You need courage now If you're gonna persevere

So where yesterday had me all woohoo yes step out of the comfort zone. Today, I am in need of a cheerleader. Today, I am not so confident or determined or motivated. It's funny how the course of a day can play with you. It's funny how you can be totally chill and have something from every column hit you all at once.

Shortly after I wrote yesterday, I found out that the next court date in my divorce is four months away. If domestic relations court was held to the same standards as criminal and civil cases I could make a good case for cruel and unusual punishment. It's what it feels like at this point... punishment. Dealing with my divorce takes all the brave right out of me. My life has been at standstill and it sucks my hope reservoirs dry.

Once upon a time, the delay would have renewed my hope because once upon a time I really believed that none of this would happen. Once upon a time, I based all my decisions on the husband that I knew and not the horrible man he has become. I very much believed that my marriage would be restored and that I would get my happily ever after. I believed every word that he had ever said to me from day one and that intricate, well-woven story seemed so real that I couldn't imagine that he had ever been THAT dishonest with me and with such blatant disregard for me and the kids for that matter.

The awkward thing about needing a cheerleader is there isn't one available. Not the one I need, well, at least not in human form. I know the spiritual and worldly basis that I once stood. But I also know the peace of God and so it is with mixed emotions that I find myself moving on. I don't believe in a God that would give us all freewill but then turn around and hold me accountable for my husband's misguided execution of his own freewill.

That being said...four months. The responses to my sharing that have run the gamut. I don't think anyone really and truly understands the hell that I am in, that he has put me through. From the day he decided that he didn't want to be married he constantly browbeat and harassed me about how I was dragging this out, about how I needed to let go of him, about how I was making things difficult. I have endured mental, emotional and financial abuse that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. The day I walked into court, the day that we should have been final, I had made my peace with all of it and I was ready to start the next chapter.

Then he pulled this shit.

I am sure I still need to step out of my comfort zone but I have no idea how. I am so wound up about mere survival anymore that I can't imagine where I would fit a ball into the mix that was full of courage and perseverance. The court system has so failed me and the boy at this point that I sincerely worry that any act of boldness on my part would be met with more heartache.

I keep saying I need ruby slippers but the irony in that is that once I get to the wizard he's just going to tell me that what I seek was in me all along. I don't feel very courageous today. Or smart. Or beautiful. Or determined. I feel like Scarecrow after the flying monkeys went a round with him. My stuffing is all widdershins and I am a bit embarrassed that it happened. And if most people knocked on my chest it would be the dark, hollow echo of an absent heart.

Luckily, I have frientors (friend/mentor) that have a great deal of wisdom for me to draw on at moments like this. My frientors are by no means cheerleaders. They ask the hard questions and force me to examine places I don't want to go to for various reasons. But one particular nugget of wisdom sticks out to me this morning...that my friends are there to do what I can't. Meaning that although I feel cowardly and like giving up, all my friends and family who are surrounding me and speaking courage and spunk into me are holding me up over the coals so that I don't get burned.

I do need courage. There's a lot in my head and heart that I want to accomplish. So, it's no coicidence that the song "Never Give Up" by Yolanda Adams would be on my radar this morning:

Sometimes life can place a stumbling block in your way
But you're gotta keep the faith
Bring what's deep inside your heart
Yeah your Heart to the light
And never give up
Don't ever give up on you 

I am the only one that I absolutely have to be with for the rest of my days and I really need to get myself back. But how. And don't say step outside of your comfort zone. It's much more complicated than that.

You call me out beyond the shore into the waves.

Screenshot from my FB feed this morning.

The song "You Make Me Brave" by Bethel Music was in my memories on Facebook this morning. A great song that has gotten me through a lot of tough moments in life. A little bit further down the feed were the two posts on the left. Call me crazy, but I think there is a message for me today. Whaddya think?

Ah, my comfort zone, that well-worn groove, that towing the line, that treading water. I do try to experience new things and expand my horizons on a regular basis but admittedly, this past couple of years because of the divorce, I have been more inclined to play it safe in the grand scheme of things. Some of it is fear, fear of the vast unknown that lays ahead of me. Some of it, is rooted in anger. I have had periods of extreme anger at the trajectory of my life. If I had wanted to to be a single mother at 40, I would have never gotten married.  I never got married because I intended to be single again. A whole tsunami of disappointment and broken what-ifs. Then there is that whole me as a mom trying to provide a degree of stability for my kids, but who am I kidding at best I am a swinging bridge more than a fortress. 

