COURAGE, BRAVEHEART

Today I got onto Instagram, like I do most days, and was perusing and browsing. Taking in beautiful images, cataloging encouraging quotes, catching up on friends lives (in a pretty impersonal, voyeuristic way, I’ll add), dreaming up the places I want to travel to one day, or the house I dream of building. Instagram is a dream world haven.

As my husband and I are in the midst of a divorce, I am in a season where I am pretty emotionally raw. Some days I am full of confidence and brimming with joy and other days, it’s hard to get out of bed and do anything. I also find in this time, that I am easily triggered by so many different things: certain things people say (anything that is remotely in that vein of what he’d say to hurt me), or a place we’d visit, or a memory we’d made. It’ll shut me down or light me up.

Today as I was on social media, I saw an old picture of us on my feed and I clicked on it. Then I clicked on the link to his name. Bad choice. I know, I shouldn’t have. And what popped up was…

Nothing. He was gone. Disappeared. Vanished.

Okay, not really. But he had blocked me on social media. Which, to be honest, I had also blocked him because I didn’t want to be reminded of him every time I saw his photos. But for some reason, I didn’t expect him to have already done the same thing to me. But lo and behold, he had. Shocker, I know! But not only had he blocked me…

So had my brother-in-law.

And my sister-in-law.

And my father-in-law.

And my mother-in-law.

And our friends from our family dinner group who chose to support him.

They had all either un-followed me or blocked me, as if to say, “we are cutting you out of our lives. We don’t want to see you, or know what’s going on in your life. We are through with you and we’re all moving on.”

And you know what? They all have a right to do that. And they all probably need to for themselves and their own healing. But man, I gotta say, it hurt me. It tore me up. I started to cry. This was another real part of all of this. It was happening. I was no longer going to be able to see pictures of my nieces. Or my sister-in-law. Or my friends kids. And even though I know this is all a part of it, it still hurts. I felt like a social pariah. And it was just really really sad.

And it can be sad. This whole thing is sad. The crumbling of a marriage. The fact that we were separated for almost 2 years and nothing had changed, or if it had, nothing had been communicated. The lack of his willingness to fight for us. The ending of this 14 year chapter. It’s all devastating.

But the thing is, there’s a new story being written. A new chapter, and the Lord has told me time and time again,

“I’m doing a new thing and NOTHING can look the same.”

That includes the people who had previously surrounded me. Those who I was choosing to attach myself to. Those I was choosing to spend time with on the regular. Those I was allowing to influence me and my way of thinking. None of that could look the same. And consequentially, none of it does look the same. And even though I am sad about it, the truth is, I really don’t want it to look the same as it has in the past.

The people who have huddled around me, who are now supporting me, who are fierce warriors in their faith, who are propping me up because they are relying on the strength of the Lord.

THEM.

Those are the ones I want in my life. Those are the ones I want around me, supporting me, speaking truth into my life, speaking words of encouragement and affirmation over me, challenging me in my walk, telling me that God is faithful, reminding me of His promises and His provision.

THEM.

How grateful I am that the Lord has brought these “new treasures” into my life or revealed that they were there all along, because they are enriching me in ways I’ve not had in a very very long time, and for that I am so grateful. Thank you my friends, those of you with servant hearts. You know who you are.

And Lord, thank you for your promises. For your life and for your love. For the freedom found in you. For the words you speak over me and the support system you’ve pulled me into. You’ve given this “social pariah” new hope and new life and I am beyond grateful that you make all things new. 

Isaiah 43:18-21 says,

¹⁸ “But forget all that— 
    it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
¹⁹ For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
²⁰ The wild animals in the fields will thank me,
    the jackals and owls, too,
    for giving them water in the desert.
Yes, I will make rivers in the dry wasteland
    so my chosen people can be refreshed.
²¹ I have made Israel for myself,
    and they will someday honor me before the whole world.

Thank you for the pathway in the wilderness. For the river of life you give in a dry wasteland. For refreshment that you bring to your people. I know we’re just getting started writing the next chapter together and I can’t wait to see what unfolds as we turn the pages and walk forward one step at a time.