Moving on...

As the Christmas season is upon me, all the past joys of family and friends come flooding back over me. My first Christmas last year as a Grandma. It was wonderful to see her just being her. I won't see that this Christmas, maybe next year. I usually buy the kids jammies and we all put them on to open our gifts together. I'll still send them jammies, but it won't be the same. What about gifts? It is hard to buy someone a gift without hypocrisy if they won't even talk to you. I don't and won't do things from a "guilt" angle, and hate to be manipulated. I guess I will choose to look on it as doing it from the platform of faith. Faith that someday things will be different, that someday I will be forgiven for changing my life and messing with theirs.

I am sitting in my Grandpa Slack's rocking chair in front of the fire, looking at Sam and my first Christmas tree. The tree is small but well shaped and pretty. Kind of like my new life, a small, humble start, but delightful on the inside. I've gone from a beautiful house that I helped fix up to a 2-bedroom apartment that we rent. No vacuum cleaner yet, the television is still in it's bubble wrap from moving, and the kitchen has very little storage.

Don't get me wrong, my old life had plenty of love in it. My children loved me, my family loved me, my friends loved me, even my dog loved me. Well at least I thought they did, time will tell, but my kids do love me. Now, here in my new life, I am surrounded by love, acceptance and contentment. This love of ours has come at a great cost. Every where I turn, I am reminded of the cost. Cost not only us, but those we love. Unfortunately, being sorry doesn't change the reality of the hurt we have placed on others. There is no going back to put things "right". Not only would it be futile, I can't and don't want to. There is a song by Rascal Flatts called "The Day Before You" (press on the title to listen) that has become Sam and my theme song. " I never have to go back to - the day before you..."

So now it's time, time to move on. Mentally I have been clinging to the past; Past hurts, past pain, past joys, past relationships. The past is over, a new life is here. I choose to live in the newness of the life I have been given. I'm hoping my loved ones will accept me in my new life, which includes the love of my life, Sam. If not, I will be sorrowful, shedding many tears for the loss, but I must and will, move on. I will concentrate on those who love me for who I am, not for what I do or have done for them, but because I am their daughter, sister, auntie, mother or friend. Not because I represented something in their life, but because I am me. That is beautiful and I want to emulate that in my relationship with others.
So now I choose to live in the life that I've been given. I choose to feel the joys and the sorrows that new life brings, hopefully, never again to build walls and to stick my head in the sand trying to avoid the pain.
I have been forgiven so I will feel, I will live, I will love.

Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven-for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little. - Luke 7:47

Remembrance

I know I titled this blog "Stones of Remembrance", and I meant it. I love to remember the goodness of the Lord in my life and share it with others. The problem comes when you shut everything out of you mind except the goodness of the Lord. I though that doing the above was being "faith-filled" and forgiving. I was wrong.
How can you forgive anyone when you refuse to remember what you are forgiving them for? I can tell you by personal experience, you can't. You must look the hurt or wrong in the face, fully understanding how it has affected you, even destroyed you on some levels, then forgive. This kind of forgiveness is challenging. Without thought process, forgiving is easy, that is, until you remember.
I shut out many years of wrongs and pain, only to find them flooding back on me as soon as I thought about it. There was no closure for any of it, only refusing to think about it. So now I choose to remember.
I remember the betrayals, unfaithfulness, lies and verbal hurts. After I remembered, I wept (still do when another "un-thought about" situation rears it's ugly head). I now choose to feel the pain, the anger, the hurt that I should have let myself feel at the time. Maybe things would have turned out differently, I don't know. I didn't because I was such a "woman of God". Ha! I was an ostrich with her head in the sand spouting Bible verses to shut out the pain. What happens is when you shut out the pain, you shut out other feelings as well. You are essentially the walking dead. No feelings, no love, no nothing. But God in His infinite mercy and goodness, brought a mirror to me in the form of a man. I finally saw myself and my situation in another's eyes, and my walls that I'd built over the entirety of life, came tumbling down. Leaving me emotionally and spiritually naked. I re-lived those events that had caused me to decide that thinking was an un-wise activity. I hurt. I cried. I yelled - then I left.
I didn't yell at anyone out loud much, I wasn't quite there. But I yelled and screamed on the inside as I saw how I had diminished myself in my own eyes by accepting the treatment I received. That is not forgiveness, that is acquiescence. Looks the same from the outside but poisons the inside.
So I choose to forgive every hurt and wrong that comes up to be felt. It may take a while to "feel" forgiveness, but I forgive.
Now - I move on.
I have a man who loves me for who I am. Who doesn't want to change me. Who I am enough for. A man with whom I have had more peace, joy and happiness with in the last 2 months, than I'd experienced in the previous 33 years. Someone who listens and asks questions, someone with whom I can share my deep secrets and not fear being exposed.
I now know life and love are so much simpler than I thought. I always tried to make them some complicated religious experience so only the wise and learned could walk in.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Mt. 11:28-30

If your burden isn't light and your load isn't easy, it isn't from the Lord.
As I said in my previous blog, I don't know how God works this all out, but he does. I think he loves making us take a look at the paradigms that we have allowed to define us and showing us how they don't work. Any paradigm other than Jesus, and him crucified, is a wrong one. So how can I who am seemingly living "in sin", and adultery be at peace with my Lord? Here's how I look at it:
My own righteousness is and always has been and always will be, filthy rags. So what I do or don't do has no effect on my righteousness. I have the righteousness of Christ over me. I am not a hypocrite, I never lied to anyone about what I was doing. I purposefully left my husband (mentally before bodily, because it was my house too), before I was joined with my new husband. Yes, I said husband. Marriage is a commitment, and I have never made a bigger commitment than the one we made with each other. It cost us everything. We both knew the cost, and decided it was worth it. Those who truly love and care for me will eventually accept me in my new circumstances. Yes, the cost was shared by my family too, even though they had no say in the matter. But that is what a family is about. They shared in the pain and joy of many other decisions placed on them and decisions they placed on me. Love covers over a multitude of sins. Sam and I will marry legally as soon as we can, we think that is important. In the meantime, I have chosen inner peace and outer chaos, over inner chaos and outer peace.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her...At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left" John 8:7-9