Separation

Planting Peace

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

At this point in the year, exactly ten years ago, I was headed toward the most chaotic and tumultuous time in my life. I remember feeling uneasiness, but I don’t think I could have predicted exactly what was coming. Had I known, I likely would have curled up in a little ball and just laid down in the floor until it all passed. Thankfully, we aren’t able to see those trains of life that are headed straight toward us. Here’s a very brief snapshot of what was headed my way in 2011, beginning in early March:

  1. My first wife told me she wanted to separate and decided to move out of the home that we had shared for 11 of our 13 years of marriage. She moved out several weeks later.
  2. I went from seeing my sons (then ages 3, 5, and 8) every day to seeing them 3-4 days a week. 
  3. In the fall of 2011, when it was obvious that my marriage was not going to be repaired, the church that I was serving at as associate pastor asked me to step down from the position.
  4. No longer able to afford the payments, the home that I was living in went into foreclosure. 
  5. I started a new job in Charlotte in December of 2011, which was a blessing. But living where I lived at the time, the round trip commute was 140 miles a day when I didn’t have my boys. When my boys were with me, because of child care and school, the commute was 160 miles a day. 

I value stability and peace in my life. I don’t necessarily run from change, but I don’t initiate it. Most of the time, my thinking is “if it’s working, why change it?” So when change of this magnitude comes my way, it brings a level of discomfort that I definitely don’t embrace. In the case of David, Version 1.0 from 2011, I hadn’t prepared myself for dealing with this chaos because I had spent too much of the previous season of my life in a state of fear. Afraid of what you might ask? I was afraid of a lot of things. I knew that my marriage wasn’t in a great place, but looking back, it never was. Not even from the beginning. I think that I had been living in it for so long that I didn’t realize how “not great” it was. Especially now that I’m nearly 8 years into a happy, fulfilling and stable second marriage. My fear was rooted in all of the things that would happen if it didn’t work out, because as 2009 and 2010 went on, things were getting worse, not better. My life was a dichotomy: on one side my mind would say “things will be fine, this is how things have been from the start” and on the other side it would say “if this keeps heading in this direction, it is going to be BAD.” I had spent so much time and energy trying to keep things together and on the right track that I hadn’t fortified myself to be ready when things fell apart. I hadn’t prepared the fields of my life for the seeds of peace. What does that mean? I’m about to explain. 

These 10 years have passed with a speed that I didn’t anticipate. However, I can see that the mindset that I chose to live my life by has resulted in a harvest of peace in my life that I honestly didn’t think was possible. After getting through the hurt and pain of the separation and divorce, I began to see that peace was actually something I could obtain in my life. And I began to realize that it wasn’t conditional based on the people in my life. I realized that God had intended for me to live in peace no matter my circumstances. This peace was not going to come because everyone else in my life had decided to be decent human beings. It wasn’t going to come because of an absence of conflict, chaos or drama. It was going to come if I made a conscious decision to live above the conflict, chaos and drama. The thing is, it all started with changes inside of me, not everyone else. Read this scripture below to see how to plant the seeds of peace in your life.  

James 3: 14-18 says “But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic. For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere. And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness. ” 

Planting seeds doesn’t result in an immediate harvest. You don’t put seeds in the ground one day and walk outside the next to see a garden full of vegetables. You have to fertilize, water, and tend to those seeds. The same thing applies to the seeds of peace in your life. The fertilizer and water come in the form of forgiveness of those who hurt you (and who may continue to hurt you) and removing jealousy and selfishness from your life. Recognizing what the sources of fear are in your life and attacking them head on. Tending to the seeds of peace in your life means making sure the weeds don’t overtake them. The weeds of lingering bitterness and fear can establish strong root systems if you aren’t vigilant to remove them from your life. This prevents you from harvesting peace in your life.  

This mindset has helped me deal with the pressures and stress of being at the center of a blended family and co-parenting with the mother of my three children. I often tell people that  my position in this life, being the fulcrum between my home and the other one that my boys live in the other half of their lives, as being the CEO of the most dysfunctional organization you can imagine. An organization where loyalties, past hurts, and preferences threaten to derail the train at any given moment. Your marriage, home and children cannot reach their potential while you are sowing discord and giving in to the temptation to “win” all of the time. This does not mean that you have to be a doormat and always give in. What it means is that even when you are in the middle of conflict, you stay above the fight. You intentionally keep it from being personal. You can disagree while acknowledging the value of the other person and their side of the conflict. When you establish this pattern with those around you, you have successfully planted the seeds of peace.  

