Forgiveness....

Sometimes it is hard to believe 17 years have passed since my life was flipped upside down, not for the first time, certainly not for the last.  And then something happens to bring everything hurtling back.  When that happens I am usually surprised at how little I care anymore, and even more stunned by how up in arms the people who love me still are about it......
Let me backtrack a little.  At 18 I married my high school sweetheart.  Nine years later we had 2 beautiful children, but life was not all wine & roses.  I was unhappy, bored, even restless, I felt isolated & alone, neglected.  I thought we could weather this, that when the kids were older (they were 3 & 1) things would be better.  In all honesty I thought seriously about leaving.  But I believe in marriage, my vows meant something.  And part of me still loved him, or wanted to.
Then one spring afternoon my husband of almost 10 years sat across from me at our kitchen table & told me he was in love with our 18 year old babysitter.  To say I was devastated barely covers it.  Surprised? Not really, I had had my suspicions, but since I could never do that to someone I cared about I could not imagine anyone I cared about betraying me.  I wept until I could barely see.  I raged.  And then I resumed a stoic stance.  I shut down my emotions to survive.
Later, nearing & in the midst of, the custody hearing I started to breakdown.  I was angry, raw, hurting.  The court gave him & his young wife the day-to-day "care & control" of our sons.  I was shattered.  I felt a little like a part of me had died.
The years went by.  I had managed to reconcile myself, mostly, to what had happened, but my anger was becoming bitterness.  I remember looking into my eyes in the bathroom mirror one day.  I wanted to see if the hate, the anger, the bitterness, was visible.  I did not like the woman looking back at me.  I felt stuck.  I wanted, desperately, to move forward.  To do that I had to figure out how to forgive them, both my former husband & my former friend.
I cannot say it was easy.  I cannot say I just decided to forgive them & move on.  I cannot even say I don't sometimes need to forgive them again.  But I know I did forgive them.  I can be in a room with them, have a pleasant if benign conversation, I don't get tied up in knots when I hear about them.  They are now relegated to the group of "people I know".  In no way can I say have forgotten.  I know what they did (I also know what I did & did not do) I know what they said (and what I said in turn).  The pain the caused still visits me from time to time, but mostly the memory of it is the remembrance of something that happened to someone else.
In the meantime I met someone else, had another child, and ended that relationship (another story for another day).  Today, 17 years later, I love & am loved by someone who truly cherishes me, who has begun to eradicate the scars of the past, the lies that said I was not "enough". Not young enough, not pretty enough, not thin enough, not fun enough.

I tell you all of this because of a conversation I had yesterday with my almost 20 year old son.  He was dismayed, hurt, and even embarrassed to learn my sister has not yet forgiven the events of the past.  I did my best to explain, to try to put himself in her shoes, saying outright her outrage was born of love & loyalty to me.  With the black & white view of the young he would have none of it.  I have spent the last 14 hours teary, with a headache, because of all the creeds I live my life by forgiveness, grace & love are my foundation, and my beloved son has missed all of it.
Being fairly taciturn as a rule, the written word always a safer place for me to express myself, on this subject I have been most bold & vocal.  Not vocal enough it seems.
I could quote great thinkers  & comedians alike on the subject of forgiveness.  But better than that I have lived it.  Forgiving (and not just in this arena) has set me free to live my life openly with great joy.  I may not have chosen this road but without the events of the past I would not have my amazing daughter, I might not have made the friendships I have, I would not be who I am today boldly writing this, I would not have the love & joy in my life that I am surrounded by, or the peace I rest in no matter what circumstance I face.  God really does have a way of making ALL things work together for good.(Romans 8:27-29)

Forgiveness is not easy.  I did not do it on my own.  It was the great grace of God, it was the power of Holy Spirit, the patient love of Jesus.  It was friends standing beside me, allowing me to vent, to rage & rail, to question.  It was realizing that I have been forgiven much, who was I to sit in judgement?  It was wanting to be utterly free, of being weary of having them in my head, of always dreading hearing of them, of running into them in a relatively small community.
I cannot make anyone forgive the hurts of the past or the present.  What I can do is tell you it has made all the difference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIbCpy0CQEo

Ancient Lies

In the warm embrace of hearth & home

redolent with the fragrance of Love

Still I hear the old lies echo

erosive & caustic

I can barely find the strength to battle tonight

tamping down the ache,

wearily turn my face again to Light & Truth

to Love.

