A Fork in the Road, Part II

Back to the grindstone ... The other day 's entry was a lot easier for me to write about. This one is not. Maybe because some of my latest realizations are all rather new and I'm not quite sure how to articulate them. These last few days have been following a similar "pattern," feeling flooded by thoughts, conversations, and themes that all seem to point to something I really need to think about. OK, so I understand the fact that I really need to start thinking about forgiveness, as difficult as it might be. There is definitely a fork that I am facing, and there is definitely a choice that I have to make.

But there's more beyond that, isn't there. Yet another fork to face -- or just a continuation of this current fork in front of me? Whatever the case, last week was pretty powerful for me. It all started on Monday, with a phone call from Don. He experienced something very traumatic for him, and it brought all of the pain right back to the forefront, for him and for me. I spent the whole day crying, feeling like I was living last fall all over again, feeling like any shred of healing that had occurred over these past four months had been completely eradicated. Again, I went back to that place of darkness, that place of questioning, that place of fear ... I experienced everything I was trying to move away from, and here it was again, staring me in the face. It was a horrible, horrible day for both of us. But then a tremendous thing happened: it didn't last. At least not for me. I felt it, I mourned it, I suffered it ... but then it washed away. For the first time in a long, long time I was able to almost step back and look in, and I was able to see not only the situation for what it was, but this time I was able to almost visibly see that fork in front of me. In reality, the situation in and of itself wasn't a big deal -- yeah, it wasn't pleasant for Don to experience, but as an isolated incident, taken in its context, it really wasn't a big deal. However, for someone dealing with PTSD, for someone whose life has been torn apart in some ways, for someone who is not yet healed, it was a big deal. I get that -- I really do. But then I looked past that and saw this fork ... what choice do we have here? The fork on the left said, continue to feel victimized, continue to let something like this (which will happen over and over again ... it's called life) just tear you to shreds and completely disable you. OR -- take the right fork, somehow find the strength to step outside of the situation, recognize it for what it is, and figure out a way to push through it. Writing this all down, it doesn't seem like a big deal; indeed, it seems like common sense. But when you've been hurt, and are hurting, it's not so black and white. So this was my day on Monday ... that pea-soup fog was starting to dissipate even more, but I still wasn't quite sure what to do with all of this.

The next day was quite a turning point for me. In the morning I was still pretty flustered by the previous day's events, combined with my swirling thoughts about God, His will, how much do I read into things and when do I let it go ... it was getting to a rather upsetting level, to the point where I felt that brief respite from the pea-soup fog was over and it was rolling back in with fury. It suddenly struck me that, for the first time in 11 years, I finally had a pastor of my own! Being married to one, I know I cannot have the same man as my husband and my pastor. Yet now I thought, "Hey! I should really take advantage of this!" and so I did. I took my kids to their home, they played with their kids, I had the freedom to talk and try to straighten things out. It was tremendously helpful and I was able to see some things very clearly: while I am not completely healed from our experiences, and I definitely got a little messed up in the head along the way, I am nevertheless in a much better place than I was and that was encouraging. Yet I couldn't shake this feeling that the situation earlier in the week was so eerily similar to what we had experienced in the past ... a different face, but the same words, the same behavior, even the same week of it all starting! Are we supposed to learn something here?

I realized I had to break this all down. What we experienced last fall was hell -- it really was. It was wrong on so many levels. We were hurt with a malice and a purpose that was just incredible and unbelievable. But looking at this week's situation for what it was, I realized that this was different; it was just "life." Everyone faces this kind of thing -- in the workplace, in their communities. So why should it be any different for us? While the similarities between these situations were downright creepy, there were also fundamental differences ... and those differences were crucial, I believe, in being able to diffuse the situation and become empowered to push through it. Hence the fork, and the lesson: do we take the fork that will find us completely debilitated every time someone looks at us cross-eyed? Or do we take the other fork, gathering up the courage and strength to push through it? Our counselor called this "exposure therapy." I think he might be right. Again, the fog dissipated a bit and the choice became extremely clear.

I was feeling much better by Tuesday afternoon, but then Tuesday evening proved to be incredibly mind-blowing for me. My mom had invited me to a Women's Tea at my aunt's church, something they host every year in the spring. The speaker this year was Jennifer Sands, a woman who lost her husband during the 9/11 attacks in New York (he worked for Cantor-Fitzgerald in Tower One). Her talk was her testimony and it was extremely powerful. I wish I had a recording of it, for throughout the entire thing I kept saying to myself, "Don needs to hear this!" I knew this would be an incredibly evening, for when she went up to the podium, the screen flashed the first image of her PowerPoint presentation: an image of a road, with a huge detour sign next to it, with the title blazing across the top, "Traveling Life's Journey." I got shivers ... here I was, at this "random" tea with my mother and my aunt, and she's talking about the very thing, the same theme, as my blog! My own journey, my own questions, my own experiences ... and here I am, seeing it up on the screen! It was just wild. I hung on every word.

