You Won’t Walk This Perfectly

Excerpt taken from Once Upon a Divorce: Walking with God After “The End” by Betsy St. Amant Haddox

 

Chapter 6
You Won’t Walk This Perfectly

If you’re a perfectionist, this chapter is going to sting a little. Because here’s the thing—you’re not going to walk this divorce season perfectly. And you’ll do more damage if you try.

The truth is, you’ve got to allow yourself time and space to hurt. If you’re an achiever, if you thrive on productivity and accomplishment like I do (and then to find your value in those efforts—ouch), this will be extra difficult.

The best part is, no one expects you to do this perfectly. That pressure you’re putting on yourself to navigate this horrific nightmare in your life? That’s from your own head at best, and from the devil at worst. Don’t listen to it.

Have you watched the beloved TV show from the early 2000s, Gilmore Girls? There’s an episode where the teenage girl, Rory, is going through her first relationship breakup. She’s a go-getter, has Harvard on her list of life goals, reads dozens of books a month, and is incredibly mature and responsible. She decided it was silly to be heartbroken over a boy, even one she loved, so for several days after the big split, she carried on as usual. She made lists of things to accomplish and clean and organize, and she dove into multiple projects.

Her wise mother saw the folly in that and gently encouraged her several times to go ahead and fall apart, to wallow and eat the ice cream, She insisted it was part of the process, but Rory insisted with equal fervor that it was ridiculous and unnecessary … until one evening, after running into her ex, Rory realized it was time. With teary eyes, she came home and told her mom she was ready to wallow. So of course, her mother grabbed the ice cream and sat with her on the couch while Rory cried.

Have you wallowed yet?

It looks different for everyone and doesn’t have to involve ice cream. But you know the process I’m talking about—those moments where you quit trying to distract yourself and quit pushing backthe tears and the shock and just cry. Grieve. Wallow.

Perhaps you’ve been holding back because you’re afraid once you start, you won’t stop. I remember that feeling. It’s overwhelming. It’s such a deep level of grief you wonder if it will swallow you whole, never allowing you up for air again. but you will resurface. I promise.

I’ve read it takes a month per every year you were married to heal. I think that’s interesting … but also fake news. I was married a little over nine years, and I definitely wasn’t fine and well after nine months. That said, I sure didn’t help my timeline by making bad decisions along the way and complicating my healing process. I invited denial into my life, along with self-medicating remedies of various kinds, such as anger and retail therapy. None of it helped.

Which brings me back to my point—you aren’t going to walk this perfectly (and that’s okay).

When we’re in seasons of heartache we’re all going to make mistakes. It’s inevitable. No one handles grief perfectly—or very well, for that matter. Our judgment and discernment are clouded when we’re in the middle of the storm. In dark times, we’re typically behaving either with an overly active filter (overthinking everything and trying to control the uncontrollable) or with no filter at all (throwing caution to the wind and being impulsive in the effort to feel better).

You might be reading this and feeling a little discouraged, thinking, “What hope is there then? If nothing I can do will make me feel better, if wallowing is inevitable, and so is failure, then how am I to cope?”

Here’s where the hope lies.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. (2 Corinthians 3:17)

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. (Romans 15:13)

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)

Thats right. We have hope because of the Holy Spirit. Praise God! We aren’t left to handle this level of pain and betrayal alone. The divorce that rocked your world can’t shake the Firm Foundation of our lives.

That’s not to say there aren’t days, weeks, or even months in the process where we feel wobbly. It’s like when you have an inner ear infection or are dizzy from allergies. It feels like the room is spinning when you stand up too quickly or turn your head too fast. But obviously, it’s not. The room is right where it should be. Our perception is what’s off.

Divorce is the same way. When you’re a follower of Christ, your true foundation and security are never actually threatened. It might feel like things are spinning out of control, but it’s just your temporary perspective. It will settle back down, and you’ll feel sturdier than ever before.

There’s something about the head-spinning that makes us appreciate the calm and cling to the Rock that much more tightly.

In the meantime, though, it’s not uncommon to experiment with different home remedies for our dizziness. Some turn to alcohol. Others, various drugs and medications—legal or otherwise. Still others might jump into one-night stands to cure the loneliness or might try serial dating. And those are just the coping methods people talk about. There’s a dozen or more smaller vices we can abuse when we’re trying to medicate ourselves with something other than true hope. We can just as easily make exercise an idol, binge on TV or food to numb our thoughts, or attend every event the church has in a futile effort to make ourselves good enough. Maybe you don’t seek out physical intimacy because you know you shouldn’t cross that line, but your heart craves attention from the opposite sex, so you set yourself up online with a dozen different dating profiles, flirting to ease the pain.

Any of these striking a chord? You know what your coping mechanisms are. You know which ones are healthy and godly and which are prone to getting you into trouble. You won’t walk this season perfectly, but these are decisions you can make that will make it much more difficult on yourself than it has to be.

resist the temptation to self-medicate and instead wait on the Lord’s healing. Quite often, prayer and time are the best remedies for a broken heart. For example, about a year ago, I was struggling with severe anxiety. I lay down one night, rolled rather abruptly onto my side, and suddenly, the room was spinning.

It continued to spin for a solid twenty-four hours.

