Faith

I have had a multitude of things occur over the last week or two. The man I’ve been in love with for several months told me he is in love with me. Not even a week later that relationship changed – for good reason – and not definitively, the focus is on friendship. I think. I spent several days wallowing in self-pity and frustration – not all related to my relationship with this man – and went to my pastor for help. My pastor proceeded to tell me that I am superficial.

I’ve begun running. I’ve made a promise to my God to attend church regularly. I’d like to join a choir. I talk on a daily basis with a woman who is going through something similar to me – albeit, she’s much more together than I am and I’m green with envy. I’m making regular meals for my children and we sit together and visit during dinner. They are happier and say I am behaving more “motherly”. Odd, since I think I’m behaving more like a woman in search of herself than one that knows who she is.

My faith is something that I have relied on to get me through things, which otherwise I don’t know that I would have survived with my mind intact. Now I find myself HERE. The past is over. My father is older, I am grown, and there is no relationship to lament in that regard. My divorce is final. The impact of my relationship with my ex-spouse certainly is profound, but only as far as I allow it to be. I have quit my job and am allowing myself the freedom to stretch my wings – however that may end up, disaster or not.

I found myself sitting at my piano yesterday, in tears. So often throughout the years I have felt confined, as if I had hit a glass ceiling in terms of my maturity, my ability to grow as a person. I simply have not been able to move beyond this place. I have the intellect to pretend that I have, but not the depth to back it up. I feel this keenly.

There is no one around to blame anymore. I certainly cannot blame my father, or my relationship with him. I cannot whine and blame a boyfriend, as the one I nearly had was a FRIEND and not a captor (it was I who behaved like a blender, mixing things up when they would begin to settle). I can’t even blame my ex-spouse anymore, as he’s moved on with another relationship and is currently leaving me alone.

There is no crisis, Thank God. The only turmoil is within me.

“Why are you really here?” Asked my pastor.

“ Because I’m stuck. I’m lost. I can’t seem to move forward. I feel self-centered
and I don’t like it.”

And then he was brutal. I am superficial. That is what my near relationship/friend ran into, he says. THE WALL. I’m a rock skipping on the surface when there are depths to be plumbed. I’m to give my past and myself to God.

Really? It’s a leap of faith. A big one. So I wandered to the chapel I go to so often to talk to God. I knelt at the base of the Alter. And I ask him to come, right then, to take me.

Nope. He just chuckled, like I was a wayward child, and told me to get myself to Church. I don’t even know what Church, at this point. I promised my pastor that I’d come to his Church on Sunday. And so I will. There is no choir at his church, and I want to sing. This much I have decided. Quitting smoking has given me more than lungs to run with, suddenly I can carry a tune again. I need something beyond the stoic Lutheranism that I was raised on, but would rather not watch people writhe in the isles. I am a skeptic. And therein lies my problem. The leap, which I have not taken.

I run myself in circles. These are the very circles I am trying to get out of. Those that have known me since childhood know what I am speaking of. I am the same as I was then. Only I live in my own house, with no man to dominate or abuse me. And still I find myself running in circles emotionally. I want out of this place, through the glass ceiling.

Today, kneeling in front of that alter, I could see light bursting from my chest in rays, but only half way across my body. I know what is in the way. I can’t seem to give it up.