For as much as stepping out of my comfort zone feels like stepping off the curb into the path of a speeding bus, it is unavoidable. Over the course of the next month, I will be moving. Every time I think I have made my peace with this, something comes along to disturb that. I love my house. I love my neighborhood. It's little things like being able to walk just about anywhere we would need to be. So far, there is only a couple of places that would be comparable but they don't seem to be "it". I am trying to not be picky but I also don't want to end up in suburban isolation. So I take a step...

Other steps are less clearly defined. Job, relationships, tattoos, and what to have for dinner, all have steps I need to take but to some degree are less easy for me to take because aside from my daughter, no one is going to give me a great inspirational speech about why I should get the tattoo I have wanted for years or whip me into a frenzy about ending my lifelong love affair with Little Debbie.

But the good news is that I don't walk alone. The exponential growth of my faith over the past ten years is one of the best steps out of my comfort zone that I have ever taken. I would have never imagined a version of me like that one that exists right now in this moment. And with all sincerity, today if I am not singing this song and belting out:You make me brave, You make me brave,No fear can hinder now the promises you made then I will most likely be quietly reminding myself of this...

There is one moment and it is now, and it is just me and God and all is well.

So here I go, I hear  the first step is a doozy.

Words, playing me deja vu, like a radio tune I swear I've heard before.

I have been up for awhile this morning. I had been trying to just chill and enjoy which became hard when barely into a guilty pleasure, turn of the century RomCom, my son came crawling in bed with me. Seven year old boys are not exactly known for their peace and balance. He had said he just wanted snuggle power, that he was not actually awake. That was well over an hour ago.

I had been really indulging in my coffee and movie, turning my brain off for some much needed nothingness. I woke up to a ton of questions. No, literally, I went to bed early so my phone was holding them from friends. I don't have much to offer in the way of guidance today but I can still listen.

I am in a place right now, where I serious just want to put "Come Undone" and a couple of other Duran Duran songs on a repeat play list and belt it out around my house. It's not in any negative way. Sigh, I have been on a certain trajectory in my life and suddenly I find myself questioning it. I have come to a place with it all that, and I may have said this is my last post, all I can pray anymore is,"God, I want what You want." It might seem like an indecisive, cop-out to some but those people would be so wrong.

I want what You want, in this case, is full surrender. It's not that I don't have any hopes or dreams or crazy notions. I do, believe me, I do. It is me being flexible to the will and flow of God without getting hung up on or set on things that might not be for my ultimate good. To some degree, it is a fantastic place to be and certainly not one I can say I have been in very often before. But it is also so extremely hard, but not necessarily for the reasons that you might expect.

In this letting go of all that no longer serves my unfolding good, I find myself letting go of certain beliefs I have held about certain relationships in my life. I haven't stopped believing what I had previously held, it's just that I have come to see how holding on so tightly, having such tunnel vision could be counterproductive to an abundant life. It is also counterproductive to maintaining friendships. People take my current exploration as some sort of Jenny going off the rails. The circle shrinks in response and I find myself lacking a group to hold discussions with and some things aren't meant for the general public.

I keep thinking about a dear friend of mine who often speaks about not putting God in a box. I feel wholly convicted that I am guilty of this. While it is entirely too early on a Saturday for an indepth theological pondering, I have been amazed at how as I let go of everything my faith deepens despite any sort of whispering undercurrent that I am falling away. It makes a lot of sense to because truthfully God in a box is about as useful a thing as a dick in a box.

Remix and redux. Restoration that is remix will never be as sustaining as a redux. Remixes just splice together the best parts over a new beat, a new time signature while ignoring a weak bridge or bad melody. Redux equals revival, new breath, new life, new adventures. I very much feel as if my soul is in a restoration period and I want to make sure that who I am and who I am supposed to be is strong and that I don't just end up a caricature of who everyone thinks I should be.

Maybe it's a similar tune but I am confident that I don't think that I have heard this tune before.

'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow

So, yeah, I haven't written in four months. Well, written online because if memory serves I have burned through three notebooks and various scraps of paper. I had shied away from writing here because well, everyone keeps telling me to be careful what I post in public while I am going through this divorce.

Ah, this divorce, the gift that keeps on giving like a continual white elephant party. It has been 27 months since he said he didn't want to be married anymore. It has been 19 months since he filed for divorce. It has been 15 months since he moved in with that tranny looking thunderslut. It has been eight months since the bankruptcy he pushed me into was filed and four months since it discharged. It has been one week since our last court date. A court date the was supposed to end it all, once and for all, per his wish. But for some reason, the man who has constantly and repeated screamed at and bullied me that I am dragging things out and being difficult decided that he wants a trial. Thus, prolonging the agony.

It is the best word to describe this dreadful holding pattern.

But thank God for my friends and family who have been perpetually been handing me shovels while I dig through all this bullshit.

