Sunday sidebar’s are strictly for me. They are a moment I am not apologizing and owning all of the responsibility. A moment where I don’t need to connect to someone in need. A moment this is not a ministry, a project, a journey, a creation. Sunday sidebar’s are my moment to spill my feelings without second thought or edit. The silent and embarrassing thoughts that keep me from my sleep. They are for me. Remember me? The one who broke your heart? The one who you condemned without a second thought or single conversation. The one you publicly shamed. Stripped bare. Walked away as if I was nothing. As if I was living a lie. As if I hadn’t been an amazing person, friend, or husband. How easy to not judge the ones you call family and friends and strangers for their worse moments- a moment of need made opportunity of abandonment.
Festering beneath the guilt and shame, like great tectonic plates shifting, sliding, grinding, carrying the weight of my faults and my mistakes- anger. The person who claimed to know me, who coaxed my most vulnerable self, who preached for sensitivity and emotional availability- what was actually needed was me to be there for her darkest self but be careful in sharing my own. Walked away as if I was a gum wrapper beneath a strangers shoe. Every hope and dream you set in flames and blamed every ash on me. Searching solace in every person, calling the peace you have in your heart from God- may God give you that peace despite putting your decisions on him. As if he brought me peace for my mistakes. No, that was wrath. Divine punishment. Not peace. And yet this anger gets but a second notice and my sadness at your absence owns my daily life. My prayers for your happiness out number those for my own. While you hate with a cold heart.
Great pain does one bring who testifies their need for honesty while using self lies to bring about their own peaceful life.
Closure? Closure is death for most human souls. Hope? Hope is an afterlife free from pain. But if God is so keen for us to suffer here how are we so certain suffering does not await? He is always faithful to his promises but no promise is earthly. So hope is only in what awaits that which we do not know.
Anger is fleeting and overlies my fear. It vanishes as quickly as it came, but the fear remains. The desire to be whole again, the reality I will not, and my only prayer that the person that took everything that made me human will remain happy, safe, and whole- that is the reality of life. But the small glimpses of beauty- the stars, the trees, the approaching storm clouds, the sound of laughter- keeps my hope in God as my memory of what was the most beautiful fades away day-by-day.
Living Phoenix 