The biggest challenge to this mindset is that it TAKES TIME to reap the harvest. The potential peace isn’t immediate, so it is easier to stay where you are and not do the work. If you choose to just remain in the stagnant patterns of disorder, you will never be able to experience true peace. Much, if not all of the time, the disorder is rooted in some kind of fear. You will keep marching from battle to battle, growing more weary and more frustrated each time your boots hit the ground. Those patterns of disorder and discord will mean that you will lose the war even though you have won some battles here and there. In my experiences, winning those individual battles might feel good for a moment or two, but it never results in lasting peace. Lasting peace is only obtained by preparing the ground, planting the seeds of peace, and caring for them as you get closer to the harvest. 

The End

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Rocky

Posted By Dave

“How did I end up here?” was the question that the voice in my head kept asking. I came home from work to see only my clothes and open space where some of the furniture used to be. Sadness, anger, frustration, it all washed over me. I was like a fighter who had taken a right hook that I didn’t have a chance to brace for. As I crumbled to the canvas, I was pissed and hurt. How does 13 years of marriage, three children and a home together, a life built together, end up here? Sometimes there just isn’t an explanation. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers. Sometimes bad stuff happens to people who tried to do everything right. It doesn’t make any sense.

After the separation began, my boys would go spend the agreed-upon days with their mom. Instantly, a house that was full of the sounds and activity of a young family was as quiet as a funeral home. Appropriately, I felt like I was dying inside. Toys left where they were played with last. Their clothes in the laundry, Capri-Suns in the refrigerator. The TV left on the last channel they watched, the baseball laying in the front yard. I couldn’t wait to talk to them, but despised having to tell them “Good Night” over the phone. I missed them so bad, I felt like someone was using a vacuum to suck the life out of me. I would lay there in bed and be enveloped in the silence. It made me sick to my stomach. It was in those times that I began to experience the love of my heavenly Father like I never had before. I have been a Christian since 1997, yet I discovered during those lonely nights that my faith had never been tested like this. I began to beg God to make His presence known, I was having a real crisis of faith, wondering if all of the stuff I had said about Jesus through the years was really true or if I was just repeating what everyone else was saying.

I know now that it is all true. I can’t explain it in words so that anyone else would understand. I just know because I’ve sensed the presense of my Savior in times when I just wanted to curl up in a ball in the floor. I know because I was broken down and stripped of everything that I held dear, and yet still knew that there was a reason for it. I know because He waited for me to ask Him for forgiveness before He began to reveal His new plan for me. I don’t ask “why?” anymore. That’s because I know the answer. It wasn’t so I could start over. It wasn’t so I could get answers to all of my questions. I’ve learned over time that the specifics don’t matter. Who did what, who said what, who was wrong and who was right, none of it matters. I spent plenty of time being self-righteous about my circumstances, and it still left me empty. The reason I don’t ask why anymore is because every day I live this life completely differently than I did prior to the day my first marriage ended. It is encompassed in this quote from author Ken Gire:

“When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn’t put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project – a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.”

The End was The Beginning for me. I made the choice to get up off of the canvas, spit the blood out of my mouth and get back in the fight. The fight for me was to figure out what I did to cause what happened and fix it. I went to counseling for months to open up those places that were in the shadows and bring them into the light. The fight for me was to lead my sons through a traumatic situation. I could not leave them behind as I jumped back in the ring, I had no choice but to be a healthy Dad for them. I fight for them every day, even when they aren’t with me. Someday they are going to have to fight too. It is my job to be their Mickey, to prepare them for the day they are going to step into the ring. Now the fight for me involves my young marriage to a woman who is my Adrian. I refuse to let my past or my enemy win, and that means fighting for what is good and right. Even though my greatest fears were realized, they were also defeated the moment that stopped trying to control what wasn’t mine begin with. Freedom and power are my assets thanks to Who I serve, not who I am.

It all began the day that it ended.

Step By Step

/ Hope and Dave / 2 Comments

footprints-in-the-snow

Posted By Hope

It begins with one step. One foot in front of the other. This is what it felt like to start over.