Dousing the past I tiptoe through the darkened house

sighing into your tender embrace

hot pain flows easy now,

safe here in your arms letting hurt go

tender kisses a balm on ancient wounds

murmured reassuring affection a tonic for a battered soul.

 What lies still batter your heart?

one

I welcomed you

you welcomed me

open arms

you hold my heart

I hold your heart

open hands

stronger than iron chains

silken bonds

hope faith love

stand here beside me

stand here beside you

feet on solid ground

fingers twined

wind in our hair

sun on our face

Tapestry

Taut

On the sturdy sure loom of friendship

The silvery warp of a thousand words and gestures

golden moonbeam threads, silken cords of dawn

     

    The shuttle sings

in the hand of the Artisan

The weft of memories, of dreams, of hopes & promises

The tapestry tells our story,

  A buttress from the cold, adding colour to the castle keep:

On her Rock the Rose blooms,

The Unicorn embraces his Lioness 

Autumn Valentine

Valentine:

You are not red cardboard hearts adorned with ribbon

and plastic flowers containing stickysweet candy

not longstemmed redroses, crooned sonnets or sentimental verse written for Hallmark.

You are laundry trailing across the bedroom floor, dishes not carried to the sink,

asking "Are you busy?" when I am up to my elbows in dishwater or cookie dough.  You are heartsung laughter, mascara on pillowcases, whispered secrets in our dark, fistfulls of windblown wildflowers.

I cannot cease breathing, stop my pounding heart, I cannot keep the wind, the sun from caressing, searing the prairie.

You ask a knotted question: "why do you love me?"

Justbecause, that's all, justbecause.

Valentine:

The years have flown on wild wind and eagles' wings

my heart rent, repaired, shattered and mended

You have never been red cardboard hearts, candy, flowers, candlelight;

Stickysweet sentimentality

You are hands to hold in longdark nights

lovesong in perfect harmony, arias of laughter and tears

you are banished ghosts, unexpected joy

You are lingering Sunday morning coffee, the sure routine of everyday, counting stars Saturday midnight;

Moonsong, autumn breezes, sunsets followed too soon by sun's rising

You ask the unanswerable: "Why do you love me?"

I cannot cease breathing, stop my pounding heart; I cannot keep the wind, the sun from caressing, searing the prairie.

My answer remains-

Justbecause I do

I do

justbecause.

  

Building Jigsaw Puzzles

It has been far too long since I have written.  I suppose I could offer up any number of excuses, but not a one would change the fact I have been neglectful & careless with this.  The more days that passed the more daunting the blank page, and the more elusive ideas.  In the end I knew it would all come back around.
Jigsaw puzzles.  Yes, jigsaws.  Love them or hate them ( I fall into the latter category) most of us find an unfinished one somehow irresistible,  we must try & fit in one piece at least.  
Have you ever tried to build one without the picture on the box as a guide?  Even with the picture they can be frustrating.  You find a piece that looks like it ought to fit & it doesn't.  Turn it this way & that, you can not make it fit.  Sometimes in frustration & vain assurance we may pound it into the place we think it belongs.  And perhaps when the puzzle pieces are all used up there seem to be pieces missing.  We take the empty box, peer inside, even shake it to be doubly sure.

Sitting in the warm summer dawn this morning, gazing blindly out the window, sipping my coffee, I got to thinking about my life, about the disarray of broken pieces it seems to be built out of.  In that moment I saw the jigsaw puzzle.  All those piece, put together correctly make a beautiful picture, but I can't see the photograph on the lid, and I have, at times (more often than I'd like to admit) tried to force a piece to fit where I thought it should belong.  I have mistaken a piece of brilliant blue lake for a piece of the summer sky.  I have despaired that I am missing pieces that may have slipped under the table.  And I saw that I might be better off letting go, handing the pieces of my life to the One who does know what  the picture is supposed to look like, to One with the patience to fit the pieces properly.


It was like a light bulb went on.  Something I knew, and had even acted on before; but I need to gather up the broken pieces of my life, all those loose & scattered bits of a bigger picture, and Let God fit them together according to His grand design.  After all He not only has the box lid in hand, he painted the picture in the first place.

Thee & Me

You and I:

 raging forest fire

ignited by  

single lightening bolt

Burning away old, dead wood

Clearing the way for the new

I and You:

Rushing mountain streams

Fed by wild spring thaw

ancient glaciers

Gathering deep and clear,

Sheltered by rocky crags 

Pooling to tranquility

Thee and me:

 seeking something,

Something More 

Finding a heartbeat

 echoing our own