"The loves we've had before..."

"The loves we've had before
can never change this one.
We're not imprisoned by
the past we've brought along..."

This post may seem a bit naked. If so, I apologize in advance.

Tonight I was going through my iTunes library looking for opportunities to de-clutter, when I came across Collin Raye's "That was a River." I couldn't help myself. I clicked play and let it flow.   The music wafted through the empty house and the tears fell in big, fat drops without restraint.

To keep this moment from becoming what it was wont to become -- a deep dive into a vast chasm of sadness and regret -- I thought, "Come on Katie, you don't live in that space anymore. What did you learn?"

So here goes.

In every romantic relationship -- prior to my marriage to Jeff -- I just couldn't seem to "let it go." Once I knew that the man I loved had once loved someone else -- truly, madly, deeply -- I became needy, hyper-sensitive, wary, and prone to over-compensation. I lost my way.

And in the process, I lost my heart, my authenticity, my joy, and my trust. I became severe and suspicious. It wasn't attractive. I tried too hard. It became my goal to be better than everyone else that "he" had loved.

For years I thought that the problem was each of the "hims" in my life, and the choices they'd made -- even before they met me. This irrational thinking actually made sense to me in moments when I felt vulnerable and unworthy. And I let it erode each relationship like a termite eating away at the foundation of a loved house.

Waking up one day to the rubble of a house in ruin and irreparable -- a house I had allowed myself to give up on -- I started to take notice. I began to see how cruel it was to dismiss my partner's love for me as his truth. And more importantly I began to take responsibility for addressing those feelings that I had blamed "him" for.

My journey started with laying it all on the altar. Taking my broken heart and my broken sense of marriage to God. I searched Scripture and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. There were many times when an idea would bring me to my knees. Self-knowlege may be the first step in healing, but it isn't always the prettiest. But there were waymarks of encouragement along the way as well. I remember feeling a new pulse of hope with Eddy's assurance that:

"progress is a law of God..." 

Each and every one of us is evolving spiritually. We are discovering the depth, breadth, and height of what it means to love as God loves. Each relationship, experience, challenge, and trial unfolds, as Eddy suggests:

"new views of divine goodness and love..." 

And since spiritual evolution is always expansive and progressive, what has gone before is always leading us to a deeper trust, a more selfless love, a higher and more permanent peace.

As I anchored my life more securely in trusting God's perfect plan for each of us, I found that I could genuinely embrace my partner's journey towards our relationship as divinely designed. Each step, each companion, each moment of affection, each instance of growth in grace -- a divine gift.

I never realized how freeing it would be to put my heart -- and his -- where it belonged. Not in some romantic version of "happily ever after," but in the hands of God's perfect love for each of us -- and all who had come before.

I no longer have to sabotage each relationship out of fear that I will be found wanting. I didn't have to over-compensate in anticipation of someone discovering that I was not as good as someone else who had come before -- or might come along. I can now love fully, genuinely, trustingly as the present expression of God's love for my partner. I can fully accept his love as his highest understanding of what it meant to love -- moment-by-moment. And mine.

We are each moving, not towards each other, but towards a deeper understanding of God, and what it means to love like Him/Her. In each relationship, we are each other's river -- but God is the ocean.

That's my story. Still crying, but they are tears of gratitude.

offered with Love,

Kate

"In this life I was loved by you..."

"Let the world stop turnin'
Let the sun stop burnin'
Let them tell me love's not worth going through
If it all falls apart
I will know deep in my heart
The only dream that mattered had come true
In this life, I was loved by you"
-Reid/Shawblin

When Clara was about seven months old my world felt like it was unraveling at the seams…literally falling apart. 

We were living in a little cottage that, within an hour, went from being our "heaven on earth," to becoming a catapult towards the unknown.  Now, I've done "unknown" in my life…a lot.  I've moved on a dime, I've launched businesses without a financial safety net, I've driven away from all I knew with a hundred dollars (30 years ago a hundred dollars went a lot further than it does today) in my wallet and a little suitcase on the backseat of the car I was driving cross country to deliver to a friend's brother.

But as much as launching your life into the unknown by yourself might be lonely, your choices, ultimately, only seem to directly effect you.  In other words, if you mess up you're the only one who might go hungry that night.  If you take a wrong turn, you're the only one who will have to retrace their steps.  

But as a mother, finding yourself on the brink of that unknown landscape where "beyond this place there be dragons," without a paycheck, and three children to provide for, is terrifying. 

But this is where we found ourselves that gray day in November, and I was barely holding it together.  Had it not been for my growing understanding of God's omnipotent goodness and His tender care for His beloved children I would have collapsed in on myself. 

Yes, I had seen countless proofs of His guidance, and love, in our lives.  And yes, I had experienced His "rabbit out of a hat" kind of divine surprises.  But….

And that's where this story begins.  In a "But…" moment of inner what-iffing myself into a tortured, frantic state of terror.

I was sitting on the floor of our living room playing with Clara, and her sister Emma, who were bouncing and twirling in their baby bouncy seats.  Their older sister was sitting on the sofa reading a book for school, and I could feel the tears I had been trying to hold in ready to burst their banks, and start down my cheeks.  I closed my eyes trying to staunch their flow, all the while praying that God would open my eyes to the presence of His care.

As I sat there I praying, if not for answers, then at least for some spiritual poise so as not to alarm our girls--the twins bouncing and giggling just inches from me--I felt the softest touch on my cheek. 

I opened my eyes and there was Clara reaching across the space with her little hand, to place her palm against my cheek.  She looked in my eyes with all the wisdom of a sage, and let her hand quietly rest there for just a few moments, but it was enough.

This post isn't about how that experience resolved itself…although it did, and we were cared for by God's love and wisdom in countless unexpected ways.  But it is about that moment of maternal terror--when it seemed like I had somehow let my children down and couldn't find my way out of a mental maze of self-doubt and a false sense of personal responsibility for having all the answers all the time--and how a simple touch turned my tears of terror, into tears of gratitude and joy. 

Clara's tiny hand and the wisdom in her eyes…reminded me that we were not specks of human dust on an ever tilting planet cast about by circumstance and chance, predisposed to mistakes, and random acts of poor judgment. 

Her touch, like her sister's arm linked through mine on a walk through a department store, her laughter on the phone, or Emma's smile from the backseat of the car in my rear view mirror, was a reminder that we are all on this journey together.  And, that the journey isn't about securing a house, finding the perfect job, or making all the right decisions and choices for ourselves…or others. 

The real journey is in those moments of a tiny palm on a tear-stained cheek. The connectedness we feel with one another as children of God…brothers and sisters of one Parent. 

As we care for, and comfort, one another -- share in each other's joys, sorrows, triumphs, and countless instance of when we have the courage to "try-again," we confirm that there is a divine root system connecting us through our humanity. A spiritual eco=system of Love's designing. 

Our kindness to one another confirms that we are not selfish mortals born of human history, or randomly mutating cells, but brothers and sisters, moms, dads, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, neighbors, colleagues, friends, pets, classmates, global citizens, galaxy inhabitants…in Christ.  We are not here to get it right…socially, financially, professionally, religiously…we are here to do it right…and I believe that means to do it with love. 

I have read the following story before, but when someone sent it to me today it reminded me of how often we needed to be reminded of what our calling is in this universe.   I believe it bears sharing:

Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child.

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbour was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.

Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.

When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbour, the little boy said,'Nothing, I just helped him cry.'

Touch a cheek today, help someone cry, let someone help you…but do something to confirm for yourself, and others, that we are much more than we sometimes remember we are…help someone see that "the only dream that matters has come true"…in this life they were loved by you…
Kate