After ten years of marriage, I found myself unpacking in a tiny one bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Not in the nice part of town, but not exactly in the bad part. I used up every bit of fight I had left as I unloaded the trailer with the last of my furniture. The drive out of my old neighborhood was a mixture of loss and hope. As I opened the door of my new place to begin moving all that was left to begin again, I began to run out of strength. It was the last half load that was the hardest. I remember carrying in a box that was heavy and as I carried it through my living room and out onto the patio storage, I began to cry and felt like I couldn’t make one more trip out. As the tears began to fall, I stopped in the doorway and couldn’t fight them anymore. I felt a small whisper tell me to keep going. He said, “Just take one step at a time. Just one step Hope. One step gives way to another and you make your way to that last box.” I made my way through the living room and out to the trailer and picked up more and carried on slowly and with tears. With that last box, I depleted the reserve tank and collapsed into a spent, crying mess. As I sat there recovering on my couch, I realized that I had kept going for another hour, with the strength from one step at a time.

That wasn’t the last time He gave me rest in that concept. There were moments of such loneliness and rejection when I felt so completely lost in my divorce that I questioned if He even remembered me. I cried so often and for so long that it felt like I would always be sad. That the idea of life turning over a new leaf or that cloud having a silver lining was not for me because I had sinned by going through a divorce. For me, the hope of full joy did not apply any longer. That season ended. Thankfully that was not the case. I just needed time. What He taught me in that place was that we prepare for what is next, in the now. He carefully showed me the concept of one step at a time. I didn’t have the strength for more than that during my broken season, so I listened. As I began to heal, I saw that the concept applies to every season. Even when it’s good.

As I face the challenge of doing life as an awkward semi-quasi-partial parent, I apply this principle often. When I get selfish, when I get rejected, when I am overwhelmed and when I just plain don’t want to do this anymore. In my planning, in my waiting, in my hope and in my fear, I recognize that all I have light for is the step I am currently taking. Living like this means that I have no idea where the journey will take me, but I know from experience that I’m not alone and the destination isn’t the part that matters.

Finger Peepers & Facebook Creepers

/ Hope and Dave / Leave a comment

Finger Peeper = It’s what I look like when I’m watching the Walking Dead.  You hear the music change to a minor key and watch with trepidation as long as possible until you can’t take it anymore and you cover your eyes but then get brave and extremely curious and spread a finger, or two, and take a peek to see if anyone survived. (spoken really quickly followed by a big dramatic breath)

finger peeper

Facebook Creeper = People who never post anything on Facebook but emerge randomly from the shadows.  You know, those people who will never like or comment on your posts, but will approach you with input about something you wrote weeks ago.  What about that odd co-worker (or family member) that you were guilted into adding as a “friend” but you’re pretty sure they stalk you.  Oooooorrrrr how about those folks that don’t feel like they have anything clever to say but will share their story or experience and blow your mind.

After I settled into my 750 sq ft apartment from my two-story home, the adjustment really started.  The shock of separation and pending divorce had passed by that time and the work to heal was well under way.  I chose to disengage from the internet all together.  Watching social media was torture.  My relocation meant new friends, new community, new history.  This was a giant blessing in my mind because that meant that I didn’t have to explain anything.  I didn’t have to hurt when someone asked me what happened to us.  It meant that I didn’t have to cry as much. In my mind, it was less painful that way.  You see, my life as I had always known it, as I had planned it, came to an end.  In a matter of weeks, what had carried on for ten years as normal, dissolved into a lifeless shell.  As I browsed my news feed and saw life went on for everyone else, it made me feel completely alone.  Pictures of landscape projects completed, birthday parties, family vacations and date nights seemed to show me that what “they” had, was no longer mine.  It got too painful, so I unplugged.

It was this same kind of pain that kept me from attending church.  Seeing families walking together, dining together, holding hands and being together, hurt.  I noticed how couples interacted.  What they did and didn’t do.  I was searching for clues as to what went wrong in my own marriage.  I listened as women described their relationships and watched as men accompanied their wives.  I tuned in to the language, both spoken and unspoken.

As I healed and life continued one day at a time, something began to happen.  Instead of being hurt by the normalcy of the pace of life, I began to miss it.  I logged back on after several months to learn of new births, new relationships, new jobs….and new separations.  I smiled at the good news of the lives represented that continued to plunge forward in their normalcy.  I also hurt with a new empathy at the news of broken hearts.  The shadow of obscurity seemed less of a protection, and more of an excuse.  I began to hope.  I began to understand the beauty of community and the joy of sharing my experience.  I could feel the life returning to me.

You know someone in your life who is doing what I did.  They have disappeared into the shadows and withdrawn.  Some people do it for a season, but others do it permanently.  Know that your life is unique.  Your story matters.  Your experiences help others.  But it is up to you to give them a voice.  Don’t ever underestimate the power of sharing your hurt.  You have no idea what your survival could mean to someone in the midst of a raging battle.  There will always be haters, but know this, haters have been hurt too.