as a sign that the counseling just “couldn’t stay together any more.”  As though it were proof that God had let her off the hook.  I took it to mean that she had broken her promise, and that I was right in the first place;  it was a sign that she really couldn’t be trusted after all.

Do you know what it was a sign of?

That if you wear a bracelet every single day, for years, but never get it re-strung, the elastic will eventually break, and the beads will go all over the place.

That’s all it means.  Nothing prophetic, overly spiritual, or profound.  It’s not a sign from God that it’s okay to break a promise, it’s just a sign that you shouldn’t send fragile items through the mail.  It’s a sign that you can’t trust a piece of jewelry to keep a human being from acting like a human being.  They get angry, they blow up, and they hurt the people they say they love.  And then they leave.

That’s all.

I miss my bracelet, and I want it back.  And if I had honestly thought for a moment that she would keep it, I wouldn’t have sent it to her.  I only meant to remind her, in a not quite so harsh and hurtful way, that she had made a promise.  If I hadn’t sent that email, none of this would have happened, and things wouldn’t be as they are today.  It really was a pretty bracelet.

I will never see that again, either.

Walking Through the Wilderness

23 Saturday Feb 2013

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img013 San Pedro River

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I cried, this week, in the doctor’s office.  Quite hard, actually.  In the waiting room.  In front of everybody.  Got lost on the way there, ran out of gas and was twenty minutes late for my appointment.  Desperately needed prescriptions filled, as they ran out a while ago, but I haven’t been able to get an appointment anywhere.  (I lost most of my medical care when I lost my job.)

‘I’m sorry ma’am, but we will have to reschedule you for later in March.  No one can see you today.”  “Yes, I heard you.”  Cried harder.  Once the flood gates are open, it’s hard to stop.                                                                              “Ma’am, nobody can see you.”                                                                          “Yes, but I need help today.”  “Would you like to reschedule?”  No, thank you, I really just want to die.  I did reschedule, made it out to the hallway, sat down on the stairs and cried harder.

“My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.”  (Exodus 33:14)

I hate being on Medicaid, I hate being stuck in a system that probably sounds good on paper, but doesn’t work in reality.  Hate being a single parent, and not having a husband to help with all of this. How in the world do people do this?

I went to church last night.  It was packed;  we’re having a conference, and I really wanted to go, as the speaker was someone who had prayed over me a long time ago;  an amazing, prophetic prayer, when I was going through my divorce.  The whole process of getting a seat in church is a humiliating experience for me.  I miss the ushers at my old church;  always helpful, always respectful, and kind.  Thank God, a friend stepped in to the hallway, and took me to sit with her and her husband.

But, still.

It would be nice, to have someone to go to church with (hide behind?) and have him deal with the ushers, and find a seat for me.  To be protected, cared for, and loved.  I am so grateful for my friend, and her husband, but I want my own husband.

The lobby was packed with people, visiting, laughing, talking.  A lot of noise, lights and motion.  It’s an assault on the senses, and I look for someone familiar to attach to; otherwise it’s an out-of-body experience, but there was no one, so I hid in the bookstore.  And pretended I was having fun, with my coffee, all by myself.  Because this is what divorced women in the church do.

On the way to the car, there was another couple who walked out with me (they never say hi to me, have never, in thirteen years;  my daughter informed me once that the mother can’t stand me)  but they were laughing, and walking together to their car, and I envied her.  Because she had someone to sit with in church, and to go home and do family with.  To do marriage with.  And she has cute clothes.

We claimed a verse this week, one of the women and I did, for the prayer and coffee group that meets in my home.

“See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up;  do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.”  Isaiah 43:19

Thank God.  Because this has been a very long walk.  And I’m tired.

Still Waters

Still Waters (Photo credit: SweetCapture)

Truth and Consequences

29 Saturday Sep 2012

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English: View of Parent from mountain

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This past Wednesday marked what would have been my 25th wedding anniversary.  Never in a million years did I dream I would end up divorced, or be a single parent.  I do remember saying to our church at the time that my relationship with God came before my relationship with my husband, and that if at any point he decided not to serve God, I would continue on the path I had already chosen, alone if necessary.  Never really thought that would become my reality, but I can’t in all honesty ever say that I pictured us growing old together, either.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  We didn’t have the same dreams, goals or priorities.  A counselor at that point in my life would have been a wise idea, but it never occurred to me.  Had I listened to my heart, I would have not needed a counselor to tell me this was a Very Bad Idea.  Now I realize the ‘red flags’ were more like emergency flashers.

