These past years have been brutal; however, as much as I prayed for God to lead me forward and up and out of them, deep down I knew a truth.

The type of truth anyone with deep spirituality recognizes in times of angst.

I still hadn’t learned the lesson God was attempting to teach me.

I say ‘attempting’ because it was me, myself and I of my own free will who fought God along the way.

Every difficult lesson, every bump, and bruise, every person I lost left me immeasurably wounded. I simply would not surrender. I continued to fight my truth.

I refused to believe this was my eventual outcome. 

Old habits die hard. As most of them are ingrained from our childhood. Therefore, even in the bad behavior of divorce I never believed it would get to the depths it did. That I would be even more controlled while I attempted to break free and that my children would experience a far worse reality throughout it. You see, while I stayed the other person still felt in control and when I left that led him to great lengths to show me he could still control me.

Had I only known what he was truly capable of there is nothing in this world I would not have done to spare my children.  To prevent them witnessing the horrors of what happens when someone does not want ‘divorce’ but rather ‘destroy’ a person.

This was both the strongest and weakest my person has ever been. 

It was also both the strongest and weakest my children have been.

Not long ago, I began to change the way I prayed.

I told God I was ready to accept and learn what he was trying to teach me. I was ready to no longer live in fear of another human being who had made it clear he felt ‘leaving’ was ‘crossing’ him. I was ready to be restored and move forward with the wisdom I was meant to garner from this experience.

In a nutshell…

God, I am ready. I am ready to be restored. I am ready to no longer live in fear. I am ready to learn and use this lesson for the purpose you intended it for.

Of course, by this point, I was gaining the wisdom to understand I had let my world get way out of control. I had given away tremendous power in my life. It was not okay to allow someone to control me, to hurt me in the same manner over and over again and it was not okay to retreat in fear of what might happen next.

To be fully restored I had to recapture what I had willingly given away…

My personal boundaries.

No one person can impact your life to this degree unless you allow it.

It is time to take control rather than give it away, shield myself from hurt rather than jump in the line of fire, replace fear with empowerment and fight for myself.

After all, God made me and as I always tell my children ‘God DOES NOT make mistakes.’

In my life, ironically it was just one or two people who impacted me in this manner. The majority of people in my life are wonderful and are people who protect me and encourage me to protect myself.

Recently, I was having a conversation with my son.

I found myself saying…

Do not let anyone control you. Do not let anyone hurt you. Do not live in fear because you have given your power away. Fight for yourself.

“God DOES NOT make mistakes.”

God made you!

He never intended for another person or experience to change the beautiful person he molded you to be. God intends for you to learn what He has directed in your path and to go out into the world and do some good with it.

But that won’t happen until you surrender to what you were meant to garner from this experience.

To be restored you have to recapture what you willingly gave away…

Your personal boundaries.

No one person can impact your life to this degree unless you allow it.

It is time to take control rather than give it away, shield yourself from hurt rather than jump in the line of fire and replace fear with empowerment.

And…

Most importantly, it’s time to fight for yourself.

After all,

God has been patiently doing it alone all this time – while waiting for you to join Him.

 

 

(Picture courtesy of Pexels)

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