I know as I sit here that I need to push forward and get fully reconnected to purpose. I know that there are things that have been revealed to me in this cold season of my life that I need to use my talents and gifts to shed light on. I know everything right now and nothing at all and I am good with that.

I have been making playlists like a frenetic toddler with markers and a freshly painted wall. It might not seem like much but to me it signifies significant soul healing. My daughter is really the one who started that process with her sharing her favorite band with me. Having a job I love and a little more stability has helped as has the reemergence of an old dear friend and kissing and making up with my cousin.

I know very much during parts of this journey people thought me insane for constantly searching for the silver linings, looking at the sunny side. But here I am. Still standing. Better than I ever did. Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid. Drinking coffee and throwing Elton John into casual conversation. I regret more that I lost myself in marriage than that I lost the marriage. It really is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all and what positive thinking and good girlfriends don't help, brown liquor smooths over.

My faith has helped as well but that is a series of post for the future because my faith has certainly made me well. Prayer and meditation and number of ordained and lay ministers that I count as friends and confidants. That aspect of my life, I really can not write about extemporaneously.

But yeah, in the past couple of months, my creative side has reemerged and so help me I will walk away from people or things that tell me I can not be who I am. Comfort over purpose is a death sentence I regret that I accepted.

The best is yet to come.

Once all the best was mine...Tipp City yea, I'm still here.

So, ummmm, yeah. For e'ry bit woohoo hallelujah positive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound that I was yesterday, I am the penultimate today.

Life is like that I guess. I don't know, I am fully just guessing. I having one of those days when I am thinking of that shirt that says,"Jesus Loves You...Everyone Else Thinks You Are An Asshole" and thinking the opposite applies to me. E'ryone loves me, Jesus thinks I am asshole.

I am. I am willfully disobedient in a few very small areas and I kinda think that I would like to be Nicole Arbour's BFF 4 life. I am not even kidding. It'll be me and Nicole Arbour and Lisa Lampanelli and we'll be toking it up with Johnny Hopkins and Slone Kettering. Okay, maybe not, but oblige me, I am in a massive funk today and I trying desperately to pull myself back on course.

I slept poorly. Had crazy, crazy dreams about my doctor and trying to get to an appointment, and so when I came back from dropping the boy off at school, I curled up on the couch. My "old mangy, transient" husband stopped by while I was sleeping and that's when I went downhill. He doesn't speak to me at all anymore, not even about things that matter. About six months ago, I thought that we were over all that but I guess is skank-ass girlfriend heard we actually had several civil conversations in a row and freaked out.

(Queue "Where is God?" by Oliver Adams)  (So obscure, I can't find it anywhere for the link.)

I know you are probably thinking at this point, what does Tammy and the Amps have to do with any of this? Well, I am glad you asked.

Tipp City has been on my mind a lot lately. I have no clue why. Not really. I mean, it's about equidistant to the grandparents so there's a bonus. It's closer to a lot of other family. It's closer to things that keep my daughter happy. It's a bit like whence I came from but without me having to constantly relive my backstory that involves being a complete douche to people who didn't deserve it. I could be me without having to prove or disprove any notions about who I am.

It's not the first time in my life I have considered Tipp City as a place to call home. Several years ago, sigh, for whatever reason, my husband (who grew up in Miami County) always wanted to go spend our free time there...despite saying he hated everything about Miami County. There's a great park in Tipp City that we would end up at occasionally. A great park where we by the end of the journey would have met new people who actually sat and hung out with us as we all watched our kids play together. At the time, his parents were helping us out quite a bit and moving to Tipp would have made sense. (My mom would have moved up there eventually because she's good like that.)

Anyway...so I totally feel like I don't fit in, don't vibrate right, don't something in my present situation. Everyone so concerned all the time with matters of consequence. Everyone so booked to the gills with stuff. I know some of it is the way that this pending divorce, the bankruptcy, the complete and total lack of ability to claim any sort of worldly success is totally f****ng messing with me. I don't need to be mega anything, but honestly no part of my life plan ever involved having to hang my head in shame and mortification as I told people my husband left me for livestock. No part of my life plan ever, ever, EVER saw me 29 days from 40 and so broke I can't even pay attention.

Shrug. This is not exactly inspirational. I am not there today. I want to be. I have cried out to the Lord so much since this morning, I think He is letting all go straight to voice mail.

What did I ever do so horrible in my life that I deserved to be cheated on and all my dreams shattered?

NOTHING.

