Just sit there right now
Don’t do a thing
Just rest.

For your separation from God,
From love,

Is the hardest work
In this
World.

Let me bring you trays of food
And something
That you like to
Drink.

You can use my soft words
As a cushion
For your
Head. — Hafiz

I have been absent. I have been absent because I didnt feel there was anything else for me to do. I divorced. Somehow in my divorcing there was this natural progression of retreating into myself. I’m not sure I even knew I was doing it. It just happened. Maybe I didn’t want to be hurt anymore. Maybe I felt it was the safest place for me to be. Maybe I just felt that no one truly could understand or relate to all of the emotions and feelings that were created within me and outside of me. At any rate, I couldn’t bring myself to write. Somehow things were different. I no longer felt moved to write or maybe I have just been rejecting everything that brought me some peace and comfort. Maybe I don’t want to be moved, to feel God’s touch. I am only writing this at the request of a dear friend who said to me last night, “Please start writing again. Even if it is full of pain, it still speaks to the people who follow you.” So here I am today heeding her request. I have no better description then to say that she ministered to me at a time that I needed it. I simply say thank you to her. I’m not sure anyone ever really knows the enormity of their actions to someone else. I want her to know. Her simple kindness, moved me, renewed my belief in the goodness of people.

I know the despair of being separated from God, from love. The thing is, I know in my heart, my being that it is not God that has separated Himself from me, but me from Him. I’m not sure I can even adequately explain why. I’m not even sure I know myself. I know if I go to Him, just even open the door slightly I will be awash in love and yet I resist going there. The reason I know this is true is that I have had glimpses of it. I caught the sunrise in all it’s morning glory. The dusty hues of pink and orange breaking the horizon took my breath away. I stood for a moment drinking it in, letting it provide a momentary comfort to me. On any other given morning I would have sat down and immersed myself in it and instead I shrugged it off. Another morning I was tidying my kitchen and as I glanced out the window I saw the moon, still out, not having retreated yet from it’s nights gallivanting. It reminded me of a morning when I went for a jog and the sun was coming out and the moon had not yet gone to bed. I loved that jog. It was perfect and moving! I thought of it for a moment, took one last look at the moon and chose to shut it out. I wonder sometimes if I’m punishing myself. If I don’t believe that I deserve this goodness, this love that exists. I don’t think I’m blaming God but maybe I am.

I do sometimes find myself asking what really happened here? This wasn’t suppose to be my life. This is not how I envisioned it. In all my conceitedness and arrogance there still are moments when I say to myself you of all people were not supposed to be divorced. Maybe someone else who’s marriage was a mess, or who didn’t try or take the proper steps to keep it together but not you! I know this resistance. At the same time, I know it is a part where I must grow. I am no better than someone else. I have faults, frailties and imperfections just like anyone. Who am I to think that I should have been immune from this? Somehow my ego thinks that I’m too good for this and that there is shame in being divorced, in not having kept my marriage together. I have tried to look at this and examine it, dissect it and somehow change my beliefs about it. Maybe all I really did is stuff it deeper inside of me, retreated from it and retreated from myself and everything that could give me solace.

In all of this I know the pain and agony of being my separated from God, from love and because of it I know what it feels like to be drowning. It is exhausting treading this water of life and sometimes it feels like I can’t tread anymore. Sometimes my head goes under and just out of sheer instinct I think I fight back to the surface for a breath. Some days it feels like nothing really matters and on those dark days I don’t want to see the sunrise. And yet I still find myself treading. Other days I feel like I am making progress and the lightness of my being permeates outward and everything doesn’t seem quite so daunting and heavy.

I am used to doing for other people, for giving when they have been in pain or trouble. I don’t know how or why, it is just part of who I am. I see myself as fiercely independent as well and therefore don’t ask for help maybe when I should as I believe I will figure out a way and I will get it accomplished myself. What I didn’t anticipate, what I didn’t realize was that I wouldn’t be able to minister to myself or that I would become so broken that I couldn’t find a way, or have the will to want to. It’s possibly like being in the desert and thirsting for water and knowing that you will die without it but you are just unable to take one more step to any life giving source. This has been my state of being and it wasn’t until I stumbled upon this poem and a friend reached out to me that I realized what I really needed was a cushion for my head, some food and drink and a place to rest. My divide of separation from God doesn’t seem that great at the moment. When the sunrises tomorrow maybe I will be able to fully embrace it instead of brushing it off. And maybe, I will say a little prayer of thanksgiving to my God for sending a friend to minister to me. In fact, I already have. I’m not sure how long this will last. Maybe I will find myself drowning again and in need of more ministering. I don’t know. What I know is in this moment someone else took up the task of treading for me for just a little while so I could rest. Thank you my friend.