Sand & Salt Water

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dinesen

There's something about the ocean. The vastness of it, maybe, or the wildness. Something about being near the ocean allows me to experience God in ways that I don't anywhere else. A year ago this week, I took a trip to Cancún with two of my very best friends. It was there that I wrote the following:

I am reminded this morning, as I stand in the ocean and feel its power and listen to its roar, that God is bigger than my pain. I am also reminded of the beautiful truth that He knows the depth and magnitude of my pain, and that He is feeling it with me. While knowing this does not lessen the sting, it helps put my aching, restless heart at peace.

I am reminded that He delights in me. That He knows every inch of my wild and desperate heart and He delights in me, in all the ways I've always longed to be delighted in. He knows me in all the ways I've always longed to be known. For Him, I am enough.

I am also reminded that He doesn't need my words. He sees and knows my every thought, every feeling, every fear, every wish, every hope. For now, perhaps, it is enough to simply be broken in His presence and to know that I am understood. (09.09.2016)

Like I said, there's something about the ocean.

I've known for a couple of months now that I wanted to go back to the ocean after the divorce was final. To be away, to clear my head, to say goodbye.

There are so many rituals associated with marriage: the wedding ceremonies with the rings and the vows and the unity ceremonies and what have you. There are no rituals when you get divorced. It's just over. For all of the rituals that marked the beginning of my marriage, there are none to acknowledge the end of it, to represent the breaking and the undoing. There are no separation ceremonies. It's a death without a funeral. This has been a difficult thing for me to process, wanting and needing closure and having to stumble around in the dark to find it all by myself. It has made grieving all the more difficult.

Unity ceremonies are common wedding rituals. A physical representation and reminder of two becoming one. At my wedding, we poured sand.

Three days ago I poured that sand into the ocean.

I fought hard for a long time in hopes of salvaging what was left of my marriage. Once it became clear to me that I was the only one fighting a losing battle, I had to start fighting to let go. I still am. Standing in the ocean that morning as the sun came up was a big step forward in that fight. It didn't occur to me until afterward that pouring my unity sand was just like spreading ashes. For me it was an acknowledgement, both of my marriage and of the death of it. A way to honor my breaking and the end of something that was so sacred to me. It was a release, a farewell. This was my letting go.

I'm beginning to notice a shift. It feels a little like transitioning from moving through to moving away from. I still have a long way to go, but it finally feels like forward motion. It finally feels like healing.

And I know I'm gonna be okay.

Broken

This morning I read a devotional by Ann Voskamp and came across this thought:

"Never be afraid of being a broken thing...unless a seed breaks, there is no life."

I have two initial reactions to this:

The first is encouragement, because I feel so broken. I so badly want life to come from this brokenness, and I want to be comforted by believing it will come. But the second reaction is bigger and is exactly the opposite: discouragement, because I feel so broken. There is a lot of fear surrounding that for me. It's so much easier to say something like "don't be afraid of being broken" if you're not broken, or if you were broken a long time ago. But if you're in the thick of it? When every single day feels like the waves are beating you against the rocks, but you can't escape and you can't drown? When your only option is just to feel it?

The small part of my heart that is capable of hope loves this idea. But my heart is still very much in the breaking process, and a large part of me feels like this statement belittles that in some ways. I want this break to result in life, I'm just not in a place where I can see that yet. One of the hardest things in the world for me has been hoping for something that I can't believe is true. Hoping for life and healing when all evidence is to the contrary, when all I feel is pain and anger and grief. And I find myself wondering, what good has getting my hopes up ever done me anyway?

My perspective on this flips constantly. This is far and away the hardest thing I've ever done. I've never hurt this badly. Pessimism and hopelessness are so easy, and they're comfortable. Familiar. I am grieving, heartbroken, and angry all at once. There is absolutely no pattern or system, so I never know how I'm going to wake up feeling, or when it's going to change, or when something will trigger some random memory or realization to add to the giant pile of things I'm having to process. I never knew it was possible to feel and believe two (or more) completely opposing emotions at the same time. Let me tell you, it absolutely is. Most of the time I feel completely crazy.

But there are glimmers of hope. When I feel discouraged, and when I think about how impossible this all seems, and when I don't feel like I'm strong enough, I remember that I am doing this thing that feels impossible. I've been doing it for months now. Has it been pretty? Not even close. Have I done and said things I regret? Absolutely. But I am stumbling, tripping, falling, and crawling my way through this the only way I know how. One minute at a time. I'm stronger now than I was in August. Knowing that is encouraging, but also exhausting, because I still have a long way to go. But I'm doing it.

When I think about a seed breaking and a sprout forcing it's way out of that hard shell, I think there's no way that wouldn't be painful. Probably unbearable, actually, if plants felt pain. But the process is necessary and the result is worth it.

And I so desperately hope that's true for me too.