Divorce, Desertion, Despair and Deliverance

It is an interesting thing...time teaches so many lessons, many which we would rather not learn at all. It is a painful experience to learn that often the things which we thought were forever, end up becoming the most painful and bitter lessons of your life. It is sad to learn that those who you give your heart to, have the power to destroy it more fully than any enemy ever could.

This year I went through a Divorce. As far as Divorces go, it was an easy an uncomplicated one. But the legal logistics do not even give glimpse of the emotional pain the process of loosing what you hoped and dreamed of feels like. 

I loved my ex husband. He was someone I trusted, and gave my fragile and dented heart to. I went into marriage with determination and hope that we would be a solid couple. After a series of events, that I won't go into, I found my marriage broken and suffocating. I felt so lost.

I prayed alone, and I went to the temple alone. I fasted. After a long period of fasting and praying in the temple, I received my answer...the same one I had been receiving for 6 months. And sad and bitter were my tears that night as I asked "Why?" Why did this have to be the answer? Why did I have to go through this? Why couldn't I fix this? Surely there was more that I could do? Surely I could find a way to be more forgiving? Surely I could be more patient? Surely, eventually, the emptiness would go away? Why, why?

And in my sorrow, I received a quiet and firm answer,

"I love you both enough to heal you both, it is time to let go. It is not your job to heal him, it is mine. Let go."

I cried more fervently. My heart ached knowing what I was going to do and the pain that it would cause both him and I. I realized in that moment I had to follow the answer I was given, even if it mean I would loose everything and everyone I knew.

So I followed. I obeyed. And the following journey was the most hellish of my life.

It is an interesting thing to know you are doing the right thing, but to feel like an utter failure. To feel that your friends and family are all seeing you differently. To feel that many of them are judging you. To worry that everyone will see you as the villain.  I learned during that time who my real friends were. I found that people I never thought would be there in a pinch, become my rocks. They opened their homes to me, they offer to help feed me, they gave me a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen. They encourage me to keep going to to church, to read my scriptures and to pray...

At the same time I felt the Desertion and loneliness. Friends I had known for years disappeared, judge me, focused on my faults and offered no mercy, nor understanding, and certainly no forgiveness. They would say the most hurtful things, doing what only those you love can do...they caused more pain than it felt I could bare. 

My pain and anger began to make me cold and hard. I became calloused to things of the Spirit. I felt like I must walk this path alone and that there was no one to help or understand. I questioned every decision I had ever made. I hated myself. I hated my reflection. I wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear.  Certainly death would be better than the pain.

In this Despair I felt surely I had found my destruction. I didn't know how to get out of it. I kept going to church and found no comfort, I read my scriptures and they felt like empty words, and I prayed to a silent echoing room. I plead for someone or something to understand. Even though I knew there were people there for me, I felt utterly alone.

Then in this valley of darkness, I felt a hand grasp mine. A friend, who had stood by through the months of my worst self, was seeking to understand. Seeking to know what had kept me from truly giving up. I quietly shared a deep, almost buried testimony. I spake of Christ, the atonement, and the comforter. As I spoke, I found my words coming more easily. I felt a ray of light and warmth, but I still hid, my Despair had made me afraid to hope.

It isn't until one morning, as I sat with this friend, and was surrounded by family at the prophet's feet, that my Despair began to shatter. I heard the words of Christ and like a fountain of living water I felt them rushing over my heart. I realized that even though I forgot how to love myself, my Heavenly Father and Savior never did. I felt their love. And like a flash of lighting on a summer night, my sky was illuminated, and I realized, I was never alone.

The atonement saves the sinner, the broken heart, the suffering soul. Deliverance comes in the hands of whom delivered us all. He who descended below them all knows how to bring us above them all.
Life didn't get instantly better...but I began to focus on the Savior. I focused on the searching soul of my friend and I was amazed and humbled as I watched the Spirit soften his heart. I heard his prayers slowly change from ones of anger and pain, to ones full of humility and true searching. I found my own prayers were changing. As I saw the Atonement heal his life, I felt it piecing back mine.

I watched this incredible man enter the waters of baptism. I had no idea my journey would lead me to that moment. I had no idea that a friendship that started with a common interest in fitness and anime, would save my testimony through his own conversion. Tears flooded my eyes that day as I saw him brought up from the water, his grin spread wide from ear to ear. I felt the power of his confirmation. I shook hands with the missionaries that taught him, the stake presidency that had grown to love him. I heard their praise of this man, and their commendation to me for introducing him to the gospel. But I realized it was never me.

