It seems fitting, as I sit here looking at the snow-covered Selkirks or Purcells of northern Idaho (we still aren't sure what they're called), the exact place I did last year at this time, that I reflect on 2010. It was a year to be remembered, no doubt. These ruminations will be posted in several installments, sort of topically but interrelated.
This year has been painful and tragic. It has broken my heart and I have faced challenges I never thought I would. I am in the midst of a divorce that I still don't understand. I have had lies lobbed at me in court documents. I have had to spend thousands and thousands of dollars defending myself, and I face the possibility of never being able to enjoy the retirement for which I have worked for the past thirty five years. I can do a 'phoenix rising from the ashes' thing. It's important. In that myth, the phoenix dies, becomes ashes and then returns from those ashes as it was before. The phoenix is a survivor. I have done it before; I am a survivor. I appreciate this quality in myself, it is a blessing for which I feel grateful. May it never be said that I am not a grateful person. But if I return from this year as the person I was before, will I be the same? Will I make the same mistakes? Will I have the same frailties? Will I move forward, improve my life, become a better version of the person I was before? And, most importantly, will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? I believe God is NOT unhappy with me. I know He loves me. That's not my point. God loves me and accepts me for who I am. But if He is my Lord, he is also my leader. If He is my leader, what am I doing to better follow Him? Hence my previous statement: Will I become more pleasing in God's eyes? Will the person who emerges from this marriage, this divorce, be a better one? Will she give more of herself to others? Will she do her job in a more giving way than before? Will she work to the betterment of her community (any of the communities of which she is a member)? Will she turn her cheek in the face of insults, stow her ego, be the example God wants her to be in the face of adversity, fatigue, greed, temptation? This brings me to the topic of this paragraph----sorry Mr. Cunningham for not starting this paragraph with it. (Welcome to my world. They don't call me 'Sidetrack Sally' for nothin'. But I do eventually get around to it.) How will I be better after this 'trial' is over?
My life has been driven lately by Proverbs 16:7 "When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even his enemies live at peace with him." What I like about this is the lack of capital letters on the words 'he'. It isn't God who makes the enemies live at peace with the man, it's the man himself. It represents to me the power and change that happens when someone internalizes God's ways. For if a person is truly led by God, if one is led by Christian principles, his behaviors transcend those of this world and separate from the realm of basic human interactions. Is this divorce my opportunity to see how I am being led by my faith? Will I stoop to dirty tricks, deceit, greed? Will I behave by God's standards and obey Caesar's law at the same time? Will my priorities be in sync with God's?
No comments:
Post a Comment