I’m starting over.

In almost every way imaginable.

After 29 years, my marriage hit an impasse. (Insert sound of screeching brakes and then the car hitting a brick wall at nearly full speed.)

I moved across the country. Lived with family for four months. Bought a house. Moved in.

Here I sit, at my folding table piled with tools and a bag of snacks and various things that have no place yet in this celery green house.

It is a project, I tell myself. It will be great when it is renovated. I know this from past experience. But then past experience was in another life, another world, another existence and here I feel like I am walking on a frozen pond in the spring.

I want you to know something. I am grieving. I am not empowered or strong or striking out on my own. I am lost. I pray every single day for the restoration of my marriage. Every. Single. Day. So God is very clear that I don’t want this new life I am living and yet I am trying to be mindful that He is here. If I go down to the depths… still He is there. Here. Now. I say this because the most common response to my sharing about the hard thing I am going through is to tell me that I will be surprised by how strong I am and all I can do. I appreciate the desire to cheer me up, but it is misguided.

Any strength I have is God’s. Any moment that I muster the courage to do the next thing is only because the Holy Spirit lives in me and He gave me a shot of spiritual adrenaline. And when I fall apart (usually right in the middle of doing the next thing) He will tell me it’s okay to cry. He is not uncomfortable with my tears. He is not impatient with my grief.

I just thought you should know. Where I’ve been. Where I am now. What to expect when you click over to this blog. I need to write. I haven’t written much of anything for months, because the circumstances made it hard for words to form on the page. But I need to try. Because I need to remember who I am. Who I was before I was someone’s wife and mother.

It’s going to be messy. I’m probably going to overshare and then delete the next day a few times. I might be goofy one minute, angry the next. I’ll understand if you don’t know what to say, or if it’s too much for you. God willing, someday I will write words of healing from the perspective of one who is healed. To be honest, I’m hoping to find that secret path through this dense wall of grief-tangled vines with every word that I type.

I’d love it if you’d walk a ‘ways with me.