You can imagine how much I googled in that time frame, trying to find a quick fix and cure for the unsteadiness. I walked the hallway with hands braced against each wall. I maneuvered the stairs by sitting and scooting down them on my rear end. I couldn’t shower safely, Everything was in motion, and I had no idea how to make it stop. I tried everything Google suggested (which is rarely a good idea, FYI). Nothing helped. In fact, some of my attempts to fix it myself likely only delayed the vertigo’s passing.

After about a day, the dizziness finally ceased—thanks to nothing I did except waiting it out and trying to relax.

In the same way, when your circumstances and reality are spinning around you, there is no quick fix. Turning to vices and impulsive decisions feels like a quick fix, but it’s only an illusion that delays true healing. These things mask the root issue and only address the surface-level emotions. For example: If we want to be stronger, we go to the gym and lift weights, right? But weight lifting results in sore muscles. If we stopped going to the gym, the pain would cease. Yet our goal would be that much further out of reach. We have to get past the initial waves of discomfort to reach the ultimate, long-game goals.

Which brings me back to the topic of the Holy Spirit. He is our only steady anchor in the chaos. And if that fact is new for you, follow me down this road for a moment.

The denomination I grew up in was typically heavy on Scripture and light on the Holy Spirit. The first is great, the latter, not so much. Of course, no church will get it right all the time, but in this darkest season of life, we need the whole package. We need Scripture poured into us, and we need the presence of the Holy Spirit to minister to our broken hearts.

God is good, and he gave me that whole package.

He led me to a ministry group that became such a healing place. One night, the pastor, Bobbly, was preaching on the holy Spirit. So much of what was being said was new to me but was right there In the pages of Scripture. My interest piqued, my heart hammering. I knew God had something for me that evening, but at that point in my journey, I was afraid to even hope. I’d been through so much and had been so disappointed, it seemed safer to stay numb. But then Bobby asked if anyone in our group wanted to pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and everything in me shouted yes.

Still, I hesitated. In my denomination, we believed that when you are drawn to the Lord in salvation, you’re filled with the Holy Spirit right then, and it’s a one-and-done type of thing. He’s always with you from that day forward.

I still believe that, but I also know what happened that night.

When a young man and I both answered int he affirmative, the group split. The men gathered around the guy, and the women gathered around me a few pews over. Sitting there on that padded bench seat, surrounded by fellow sisters in Christ of various denominations and ages ranging from late teens to early thirties, I braced my elbows on my knees and buried my face in my hands as they began to pray over me.

Their hands on my back felt warm through my thin hoodie as they prayed, some whispering prayers in the Spirit and some praying out loud in English. They all asked the Lord to flood me with his Spirit. Immediately, waves of heat coursed over my body, and my back felt like it was on fire in the best way possible. Flames of heat engulfed me, sending trickles of sweat down my spine. My face warmed, and everything inside me welled up with agreement. Yes, Lord.

I don’t have all the answers about what happened that night. If you’re in the charismatic circles, you’re probably nodding with a knowing smile. If you’re not, you might be optimistically skeptical, as I would be had it not happened directly to me.

Theologically, I don’t know how to explain it, except there was a definite shift in my heart that day that has been maintained to the moment I’m writing this paragraph. Somehow, through the Lord’s sovereignty, the Holy Spirit clearly communicated his contact presence. Some might say I was baptized with the Holy Spirit. Others would choose different wording, and still others will probably skip past this page altogether. But you know what? Without that fresh reminder of who the Holy Spirit is and how he works in my life, I don’t know how I would have survived the following months.

God knew what I needed and exactly when I needed it, and he chose that moment and that method. And, my friend, he knows exactly what you need and when you need it, God is never early, but he is also never late with his goodness. We must trust him and his process.

Looking back, I can clearly see how God’s fingerprints were all over the calendar of those years of divorce and post-divorce healing. Now, I can easily detect the pattern he created, the order of circumstances that at the time felt unnecessary, painful, or random. He was incredibly intentional with me, orchestrating the people I encountered, the sermons I heard, and the books I read, all because he loves me. In that season of my life, nothing was more important than knowing I was still loved. Abandoned by one, but never alone. Rejected by one, but so very chosen.

And he is working the same in your life. He’s not threatened by denominational differences or preferences. He is good, he is God, and he is sovereign. He’s fully in control of your story. He has a plan for you and your future, and I know that because you’re still here—you still have breath. Those breaths might be ragged and full of pain, but they’re coming—rising and falling in your chest, and for believers, the Holy Spirit is right there with each inhale and exhale (1 Corinthians 3:16). He is real and alive and working on your behalf. He is interceding for you (Romans 8:26–27), helping you (John 14:26), and giving you joy (1 Thessalonians 1:6).

Don’t give up hoping for the other side. Don’t give in to discouragement or the lie that God has given up on you. And on the days when your grasp of this truth feels slack, remember—he’s got you.

You won’t walk this path perfectly. But you can walk it with him.

…

Order your copy of Once Upon a Divorce: Walking with God After “The End” by Betsy St. Amant Haddox

Other articles on Inspiration.org about Divorce

Shaken When Your Parents Divorce

Fighting for Your Marriage While Separated

When the Unthinkable Transforms Reality

Eight Steps to Strengthen Your Marriage