After the dissolution of my marriage, which ended in divorce after less than 2 years officially, I tried the best I could to move on. But having kids changed me in ways I did not expect. For one thing I experienced love in a way I never had before. I adored my children and they were my life. I was willing to sacrifice and be a better person – anything to give them a better life. Unfortunately their dad did not feel the same, and was not around much. All I could think of how I had failed them because I couldn’t give them a dad that would be there. I know in his heart he loved them, but he was in a very bad place for a long time.
I was so depressed during the first year of my second sons life. I wanted to give them a family, a real family, and I couldn’t. So once again I was in that place where I was on a man hunt. I thought I was way past that place in life that I would feel like I needed to find love and approval, but I was not. I soon met a man who I became quite smitten with. It was ten years older than I was, and I somehow felt that made him very mature. Not to mention he ran his own business and was already a father. The authority he had in life was attractive to me, like he would be able to take care of me and my kids.
He was also an artist, which I loved. I really just blew him up in my mind to be so amazing. And with my desperation to regrow a family and to be loved, it was the perfect recipe for a totally destructive relationship. My specialty! This relationship went on for four years. Well, it was on and off for four years. He tried to end to relationship early on, just a couple of months in. But I was determined to fight for him, to show him that I was loyal to the core and would not give up on love. I was able to convince him that first time that he was worth the fight to me, but that just set the stage up for a vicious cycle.
We literally spent the next four years of the relationship breaking up and getting back together. Well it was more like him leaving me and coming back. The relationship became very abusive emotionally, than physically. Eventually I slipped back into that dark place of suicidal thoughts. I began cutting again. I wanted to live for my sons, but I was overwhelmed by despair and pain. I knew the relationship was killing me inside, but I couldn’t get away from it. My whole life began to revolve around this man and this dream of being a real family.
I was so very lost during these years. I did not know which way was up, and I started to even lose what was even right and wrong. I lost myself, because I just gave it away. I did not practice magic, because there was no room in my life. My desperate need for this man was a hulking monster that left no room for anything else. But this is not what love is. Love is patient and kind. Love is not self-serving or easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Instead love trusts, hopes and protects.
I had never experienced love in that way before. I did not even know it existed. All I knew is I needed love. We all need love, every last one of us. It’s just that we don’t know that we do not have to go on a long search to find it. We don’t have to wait years and years to run into it. We do not have to achieve certain goals in life or go through hellish relationships trying to dig for it. Because love isn’t something far away from us or something that we need to work for. No. Before you ever loved, He loved you.
And I am sure that neither death nor life, nor trouble or hardship, neither the present or the future, or any powers, will ever separate you from the love of Jesus. And He is waiting for you. Waiting to heal your broken heart and bring you into a love that is so powerful it would overwhelm you. There is nothing more in this life that could ever satisfy you like this one thing. All you have to do is ask. Are you ready?