Posts Tagged ‘spirit matters’

About a month ago while I was in Target, I picked up the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. My co-worker recommended the book to me many months ago, but I never bothered to take an interest in it. I wasn’t in a hurry to read a book about a woman’s wonderful travels all over the world eating great food. I am so glad that I chose to buy this book, and I think the Universe knew exactly the time I needed to read it!

This is not a book review, but a story of how I was inspired by the book to pursue my own spiritual life. I grew up in a very small Baptist Church, old-time Baptist Church, and for all my life the word “meditate” felt like it meant I would be cheating on God. Meditate to who? Isn’t that what Buddhists do? So I’m sitting here reading Eat, Pray, Love, and I see so much of myself in this book. I see me trying to go deeper with God, trying to be still more, trying to be joyful and just live. Breathe.

Elizabeth’s own spiritual journey inspired me, but so does Russell Simmons. Two totally different people with totally different backgrounds, but yet each seems to have found that place of peace that only comes when you are in tune with your spirituality. He talks about his belief in practicing yoga and meditation in a way that I’ve never heard a Christian say before. Russell truly believes that yoga brings you in communion with God. He also says the “closest thing we can have to the Holy Spirit in our body is our breath.” Now this is the type of meditation I can live with.

So, I’ll continue to write and let you know how my journey is going. I pray that I won’t bore you death. I do intend to eat, pray & love!

So it is one of the facts of life, the life I dreamt of all my life – my husband, me & my son together forever. Until one day I woke up to the reality that although I’d been fighting for a long time, I could not fight any longer: my husband and I were splitting up.

The year of 2008 was a busy time for us. We married in January, welcomed our precious baby boy in June and bought our first house in October. Things seemed perfect. This is the life every woman could dream of.

Well, on the outside.

Fast forward to July 2009. It is a warm, summer afternoon, I was just home from work. My husband was picking up the baby boy from daycare and I was sitting on the porch excited for them to come home. He sat down next to me on the porch and said, “This isn’t working, I want a divorce.” We had only been married a little over a year and a half. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. So we pretended to be working things out for another month until we couldn’t pretend any longer. He came home one evening and said he was moving out and so began the shuffle of trying to provide some normalcy in our precious boy’s life.

We tried marriage counseling, but both parties have to be willing. Sure I’m a flawed individual, but I sure wasn’t the one who drove this ship into the ground; yet I was the only one fighting. I fasted, I prayed, and one day God spoke. He said:

“Go home.”

So, I’m here in New Mexico. After being on the east coast for the past 7 years, after establishing a life in Baltimore, I’m home in New Mexico. I have no clue what will happen today or tomorrow, let alone 5 years down the line, but I know that when God spoke to me, I listened.

The pieces to a broken heart can be mended. This is all fresh to me. I’ve only been home for 3 weeks. So I’m not sitting on a soapbox saying get over it. I’m still hurting, but I am also healing. My focus shifted from trying to please my husband, who had left our marriage long before he physically left the house, to pleasing God and making sure my son experiences joy everyday. He is so sweet and my life is devoted to making sure he has everything he needs.

I hold no bitterness towards my husband for what he has done. I pray for his healing as well because I want him to be a fantastic father to our son. Why hold on to hurt and anger when we are tied together for the rest of our lives by a blessing from God? I will let my son’s innocence and his love be my daily reminder that God is love, and we should always operate in love.

So, before the divorce papers are filed and the possible custody battle begins, I’m letting go of all hurt and anger, because we have a little boy to raise – although 2,000 miles apart – together.