Shattered Heart, Meet Your Healer

Healing is a process, and it doesn't help the process when the door is not completely shut or open. This separation with the intent to divorce feels like a revolving door sometimes, where for a stretch of time,  I will be healing and recovering just fine, and then one little thing will send me shooting back to down to the depths of rejection and hurt. My favorite little moment, to add on to quite a few lately, is my estranged husband using the lame lame line that maybe some people just make better friends than lovers. Twist that knife, sweetheart.

What keeps me going, even when I am in searing pain, is my faith. I know that my God can heal this, will heal this. That when all is said and done, I will be whole because God gave me a Savior. My job is to turn all this hurt over to Him (Matt 11:28-30), to hope in Him (1 Pet 1:18-21). As long as I keep my focus on my Savior, nothing can go permanently wrong (Howard W Hunter, BYU Devotional, 3/14/89, paragraph 9). Pray with me that I can follow my Savior completely and wholly, holding nothing back, that I will listen and obey even if it seems hard or inconvenient.

My Heart Aches

I was a Navy wife for less than 2 years, a Navy fiancée before that, and a Navy girlfriend since 2007. I loved that role. I loved the support I gave my sailor, the unique lifestyle and challenges. I was up to it; my sailor didn't want me anymore.  I read blogs by military wives and my heart just aches to have that lifestyle back. I want to a military wife, I want to support my country and my love that way, but that just does not seem to be my path anymore. I will ever be grateful for the short time that it was, though, because of the true empathy it gives me to share with those who are still with their wonderful military men, especially my close friend whose husband just left on deployment for a year.  I just wish I still had it, too (even when I feel that I am where I'm supposed to be).

Struggling to Find My Way to Coherent

I have been trying for a couple of days now to write a coherent post to share all that is going through my mind. I wanted to write a post to introduce myself a little more. I wanted to explain why I chose hope. I wanted to share the way my divorce pulls my heart into a thousand pieces time and time and time again. Yet I cannot string together a decent post no matter how hard I try. And I usually am pretty good at writing.

To introduce myself, I will say that I like to be honest about my struggles, about my life. My name is Rachel, I am almost 23 years old. I am the oldest of 7, counting my 3 biological siblings and my 3 step-siblings and me. I have three great parents, my mom, my dad, and my step-mom. My parents divorced when I was about 15, and now a little less than 10 years later, I am going through my own divorce. If I had the chance to write a letter to me at 13, I wouldn't. At least not until I have some more positive stuff to say. Oh hey, hon, your parents are about to divorce, and in 10 years, you'll be going through your own. Oh, and you did graduate from college. Yeah, that is not a big enough achievement to overshadow all the negative, not to a 13-year-old at least, who can barely breathe through all the new hormones in her system.

So, that's why I chose hope, because I have to have hope that my life will get better, or I might just go crazy. I do have a wonderful family, and I do love my dad's new family, I am basically recovered from my parents divorce; I have Christ in my life through my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; I am a college grad. I have a lot going for me, and I don't forget that. But the pain of a divorce is monumental, and overwhelming some days.  But I do truly have hope that my afflictions shall be but a small moment (Doctrine and Covenants 121:7)

Was this maybe too honest, too raw? You tell me. Tomorrow, I'll post 5 fun facts about me to lighten the mood.