Most of you know the story. I was married to a man in the Navy. We lived 4 years in Honolulu Hawaii. What I thought were just growing pains, as far as our marriage went, were part of a much deeper seated issue that I never in my life dreamed I would have to face. After 5 years of that marriage and four beautiful little children. He turned to me and said he was gay, and just couldn't hide it anymore. Our youngest child was 3 months old. How in the world does one live through that? Prayer. Prayer and loads of sleepless nights and and endless parade of days where you just don't want to get out of bed, but you know there are mouths to feed and laundry to do, and a life to live, even if you don't want to live it anymore. I have been held up by the hands of God , when I could no longer stand on my own. I have been loved by a long line of people I call my family and my friends, people who sat down their own lives and listened to me blubber for months on end about things I just couldn't make sense of. They patiently gathered what I said and gave me the courage and the energy to take just one step to claiming back my life until I woke up one day and found that somehow the days were getting easier.
Little by little I found that I was breathing again, and then that I was smiling again. I found a purpose for my life. I worshiped, and I gave thanks. I cried a little less and was able to sleep a little more, and then one day, the tears were gone. I gardened, I picked up hobbies. I learned to sew and attempted a slew of other things, just to say I could. I sang. I brought music back into my life. I swam with my kids, and I enjoyed my lot a little more. Suddenly I lived.
Now , sitting in this chair, in this room, I look back and see just how far I have come. I am reminded of a scripture "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so.....righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; where
Had I not closed the first door, and walked through the valley of the shadow of what I thought was surely death, I would never have come to where I am now, and that place is amazing. I have come to the edge of a great and plentiful valley, one filled with milk and honey. My own personal Eden, where the promises of forever rest. Had I never tasted the bitter, I couldn't have had the sweet. Men are that they might have joy, and that is the sweetest of all the gifts there are. Joy. Joy in a new journey. Joy in a future I was never sure I would be able to have. Joy that I"ll never have to walk that old path again. Joy that I know what I went through was worth something, because now I see the whole picture. Joy, and mostly thanksgiving. I am thankfully for the lesson learned and ever more thankful for all of you. You have each reached out in one way or another, and given. What a blessing it is, to look back and see just how richly bless I have always been, in the people I have had around me. There's nothing better than that.
On March 5th I take new steps on a new road. Where it goes I don't know. I do know one thing. I'm still blessed. Whatever happens, I am still surrounded with people who love me, from all sides. I feel it, and I am thankful for it. It doesn't get any better than this.