After a while I realized I had been giving my heart to this man. It scared me. Feeling a flirtation and interest was one thing, but being in a relationship entirely another.  It scared me to let go. It scared me that it was so soon. I wondered what people would think. I worried about the judgement...I also asked myself if I was just rebounding. I went to my knees. And answers came with hardly any asking. I knew what was right. It became a matter of once again being brave enough to do. I sought to focus on my new found peace and happiness. I began to press forward with faith, even though events were not following my timeline. I felt as Nephi, going forward not knowing beforehand what I would do. 

Then amidst this new found happiness, I was brought down again. By a new hurt. A new betrayal. More poisonous and hurtful words. I tried pleading with those I thought once cared. I plead for them to understand, and received no such care or no compassion. I realized I had foolishly been vulnerable to the wrong source. I learned a new truth, that my feelings only matter to others as long as it serves them. In days I allowed myself to be brought down low. I felt the pain of my Gethsemane over again and I wept bitterly. I wished someone could understand.

In the arms of my safety, and by the words of my stalwart friends and family, I came to realize once again the lesson I had temporarily forgotten. I forgot that there is One who understands the pain. All of it. From the very beginning and in every way. Every blessing I've received in the past months, every answered prayer, every inspired word came flooding to my mind as I prayed and cried in the privacy of my closet. I remembered. The Savior knew loneliness. None were with Him in the end. He too was wrongfully accused and wrongfully judged. He felt the betrayal and denial of those whom He loved and called friend. He was sent to the crucifixion by jeers and calls for His blood by those He loved and came to save. In Gethsemane he felt my pain individually. I remembered the words told to me in a recent blessing "Your Father in Heaven and Savior love you, as no other daughter, for there is no other daughter like you. They do not want a moment or a day to go by that you don't remember they love you." As I focused on these words, I once again felt that deliverance.

Those who have hurt me will obviously never know my pain. The wrongs they feel I have committed made them feel justified to say and do the things they have. I have cried and sorrowed over the pain I must have caused them...but I realize I cannot hope to believe that they will ever feel or understand mine. But it is alright in the end...for the One who does, has once again become my best friend. And Him I love with my whole soul.

I am divorced but not defeated.
I have felt desertion and despair, and from both I was delivered.

My life has been full of miracles and blessings. I have had an outpouring of love from true friends and family. I have felt the song of gratitude and praise for my God who hath delivered me. I have come to learn, that as dark and painful the night, morning will come. The future is as bright as my Faith and the Lord created me to have joy. I don't know why I ever had to go through the experiences I did. Today, for the first time through this whole experience, I wish I had never married. I wish I had never even met him. But that is not the case. I cannot change the past. I can only learn from the pains, from my own mistakes, and from the lessons of time. I know that I have received forgiveness. A servant of the Lord, with full authority and power, declared to me that I am as clean as I was the morning I knelt in the Lord's holy temple. He reprimanded me to let the past go. To know that I no longer need to carry the hard shield that has protected me. He spoke with power telling me I can move forward, and be happy once again. It may have happened, yes, but the Atonement has made it as if it never did. "Move forward" he said "never feel you need to justify it again. It is finished. It is time to be happy."

These last couple days I forgot that counsel. The adversary apparently does not want me to be happy or feel good about myself. He had someone I thought was a friend, write me a horrible letter that told me how horrible and selfish I was, and I read it as I was driving down to Provo to help a person in need. Then this morning I found out more hurtful news. It as if he, in these days that should be happy, is trying in every way to bring up my past and make me question the peace and forgiveness and happiness I have found.

I refuse. I no longer will let him, or any other force take another day of my happiness. That is not the lesson I learned. I learned how to stand up and stand strong. I learned that I can do hard things. I learned how to not just talk of the Atonement, but to apply it in my own life. I learned how to have faith again. I learned how to trust myself again. I learned how to love again. I learned how to let go and Let God. 

So tonight I will wrap up in the arms of a man who has stood by and loved me when I wasn't lovable. I will hug and kiss my sweet baby girl who has cuddled on my lap for the last several hours and licked away every tear. I will laugh again. I will look forward. I will not only avoid looking in the rear view mirror, I will take it down. I will keep driving forward. With hope in my heart, charity in my soul, and a spring in my step.