A couple of weeks ago, we had a guest pastor from Elim Bible College speak at our Sunday morning service.  He spoke on “Failure to Thrive” and drew a diagram of the relationship between God’s ultimate purpose for us individually, and our individual passions and desires.  He said that in every season of our lives, there are ‘quickening moments’ which tell us we are in line with God’s purpose, and then there are the excursions off the path into areas where we lose sight of our goals;  areas where our abilities and gifts are wasted.  He called this ‘unused potential’.  It creates physical and mental fatigue, and entraps us in a cycle of trying harder, only to get discouraged and quit.  Then we feel guilty, and try harder again, and get fatigued, and quit again.  Sound familiar to anyone?

Some of my notes from this message: 

  • “Tired eyes rarely see a good future.”
  • “Don’t lose sight of the source of your strength.”
  • “Christianity is not a self-help religion.”
  • “Grace empowers us to do what grace demands.”
  • “Any time you perform for a promise, you give birth to an Ishmael.”
  • “Premature babies cost twice as much to raise.”
  • “God gives us desire and ability.

Not waiting on God twenty-five years ago for Him to provide a way out has caused considerable pain. It resulted in a way of life largely dependent on miracles just to survive.  Granted, few of us make wise decisions at that age, and as I tell clients, most of them are on the planet because their parents were making emotional decisions, usually without wise counsel or guidance.  Not many of us wake up thinking “Gee, how can I screw up my life today, and the lives of my future children, and/or grandchildren?”  Most of us are doing the best we can with what we have.  We don’t (most of us) plan evil.  Most of the parents I know are just like me;  wanting the best for our children while realizing that our choices over the years have a direct impact on them.  There is a song that I used to hear on the radio a lot;  I can’t remember the artist or the title, but it’s a prayer “to my great-great-great grandchild”  and it just says it all.

I wish I had done differently.  I certainly would have had a better week, as my anniversary is always a time of fresh grief and regret.  But it gets better.  As Joyce Meyer frequently says:  I may not be able to change the past, but I can decide today to change my future.  Listening to God is a huge part of this;  cultivating the soil of our lives, and planting different seeds yields a totally different future.

So let me ask you this:  In what environments do you feel fully alive?  When do you sense the quickening of your spirit, and the stirring up of the gifts God has put within you?  Something to think about today.  Have a Blessed day, people.

“For it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His great pleasure.”  -Philippians 2:13

My Brethren, These Things Ought Not To Be…

25 Monday Jul 2011

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Christ's Charge to Peter by Raphael, 1515. In ...

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I went to a wedding a few weeks ago.  The bride, whom I love dearly,  was beautiful.  What was disturbingly not beautiful was the behavior of some of the church leaders.

At the wedding,  the pastor and his entourage went around to each table, greeting and visiting with the wedding guests, who were pretty much divided around the dance floor.  At our table there were two women who had recently fought cancer, a woman who is currently going through a divorce, and my daughter and I.  My daughter has been asking God for a chance to speak to the pastor, because she is struggling with coming back to the church.  The group surrounding the pastor stood at the table next to us for a while, and then, without even acknowledging any of the women at our table, moved smoothly to the next table.  I am not sure if we were being shunned as a group, or if it was meant to exclude a specific person.  Moments before, on the other side of the room, the pastor was saying to a friend of mine something about the importance of the church reaching out to those in the world who are in need, and our responsibility as a church to care for the poor, and unloved.

My point is,  that as beautiful as the wedding was, the event was marred by behavior that was  both inexcusable and childish.  I was embarrassed and ashamed of our leaders, and ashamed to be associated with them.  As a woman, one of the things that had so impressed me with this church, was the way women seemed to be honored, and respected.  Coming from a situation of  domestic violence, and spiritual abuse, it was so unbelievably healing for me to come into what appeared to be a safe place.  Any counselor who deals with trauma knows how important it is to establish safety  and trust before any true  life change can occur.  The intense grief I feel,  when I think back to how happy I was in my early days in the church, is overwhelming sometimes.

As a single parent in the church, I have been through hell.  My divorce shook my faith; my experience within the church has all but destroyed it.  I was told by my counselor that although I am more than qualified to teach in the church, I can’t be “sold” to the church because . . . “Well . . . you know . . . you act funny”.   Really?  Well, let me be clear:  I cannot be sold, bought, traded, or trashed, period.  To the church, or to anyone else.

But sometimes I do act funny.  I get nervous in a crowd;  I’m horribly shy;  I have absolutely no social skills whatsoever.  I would be perfectly happy to be exiled to an island with nothing but pen and paper, to have visions of heaven and write letters to the churches.   But God . . . has called me to live here, in this time, in this culture, in this city, and to love people.  Yes, even these people.  No matter what they do, no matter what is said about me.  For years I have carried this quote in my wallet:

“The demands of holiness are the same regardless of circumstances.”

So what do we do?  We come with grace, and mercy.  We love those who persecute us, whether in or out of the church.  We love those who treat us wrong. We learn from the horrible experience, and hopefully, when we are called to lead, we remember to do so differently.  And more importantly, we forgive . . . because they know not what damage they do.