My Mother is a very wise woman. And it took me a long time to realize that the reason she is so very wise is because she is a survivor. The beautiful thing about pain is that it gives you a strength the sheltered never know and often are instead distracted by blinding judgment to view much of anything with clarity. But Mommy so often knows best. And through everything, she has continually told me, don't be sad, get mad, it's healthier.
As most people, most loving, nurturing people anyway, getting angry feels like the 'wrong' thing to do. It always feels more loving to place the hurt on my own self in a defeatist what a fool am I sort of way than projecting the pain on those who had caused it. And I realized something today for the first time.
There are moments in the Bible when Jesus has righteous anger. I don't recall any times when Jesus has the self pitying what was I thinking sadness. Hmm. Maybe there was something there. Told you mother was a clever one.
And I thought about how I felt today. Betrayed and deceived and manipulated and cast aside. Again, no less. It would be hillarious if it were someone else's life but since it's my own, knowing that not one but two men have walked away from their love for me with tears in their eyes leaves much to be desired. Am I so terribly frightful a lover? Truly it had a dizzying effect the way a man could so quickly jump from drunken intoxication to calm indifference. Well done, my noble prince, I almost believed you.
But things are never as they appear to be. Not even when it seems so divinely obvious.
Love is not all or nothing, it is not this or that, yes or no. It is far more generous and all encompassing than that. It offers itself up to the most unsuspecting candidates and has the ability to change. Change. Not one but two and sometimes three, so that the course for everyone has been strengthened by such love and such loss. Loss, that was becoming all too familiar. Perversely there was comfort in the familiar and this pain, too, felt safe. Isolated again, one with the One and free from the distractions of passion and possibility. Who wants the dream fulfilled when I have the freedom to keep dreaming? Maybe my change will continue changing, as will the dream and the players. Maybe the dream is still in the process of forming and maybe the prince from earlier chapters will find his way across the mountains to my doorstep.
Just not today. And today is what I have. 'Tis my only now, so I embrace it with open arms.
I reveled over the quickness I used to shift from hope shattering sadness to self righteous anger to a calm enduring trust and all in a matter of hours. Truly this had once taken weeks, months, years to accomplish! And I had already lovingly poured over prayer cards for the new fallen prince and thought of a gift to anonymously leave in his box. Loving our enemies is like heaping hot coals on their heads. And whether you feel like being nice or being vile, that image will surely bring a smile to your face. What better way to get back at those who willingly, selfishly, self preservingly take you out of consideration than to shower them with the consistent affection they so cowardly tossed aside?
Stinging. That will be the effect on such a heart for their eyes fail to hide the loving desire they desperately are trying to bury inside. And that warrants empathy, not judgement. We all long for affection, desirability, the chance to experience life fully alive, senses heightened, our paths endlessly open. And for some, our roads mean we don't get our hearts desire, at least not this present moment. And that's ok. That's right. That's what's to be in this now. Just as our attempts to distance ourselves are muddled when Providence aligns paths with perfection and you stumble upon the loving eyes you longed to glance into over lattes and smiles of gratitude. Those flukes, those accidents are not ordinary! They are real and vital and vibrantly essential to the path you've chosen to choose. One hopes that such miracles won't be pushed to the recesses of the mind to make decisions easier, but the mind of man plans his way while the Lord directs his steps. That's the beauty in the chance encounters: we plan in our mind how something will go but surprises ensue. And clearly the Big G has the fairytale already written, He simply waits for us to make or miss our cues on time.
Oh, there they went. Ah, here they are. And ooh, close but still, a miss.
So I accepted defeat in trying to turn something beautiful into something wretched just to ease my own loss to turn my mourning into sexy rage. No one wants a mopey Molly, but they certainly are drawn to a fiesty frisky minx. And that reminded me of how this all began in the first place.
It happened for a purpose. And that gave me thanks more than they'd ever know. But in prayer, I knew He'd guide, give favor to, direct, comfort, heal and reassure the heart of the one I most longed to restore. If not to mine, then to another, so long as it was craddled with the same tender care that these hands waited with anticipation to give.
If not this heart, another. If not your heart, then his. If not her heart, then mine. Just in case the oxygen runs out. One never knows. The chance encounters have a delightful way of timing themselves.....just.....right......
Now.
And on the morrow and tomorrow and once more. Don't get too comfortable. The rattling of cages has only just begun and sooner than expected the snowball will crash and surprise with sparkling clarity.
The seasons will shift, your mind may change, but your heart.....your heart, evermore, remains intertwined in mine.
And that, my darling, is unchangeable.
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