More patience??? Really???

[ces67]

Journaling....

I had a business trip at the end of last week so its been a few a few days since I've been able to be on the boards.

Yesterday's sermon was about finding time to be quiet and getting away from the noise. I'm not very good at this. When I find myself with some quiet, alone time, my thoughts tend to go to negative places. Changing this, like so many other things, requires focus and determination in myself.

"our struggle is not against flesh & blood, but against...the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil..." - Paul the Apostle.

The reality I create in my mind is often my own worst enemy. I'm much better at directing my thoughts than I use to be but this weekend was a relapse. My focus once again shifted to how far away we are from the marriage I want, rather than how far we've come in the past few months.

I was distracted by the keepsakes I found that my W has of the OM and I let myself get all riled up internally over it. The reality is he's 500 miles away and my W is slowly drawing closer to me. (did I mention SLOOOOOOWWWWWLLLLLYYYYY).

So I went for a walk last night. It was a beautiful evening. The humidity of the summer had faded and small specks of color still highlighted the clouds as the night folded in. So I tried the quiet thing again.

Each time, thoughts of anger & aggression came into mind. I pictured various scenarios which looked like me accusing my W and showing her how wrong she was. It included scenes of my beating the *#@*! out of the OM. Needless to say, my quiet time was not productive.

When I made it back home I decided to give it one more try. I laid down on the hood of my car and stared up at the dark clouds and the few stars peeking through. Each time a thought tried to invade, I fought it off so I could just be still.

Now, while I've grown up going to church & believing in God, I've never been inclined to believing God speaks to us directly. But that's something that's changing in me too. In the past 2 years since the bomb, there have been times when a simple message, thought or picture has given me hope and encouragement. Some may say its only my internal need for those things. Personally, I think I've finally been at a point in my life where I realized how much I truly cannot do this on my own and have been more open to God.

So after a while of laying still on the hood of my car, keeping the negative images at bay, a simple thought enters my head..."fight the darkness." Honestly, I was hoping for a little more direction than that but the point was made.

I'm still fighting circumstances and that's not the enemy. The darkness inside me is. The resentment, the anger, the bitterness. Its all still there. I've shoved it down and in many ways pushed it out of my heart. How else could I still feel compassion for my W? But the fight is still on. The darkness isn't giving up. So I can't either.

So 2 basic things came to mind. 1) I need to forgive the OM. and 2) I need to focus on the positives. And let me just say that the 2nd is a whole lot more appealing than the first.

I will never condone what the OM did, but honestly, he's done no more than my W and I want to forgive her. It could even be argued that he's done less since he's never promised me anything. My anger and bitterness is very often directed at him in my mind. So to help me get rid of this darkness, I have to forgive him as well. I don't want to. But I need to. My struggle is not against flesh & blood.