Month: February 2020

“Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and prayed, ‘Who am I , O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far?'” 1Chronicles 17:16 NLT

“Then Peter called to him ‘Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water’. ‘Yes, Come.’ Jesus said. Matthew 14:28-29 NLT

“‘For I know the plans I have for you’, says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.'” Jeremiah 29:11 NLT

Who am I?  I remember who I was before.  Who I was before the pain….Before the loss…..Before all of the changes large and small.  I was a young woman seeking to be a difference maker.  I was student ready to study and learn  to teach others.  I was a God seeking Christian for all areas of my life.  I was a daughter hoping to make her parents proud.  I was a sister who loved her sisters so very much.  I was the crazy, fun aunt who played in the floor.   I was a wife who loved her husband and wanted to be a partner.  I was a mother with a beautiful child to love and raise.  I was a professional on the rise in my career.  I was….Was is past tense. Was is previous.  Was is behind me.  

They say the only constant is change.  I have see so much change in the last few years.  Gone is the young woman who became a mature woman with the scars that accompany living.  Gone are the proud parents to their eternal rewards.  Gone is a sister who fought a battle with cancer with more grace than I could imagine.   Gone are the playtimes on the floor, outgrown in time and distance.  Gone is the husband who chose a very different path.  Gone is the beautiful child, as she  transformed into a lovely adult woman I am so proud of raising.  Gone is the luster of a career that once was my pride, leaving me less fulfilled.  All of these were huge parts of my life and how I identified myself.  All changed and some even removed from what and where they were in my life and plan.  All unstable anchors I held so dear.   All changed at the whims of circumstance called death, divorce, and time.   

It leaves me asking who am I now? For the first time in my life I do not have a definite answer. My career is no longer who I am, but what I do. I am a mother, but the role is now more of a friend and counselor to a lovely woman. I am a sister to a loving sister, but she does not need taken care of like my mother and father in law did. Where is my real identity? Who am I? That is a big question in three little words. I never thought I would have an identity crisis…. Yet here it is. This has been quite difficult to work through in the last two years. It seems I have always had a title that defined who I am. I have always had a role to fulfill, with constructs defining me. I find myself without definitions. This is new and makes me feel afloat without a definite direction.

Perhaps I have been taking distorted view. Letting the past define may future. Perhaps instead of looking to who I was and the roles that ended, I need to I begin considering who do I want to be? Who do I want to become? Ironically, I am not fully sure of that either. It is easier to say who I do not want to be. I do not want to be the bitter old woman. I do not want to be the crazy cat lady, living alone with a dozen cats. (I do like cats and have one.) I do not want to live my life solely for others’ approvals. I do not want to be my career. I do not want the last few years to be my final definition.

I am finding there are some things I do want. I do still want to be a difference maker, small or large. I do still want some adventure. I do still want to create and enjoy the process. I do still want to be in some sort of ministry. I do still want to learn and then to teach. I am beginning to realize this could be a very exciting time in my life. A time when without a label I can choose some new paths. I can make some changes. As exciting as that sounds it is also scary. New ventures and adventures often are scary. The unknown is scary. I can relate to Peter stepping out of the boat. It took faith and a lot of trust to put those feet on the water. I am sure it was scary on the water with the waves.

Like Peter I have to believe God will be there when I step into the path. He has been my stronghold in all of the changes and transitions in recent years.  God, He is the one constant in my past, present, and future.  Even when I was not sure He was there, He had me in His hands.  Even when I was so angry at Him for letting these things happen, He did not leave.  Even when the pain was so great I could not see Him, He was holding me. Even when I was sure I wanted everything to just stop, He was providing strength for one more day.  He is here still.  He will be where ever the path leads.  He is Alpha and Omega.  He is my beginning and my end.  He is the one with the best plan. Yes, the best. I can make plans, but His will bring the best results for me. He is the one providing my hope and my future. He is my protector.  He is my healer.  He is my restorer.  He is my supplier.  He is my strength.  He is my peace.  He is my King. He is my Savior.  He is …..  Because He is I believe I can be.  I can be who He has created and called me to be even if I do not see it all mapped out right now. My life can become all that He has planned even if there are waves. In His perfect timing I can walk on those waves like Peter.   I have to trust him and take those scary steps to get out of the boat. I must keep my eyes on Him be it dirt path or sea waves. I believe He does have a plan. I may not see it all right now.  I may not even fully believe it all right now.  I don’t have to yet, because I believe in the One that made the heavens and the earth.  I believe  He can bring more to pass than I could ever imagine or even hope to be true.  I believe He can.  I believe He will.  I believe I am His child–  That is who I am.  