She wasn't much of a Christian (her words) at that point, and for that next year after she lost her husband she went through her own version of the Lament Psalms -- questioning God, railing and ranting at Him, more questions. But then she started to change. One of her phrases really stuck with me: "I stopped asking 'why?' and starting asking 'what?'" She stopped asking why God would do this to her, why God would allow this to happen, and instead starting asking God, "What do you want me to do with this? What do you want me to learn? What do you have in store for me?" The entire talk was based up on the theme of a journey, of roadblocks and detours and road signs, of coming to fork after fork after fork and needing to make the choices necessary to continue on or get stuck. Her major fork was trust: do I continue to live in fear and distrust and anger, or do I take that step of faith and trust that God is indeed sovereign, that whatever roadblocks pop up to mess up the journey, that God is still guiding, still caring, still working things out to move you forward.

And all of a sudden it hit me with tremendous force that this is my fork too: trust. Do I stay in this dark and fearful place, or do I learn to trust again? That sudden realization was huge for me: this has truly become a trust issue for me. Without realizing it, I became afraid to trust God. I had come to this strange place where I started to believe that trusting God only lead you to hurt and pain. But through her words, I realized that that really isn't true. There really is so much freedom, such liberation, in trusting God with this journey, and for the first time I truly saw that this was a major crossroads for me, and a major choice that I had to make.

I could go on and on about that evening -- it was just one of the most powerful things I've experienced in recent months. But did I all of a sudden fall to my knees, with a light shining down on my head and angelic voices heralding some heavenly chorus while I raised my arms in the air? Ummm ... no. Remember, I'm not a charismatic. :) Do I suddenly feel 20 pounds lighter, as if a huge load was lifted from my shoulders? Not really. (But ooooooh, wouldn't that be nice!!!). What I feel for the first time is a clearer vision, not necessarily seeing what God is doing, still not understanding why this all happened, but feeling that, yes, I am able to trust again. I am better able to see those forks when they appear, and I feel better able to make the choices necessary to move forward, all the while trusting in God's leading. I feel like a newborn wobbly colt but it's happening. For the first time in a long time, I feel like a major hole has been punched through that pea-soup fog and some bright blue sky is shining through.

And you know what? On the following day -- Wednesday -- I was able to pray for the very first time in months and months. I mean, really pray. I was driving home after I dropped Aidan off at school, and I was alone in the car. It was gorgeous day, the sky was a brilliant blue dotted with pure white clouds ... a perfect day. And in that moment I felt that I had absolutely no choice but to pray. I unloaded my anger, my bitterness, my rage, my fear, my inability to trust ... it truly was freeing. I could almost feel that hold breaking, slowly but surely. Maybe I do need to visualize things more to help me work through this: visualizing forks in my path, visualizing the choices I have to make as I see myself standing at the crossroads, visualizing this hold on me and watching the fingers grasping the side of the cliff slowly slip off one by one. I had purchased two of Mrs. Sands' books at the tea -- "A Tempered Faith" and "A Teachable Faith" -- and I am now reading the first one. It's gut-wrenchingly sad, the story of 9/11 and her unbelievable loss. But what is astounding me, page by page, is that while the circumstances are different (thank God!) her reactions, her words, her feelings, her insights are exactly what I'm experiencing now. It's been tremendously helpful -- and hopeful. But one thing I do know, too -- this is going to a discipline for me. A major discipline. Working through this forgiveness, working through unpleasant things that will inevitably pop up in our lives. It won't be easy. I know I will do a little back-sliding from time to time. But I pray that I can cling fiercely to this new-found hope, this new-found way of looking at things, this new-found trust.

Phew. I'm tired! It was difficult getting all of this out into words. I feel a little like Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) in her poem, "The Author to Her Book" where she writes,
Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain ...
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find ...

I'm glad I was able to make the attempt. Now I really have to start my day and get my butt moving. I've got some great gardening ahead of me today! But it was good to start it this way. Thanks for allowing me to do so. This was my prayer, in a sense. I'm glad this window is starting to open, letting in some fresh air in my up-until-now rather stagnant existence. Spring has definitely sprung, and new beginnings are a pretty wonderful thing.