In January, I wrote about the worst day of my life and said the details of that loss weren’t yet what I wanted to chronicle. This is a small step in that direction.
Today would have been our thirtieth anniversary. It should be a day of celebration—three decades of partnership, of family, of the life we built together.
Instead it is a day of deep mourning, over the loss of that marriage and the subsequent fracture in our family.
I still cannot believe this is our story. Fifteen months since he first left. Almost ten since I last saw him. Nine since I gave in to his demands for divorce. Six since the paperwork was final.
It has been an anguishing season, and I’m sure it will be for a while yet. Through all of it—including the stretches when I was incapable of much more than barely existing—worship music has been the thing that kept me grounded in Truth.
Mine are tears in times of sorrow
Darkness not yet understood
Through the valley I must travel
Where I see no earthly good
—Christ is Mine Forevermore by CityAlight
Labels of pain
I’ve spent countless hours in therapy trying to make sense of it, and trying to come to grips with labels I still don’t want to wear. Abused. Abandoned. Alone.
I’m not going to dig into the stories behind those words. Not right now, at least, and maybe not ever in a public space. But I’ve stopped arguing with them.
How could this happen? I can, and do, replay conversations over and over, looking for the moment things turned. None of it makes sense to me. But he isn’t here, and he isn’t explaining, so I've had to accept that I probably will never understand.
I will confess some days I feel forgotten
Seems like you’re hiding your face from me
I will admit that I wrestle with my thoughts
Struggle with all of the sorrow deep
How long will you leave me here without answers
—Psalm 13 by The Worship Initiative
And yet it’s been this way for millennia. From chapter three of the very first book of the Bible, sin has been wreaking havoc on humanity. So I shouldn’t be surprised to feel its effects in every area of my life. (I still am, though.)
My marriage, surrendered
Yesterday, in church, we sang these words:
Jesus, I give to you
Every part of me
My everything
Surrender all my crowns
Count it all as loss
You’re everything…
All my hopes and all my dreams
Surrendered at Your feet
Every heartache and defeat
—Jesus My Everything by Common Gathering
As the tears streamed down my face, I imagined my wedding veil as a crown.
I hadn’t recognized how much being married had become part of my identity—until it was taken from me. My marriage had its struggles, like most, and more of them after the pandemic. Even so, I was always fighting for it to be healed and for my family to be whole.
But it wasn’t. And it isn’t.
Waves of grief
Later, I walked through the personal care aisles of Target and my nose picked up the scent of his favorite deodorant. My stomach instantly dropped, and I found myself riding another wave of grief. Crying in public has become just part of life these days...
Oh God, I hate this. When will it get easier?
In the middle of the night, when my mind won’t let it go, I sing this again:
I surrender all
I surrender all
All to you, my precious Savior
I surrender all
—I Surrender All by Judson W. Van DeVenter
The God who sits with my lament
What comforts me most, when I let it, is this: God does not look at me in shame or judgment over the end of my marriage.
You don’t see from far away
You come, sit with me
And grieve with me
And I see tears on Your face
—Tears on Your Face by Bethany Barnard
He also doesn’t look at the wreckage and explain it to me. Instead, he sits down in it with me, and agrees that this is not how it was supposed to be.
What’s true in the light
Is still true in the dark
You’re good and you’re kind
And you care for this heart
Lord I believe
You weep with me
—Weep With Me by Rend Collective
What I’m asking for now
I still don’t have most of the answers I seek. But I’ve noticed the words I use when I cry out to him have changed. I used to beg God to fix it, to allow me to wake up from this nightmare.
Now I mostly thank him for sitting with me, and ask him to stay.
Note: Comments are closed on this one, but I’m grateful for your prayers and private messages.