God allowed it. No clue why and still working through some emotion on that. I am not the woman I was when this started. There is good in that but so much bad. I don't think that a lifetime in prayer and therapy will heal this gaping chest wound that my husband and his self-centered malady left me with. There is no beauty for ashes today. Today, once again God chose not to make all things new or to work all things to the good of Jen who loves him, I willfully and willingly stepped into being a full-on, stay-at-home mom. I don't regret the time. I only regret that the world is not so accommodating and that further exacerbating the annihilation of my confidence that has come from the actions of my husband is the clear cutting that comes every-time I unsuccessfully try to sell myself to some prospective employer.

I can not press any further in without actually going home to the Lord himself. That my friends is the truth of my situation. I have nothing but God and his promises. That I have survived this far in this situation is nothing but the grace of God. No joke. Pressing in doesn't mean you don't feel the pain. I feel the pain. Daily. Some days hourly. I live in a world where hypocritical women's studies lecturers fuck husbands because of their own damned brokenness. Your actions destroyed my world, my life, my peace. I fucking hate you both. May God deal with you ever so severely.

I hate this world.

I am tired of so much.

I just want to move to Tipp City and live out the remainder of my years in the relative peace of Miami County. Once...all the best...it was mine. I never once took it for granted. I really didn't But here I am. Busted and broken and abandoned. Tipp City, yeah, I am still here. And it beats the hell out of moving back to Germantown.

I never claimed perfection.

I just want to be content.

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows)

Sometimes, little things in life act as confirmation. Confirmation that you are on the right track. A nod that you are doing the right thing. A wink that you are in fact in the right place at the right time. This past Sunday was one of those times for me.

The ladies in my mom's group (and a few other really) have teased me before about my propensity for using movies to apply spiritual principles and moral concepts. So, you can imagine my utter joy when our pastor began to preach out of "Shawshank Redemption" on Sunday morning. The sermon entitled "Get Moving" is the first of four about spiritual growth. Now, if you know me, you also know that I revel in using song lyrics as blog titles and so as I headed home that morning, I found Fall Out Boy's "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene And Stop Going to Shows)", stay with me, and give me a few paragraphs and I will tie it all together.

Get busy living or get busy dying. Those words have been bouncing around my head the past several days like a truckload of Superballs in gymnasium during an earthquake. Get. Busy. Living. Get. Busy. Dying. There is no in middle. I know this because it is what I am discovering through this particular trial of my life. To chose nothing, to chose complacency, to try to balance on the fence is a passive choice toward death and decay and stagnation. It's okay to have a bad day. It's okay to react in anger. It's okay to plot to send twenty-five pounds of micro-fine red glitter to those who have harmed you. It's not okay to stay there. To stay in the dark is to stay imprisoned.

But how, Jen, how do start living you don't know what I am up against. I don't, you are right but I do know what I have waded through in my life and I am still standing. I am currently living in a season of my life where if I was not actually living it I would very much think that I was making some of this stuff up. I made a conscious choice in this trial early on that I was not going to live in the dark side. However, I am not skipping through a field of poppies with a song in my heart and a gleam in my eye every day. No, no, some days the feeling is much more that of being in a bog covering quicksand covering a black hole. Some days the weigh of my comforter is too much to deal with, let alone a failing marriage, a financial crisis, endless unemployment and all my motherly duties. I get it.

The Fall Out Boy title resonates with me because I married a musician. When he started making connections that were counter to what we had said we wanted for our family, I took a step back. Spirit led me that way. I don't belong there. I miss it sometimes but truth be told but I would rather suffer as a daughter of Christ than reign as the queen of the underground. I am just too sparkly to be that dark. I know that I am none of the things his band mates said about me and none of the lies he told his girlfriend about me are rooted in truth. They keep their folly, I keep my soul. It seemed like a fair trade.

Our circumstances may be different but the suffering is the same. So while you are there..."alone in your electric chair"...what is it going to be? The choice is entirely yours, that's what freewill is all about. I made my conscious decision way, way, way before the sneaky behavior, the lying, and ultimately the cheating happened. I didn't just make a declaration that life was going to be a certain way and then POOF! Snarky, sardonic Jenny was suddenly transformed into Polyanna. It's been a journey. You can't change without movement, reaction, refining and pruning. There is mourning involved. There are tears. There are walls. There are choices to be made.

So, what's it going to be are you going to get busy living or are you content to spend the next forty years dying?

Get busy. Get moving. Go

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Below is the sermon entitled "Get Moving" from Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering, Ohio. I encourage you to follow the sermon series on Vimeo or if you are in the greater Dayton ares come out and join us on Sundays at 9, 10 or 11:15.


September 13, 2015 Barry DeShetler Get Moving – Exploring Christ from Christ Church United Methodist on Vimeo.

Guinnevere

Original Poetry by Jenny Reibert-Wolfe ~ Copyright 2015