Contrary to my nature, I will begin not with one of the first lessons I learned months ago, but with the most recent - one I have learned over the course of the past week:
One of the worst things I have experienced during this breakup is a terrible sense of isolation. I am a relational creature, you see, so when my most important human relationship fails, I am left feeling bereft, heartbroken, and most of all, isolated.
Surrounded by prayers and love, family and friends, I still found myself feeling, in my heart of hearts, that I had been set adrift, left hanging out to dry by friends who didn't know what someone in my situation needs. The truth is that, no longer a part of a loving couple, no longer a co-parent in a two-parent family, no longer a logical addition to the list for gatherings that include mothers, fathers and children I am drifting, but not because my friends don't know what I need - it's because they can't supply the most important thing I need. They can't fill that yawning void the end of my marriage has left in my heart and in my life. And, lo and behold, they're not supposed to.
The lesson I've learned in the last week is that, as much as I would have preferred that this cup would have passed me by, it didn't, and my feeling of isolation is a necessary part of this journey. As I grieve, heal and redefine my life, I need to keep my focus upward so I can stay extremely close to God. And I can't do that if I keep looking outward for comfort and answers. While He created me to need fellowship and human relationships, He created me to need Him above all else. And how glorious He has shown Himself to be through this by providing just the right people I need at just the right times, but especially by making sure that nobody else is available when it needs to be just my Father and me. He has shown me that I am never alone.
"In the storm, in the rain, through the good times and in the pain, You're always beside me."
