changing seasons.

As I watch the rain pouring outside my window today and see the changing leaves, I remember how much I love Alaska.  She changes seasons with such grace.  I wish I was as graceful as she is when faced with change... turns out I'm not. I will wrestle it until I'm so fatigued I can no longer move.

I've recently come out of a season of great change in my life and I've learned some valuable lessons.  The first of which is I will never get to a place that change will stop happening...I think I was waiting to arrive at this place where everything gets easier.  I was waiting for the "smooth sailing" season in life. The truth is, I don't think I'm actually a smooth sailer. I'm just coming to accept that about myself and what God has called me to. Now, I'm not saying I won't have peace.  I have peace.  I think I was hoping for complacency... I was hoping for easy.

When my marriage first started falling apart, I started to recognize patterns of behavior in my life. This was thanks to counselors...I did not do this on my own. Like most addicts, I did JUST enough work on those areas that I felt better about myself and thought I could quit working on them.  It's easy for me to become the victim in those situations, allowing my codependency to flair and finger point.  I was feeling like Paul in Romans...

: I cannot understand my own behavior. I fail to carry out the very things I want to do, and find myself doing the very things I hate. For although the will to do good is in me, the performance is not. Romans 7: 15,18 :

There is a sadness that comes when you have broken relationships that I can't really find words to explain... and maybe I don't have to, because I think we've all been there in some way. When I finally got divorced, I felt like such a failure that it really consumed my life.  It jaded my perception of all my relationships and slowly they began to crumble.  I decided at that point I was unlovable. This wasn't a conscious choice I made...but I did make it. My relationships reflected it. I only chose to pour my life into people that were emotionally unavailable...or I chose people that would be accepting of my complacency. It was like self fulfilling prophesy. I was unlovable, so I would choose people that couldn't love me, so I remained unlovable. 

So here I was...repeating bad behavior after bad behavior, desperate for the person I chose to be with to love me enough to fill this void, running from God, running from destiny... filling my life with all the things that make you look SO COOL that no one knows whats really going on, promising God that you'll for sure get to that thing you know you should be dealing with one day but...not today. I need to make this guy love me and I have mountains to climb. 

I hope by this point you see where I'm going with this...

((insert broken leg and mountain rescue here))

I broke myself.  In a totally epic, resounding way. What everyone else saw was a broken leg but I knew... I knew I was in trouble. I knew that everything was breaking and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt the facade cracking and I was losing control and I WAS NOT OK. There have been moments that I would've rather died on that mountain than face myself and my addictions...which would've been horrible. But I have had those moments. The guy I wanted to love me never showed up.  There were no more adventures to be had. It was just me and God. And a recliner. And for a while some pain meds...but thats for another story. 

Then an amazing thing happened. I didn't die in my loneliness and despair and sadness. The pain of dealing with my codependency didn't overtake me. I wasn't abandoned. People started showing up.  My brother. My mom. My roommate. My kids. Friends. Family. People I hadn't seen in months and years. At every turn I had been reaching out for someone who didn't love me to love me, but instead the people that loved me showed up. It was such a testament to God's story over my life. He preserves and restores. He always shows up. He loves SO BIG. 

He has loved me enough to let me back myself so hard into the corner of not dealing with my shit that I literally had to fall down a mountain to get the help I needed. To find the truth I was looking for. And here it is...

I have believed a lot of lies for a really long time.

I am lovable.

I am deserving of love. I don't have to beg for it.

I don't get to use other people to fill the broken places of my life. I get to fix them.

I don't get to use religion as a crutch to not deal with my problems. Worshipping 24/7 will make you feel good. It will not cure your addiction. 

I am faithful in the face of unfaithfulness.

I love unconditionally, even when I see nothing in return.

Being desperate for love showed me how to love myself. 

Being vulnerable is worth being broken. Because if you never break, you never heal. If you never risk being broken, you never truly live. 

I know I'm not alone in these feelings or experiences...There are tons of us out there. The codependents. The addicts. The divorced. The heartbroken...the list goes on. We've all been wounded. We all have pain, and as rough as it is, pain is normal. We'll all keep having it. Pain is an indicator that we are risking being vulnerable. That is a risk worth taking. We aren't always meant for smooth sailing. But we do have promises in God. He has always been, and will always be, our safety net.

: May the God of peace make you WHOLE AND HOLY, may you be kept safe in BODY-HEART-MIND and thus ready for the presence. God has called you and WILL NOT FAIL YOU. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 :