Breaking Silence

I haven't been blogging.  (Obviously!  Just take a look at my history - only one post since the beginning of May!)  So, here I am.  Ready to break my silence.  You see, I've been distracted, my focus elsewhere, as I dealt with one of life's huge stumbling blocks.  You know the kind?  The events so great they change the course of your entire life?  (Okay, so that sounds over dramatic.  Well, it's not!)

Needless to say, things aren't really going the way I hoped.  I'm not conquering this particular ten month long stumbling block in quite the way I had planned.  (The problem with being in relationship with other people is that one can only control one's own actions and not that of others.  Makes it a little more difficult to get the outcome one is looking for.  Annoying isn't it?)  Seems, too, that God has different plans for how all of this is going to turn out, and He is doing His darnedest to show me how to handle situations in "His" way. 

For example:

I put my children to bed, showered, and contemplated wallowing in my own sorrow and doubting my recent choices.  Instead, I felt a strong urge to pick up my homework for counseling - a book and study guide called Boundaries* - and do something with it.  (Okay, okay, I have counseling tomorrow, and really, I just didn't want to look bad by not having done anything this week.  Can't let on that I've been wallowing right?  Not even to my counselor right?)  But that's not the point, the point is that I did pick up the book, and here's what I read:

In addition to our respecting God's boundaries and his respecting ours, he is a good model for how we should respect our own property.  Whenever God decides that "enough is enough," he respects his own property enough to do something to make it better.  He takes responsibility for the pain he is feeling and moves to make his life different.  He, for instance, lets go of rejecting people and reaches out to some new friends.  When we are hurting, we need to take responsibility for our heart and move to make things better, just as God does (pp. 240-241).**

And then I had to answer some tough questions in the workbook.  And then I was able to see - once again - that I made a sound decision a week ago, that I did what I needed to do to protect myself from more of the same kind of hurt. 

Sure, the choice I made has brought on a new kind of hurt.  In fact, I've hurt so bad in the last few days it caused me to doubt myself!  After all, if I did the right thing then in shouldn't hurt right?  Turns out that I'm learning - once again - that sometimes doing the right thing is doing the most painful thing...at least at first. 

Each section of my workbook ends with a prayer, and tonight two lines really hit home for me:

Teach me to take responsiblilty for situations in my life and for the pain I"m feeling.  Give me courage when that means letting go of the familiar and reaching out to something new.***

I'll be honest, I'm scared right now.  In the past week there have been times when the fear has become so strong that I have almost felt paralyzed by it.  Letting go and starting over is not easy.  "Reaching out to something new" is not something I'm good at or do, like, ever!  It is hard and very, very scary.

So....right now I'm doing the only thing I can do.  I'm putting one foot in front of the other and not trying to see too far into the future.  I'm going to put my trust in God, and I'm going to start trying to do a better job of trusting myself.

Oh...and I'm going to try to do a better job of blogging again...


*Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend.  Boundaries.
**Doubt my (okay, the author's) words?  Read Matthew 22:1-14.  It's a good one!
***Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend.  Boundaries:  Workbook.  187.


P.S.  I do know how to do proper citations, so I know these aren't it, but I don't care!  I'm not in school here!