Sitting across the table

Sitting across the table from the boy the other night it struck me that someday I'm going to fall in love again. I admit, this little revelation brought a moment of panic. I've never been one to give my heart easily. Even Paul had to work for it.

As the days and weeks have turned into months, the love I had for Paul has faded. There will always be part of me that loves him, but as I see more and more who he really is, there is no love left in my heart. I can't love a man who does the things that he does and treats me so badly. Yes, Paul did a lot of hurtful, stupid things in our relationship, but they don't hold a candle to the depraved, heartless things he now does. Sometimes I find myself shaking my head, wondering how it all came to this.

What pains me the most is knowing that Paul is not, was not and never could be the one God designed for me to spend my life with. It's hard to say what first attracted me to Paul. There was something about him that made everything seem exciting... but it didn't last long and by the time I realized that he wasn't IT, it seemed too late to get out. I loved him with everything inside of me, but he wasn't the one.

For all the terrible, hurtful, hateful things he's done, it's been hard to forgive. Sometimes I want to shake him and make him SEE how awful he's behaving and make him realize that there is absolutely no sense to it. It's confusing to try to offer an olive branch and get venom in return. It's his way, though. That's how he's always been... he just never directed it at me. Now that he is, it's frustrating. I want to get through this crap so we can get the divorce final so that I never have to see him or think of him again.

I've been reading a lot lately. The book has been put on the back burner for a while now as I've picked up my Bible again. Every time I try to read, I find myself being pulled in the direction of passages about forgiveness. God is calling me to forgive Paul and I'm fighting it. Don't get me wrong, I realize that holding on to anger is only affecting me. It doesn't hurt Paul to know that I'm angry at him. There's got to be part of him that realizes that what he's doing is wrong... but it's not my place to point it out or force him to see it. If I'm being honest with myself, I never could convince him to choose to do the right thing. He's always done what he wanted with little concern to anyone else. I can't pretend that he's magically going to start being a good man just because I want him to be.

Forgiving him feels too much like letting him off the hook for all the grief he's caused. My head says that forgiving him frees ME and has little to do with him... but my heart isn't convinced. Forgiveness isn't for the other person... In time, Paul's sins will find him out and he will have to pay for the things he's done, not just to me... but it is not my place to designate punishment.

I spent a little time talking to the boy tonight and it prompted a few paragraphs for the book... sometimes I wonder if I'll ever finish it. There are so many layers and so many chapters yet to be written. This story isn't about Paul... I don't think I realized that until now. He makes up only a small portion of the story of my life... while his chapters are the more painful ones, he is not the beginning. Nor is he the end.

This is what I wrote this evening:

"Sitting alone in an empty church with hot tears on my cheeks, an unspoken prayer tugged at my heart. I knew what He was calling me to do, but I didn't want to do it. All I'd known for nearly three months was the grief and pain inside me. I had relived the nightmare day after day. I was scared that letting go would mean losing part of me all over again.

I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry and plead for understanding. Why did God let this happen? Picking up my Bible, its pages worn and yellowed, I fought to make sense of what my life had become. The young girl who had written love letters to a husband she wouldn't meet for years to come had died the night her innocence was raped from her. The bitterness and pain had chased me like a shadow, swallowing me in its darkness.

The love I'd dreamed of for so long had never arrived. The knight on his valiant steed had never come to rescue me. I'd stood in front of a man I had given my heart to... and he wasn't the one God had intended for me. I'd placed my trust in Paul expecting him to save me when he couldn't even save himself.

In that moment, I realized I had a choice to make. I could hold on to my anger or I could hold on to hope. The love God had designed me to yearn for was out there, all I had to do was open my heart to healing that came only from forgiveness. The first person I found I had to forgive... was myself."