Mixed Feelings

Today I am having mixed feelings.  On the way home from the movie I just cried and cried as I thought about the fact that in about a month or so the judge is going to decree that we are divorced.  My feelings are mixed because I know that I cannot live with the man I was married to until God changes Him.  I just cannot.  So I have to let him go, I have to say goodbye and leave him in God's care.  But my heart will go with him.  I gave it to him the day we married.  He's trying to give it back and I don't want it back.  I still want him to have it.  (see I told you that I had mixed feelings).

Going through a divorce is right up there on the list of life's most stressful events.  I should do research but I'll wager it's in the top 5 most stressful things.  I feel let down, betrayed, unloved, hurt and broken.  All because of one phrase "I wanted to tell you that I filed for divorce yesterday."  That phrase forever burned in my memory like a horrific string of words that it is.  That is when my world literally turned upside down.  Every value I held dear, every thing and person I trusted was now suspect.  I clung to the few people I trusted and I poured out my soul to them.  Including my dad, my brothers, my sister in law, and a few really really good and old friends.  You know who you are.

God is good.  We throw that phrase around in church a lot.  Think about it.  Do you really really believe it?  When your child dies from cancer, do you believe God is good?  When you lose your job and you're one paycheck away from being homeless, do you believe that God is good?  It is during those times when you are tested that your faith is tested.  I have been through the fire and what remains is beautiful.  It's gold.  The shallowness of my old self is gone and I am made pure by going through this "fire" or trial in my life.

Loving God when things are going good is easy.  Loving God when your world is falling apart is harder.  Loving God when you are devastated at the state of where you are is true, unadulterated faith.  I now have THAT kind of faith but it has taken 20 years of struggling.  It has taken me recovering from being an alcoholic, it has taken me recovering from this illness and that, it has taken me being diagnosed with bipolar disorder and it took me wanting to end my life until I came to appreciate my life and the gift that it is.  You see, I am worth something to God.  He looked inside a long time ago and saw something beautiful and He has upheld me in His right hand every since.  Through the darkness, through the depression that falls upon my soul like a daily burden I bear.

I mean, there are times when I feel true joy, but for the most part, I struggle with depression every single day of my life.  They have me on good medications which help make me stable but I still struggle with the sadness that is inside.  It's physiological, it is NOT a choice.  I am a dichotomy - one half of me is this person who struggles what seem to be incredible battles and the other side of me is this person who now knows how much she is worth to God.  It took me going through the fire to realize my own self-worth.  To realize that all those times when I checked myself into the hospital because I no longer wanted to live were for a purpose.  God was knitting together a history.

I've always felt like I was experiencing these struggles for a greater purpose.  That someday, somehow, someway I will be able to help many people go through their own struggles too.   That desire is burned into my heart.  It is the desire of my heart - to help others.  To be an example of what it is like to honor  God in the midst of life's most difficult times.  I just want to honor Him.