They say hindsight is always 20/20. I found the view is often seen more accurately with the camera.   Cameras are awesome little technological marvels. They allow you to capture a moment. Capture a memory.  Freeze the good and the bad for reviewing, remembering later.  With the surge of the smart phone, photos capture everything from the dinner plate last night to the absolutely cute kids.  Those photos are so personal.  They provide insight to the person.  What occurred in our lives that was worthy of a photo?  What moments did we chosen to capture? What silly antics were we participating in?  What sight inspired us?  What did we find beautiful or rediculous? All can be answered by our photos. They tell who we love; what is important to us. The photos we collect paint a very intimate picture of our lives.  Do not believe it?  How often to you get a little nervous when someone scrolls in your phone photos?  Yeah, me too.  

After the divorce I was left with so many photos.  I was cleaning out our mutual home and found more than I ever imagined.  We were click happy well before the digital age made it so easy.  There were tons of negatives and printed photos in every drawer and closet door I opened.  I boxed most up as it was too painful after losing my sister and my marriage to look at photos of them.  It took a while after I moved to have the courage to do that.  I finally was tired of the excess boxes and needed to organize.  I spent a couple of weekends going through each and every photo.  Going through those memories was quite difficult.  It was my life, my marriage in frozen moments.  Interspersed in the weekends were moments of laughter ….recalling the fun….the trips….the happy times.  There was a flood of tears… some happy and some full of grief.  It was a good experience.  Seeing that we did have good.  There was fun.  There was love.  It got messed up along the way, but it was there at one time.  

I moved on from the printed photos to those that were on my phone.  They were the most telling.  I had purchased a new phone just prior to my sister getting sick. I was able to review hundreds of frozen moments from the time period my marriage was falling apart.  In those photos was a story I had not really read before.  It was a story of separation.  It hit me hardest as I realized that my  ex-husband was not in most of the photos. I had not realized how many times I took pictures and he was not in them.  I began to wonder why.  It wasn’t because he wasn’t important to me. It wasn’t because I didn’t want him in them.  Recalling the events, I began to understand  he chose to not participate in the events where the photos were taken.  He was simply absent.  He was in the photos of the big holidays and events. He was in the photos of the obligatory family holiday dinners. The niece and nephew birthday parties. The anniversary dinners. It was in all of the day to day, catch the moment times, that he was absent.  I had no idea how very absent he had became from such a huge portion of my life.  

It was truly that he was not present.  He did not participate.  If he did participate he would drive separately and leave early.  If we hosted he sat in a corner playing games on his phone.  I am ashamed to say I didn’t realize how far he was withdrawing from my life.  He was often disgruntled to downright angry at the events and it was so much easier to let him leave, or not attend at all.  It was easier to make excuses to nieces and nephews why he skipped their birthdays than it was to put up with his attitude and rantings at the function or on the way home.   His withdrawal progressed to where he even missed the big events—A favorite nephew’s high school graduation…. a birthday celebration for my mother…. Things he would have never missed before.  He chose to not be part of our lives anymore.  What I did not realize is that he could not wait to get home or for me to leave. Once alone he could engage in his on line activities. That is what became important to him.  It is what consumed him.

One may ask how I could not know what he was doing.  I admit to having a bit of a Scarlet O’Hara attitude here….I chose to think about it later.  I was still devastated from the death of my sister.  I was wrapped up in caring for my elderly, ill mother and father in law.  I was planning high school graduations parties and funerals.  I was trying to keep it together at work while shopping for dorm room furniture.  There was just so much change and grief going on in our lives.  I do recall looking on his computer finding a couple of red flags.  A new email account and history of scrolling through a personal ad site showed up.  Each was explained away with excess spam on the old email and curiosity at the personals.  I chose to let those red flags go.  I did not have the energy to confront his resurgence of online activities.  I knew what it would take, and I just did not have it in me at the time.  As I said in other posts, we had been on this road before.  There were other instances of his online “friendships” and other activities.  I had been the one to uncover the activities and deceit.  I was the one to push us to confront the issues while seeking help.  I was the strong one before.  I was not strong this time.  

Does this Scarlet O’Hara attitude make me responsible?  Perhaps in a way.  I am responsible for my actions and lack of action, but not his.  I am responsible for my believing there would be time once everything else settled.  I am responsible for wanting him to independently make the right choices.  I am responsible for wanting a partner—a partner who could be strong when I was not.  I am responsible for wanting him to choose me this time.  Unfortunately, I ran out of time and he did not do nor become any of the things that I wanted.  Ultimately, he chose someone else.  

My photo’s became reality.  He became absent from my life.