Flower Power

Going through divorce isn’t a linear progression through the stages of grief. Some days there is denial some days there is depression some moments there is anger some days there is bargaining some moments there is acceptance. I have hopped around all these stages pretty freely. 

I went to a holistic doctor who does muscle testing with supplements and biofeedback. She was very surprised how healthy my gut was. She said God is clearly protecting your body through this. We also did biofeedback for emotions and my grief rated 70%. Usually across the emotions there is more fear and anger and she was surprised as well that my anger was so low. She prescribed me flower serums which are a sort of a holistic emotional therapy. Something safer then an antidepressant. One is titled Distress and the other titled Release It. She exclaimed I would stop crying like I have been. My eyes beamed and I said I’ll take it.

I looked through the scientific names of the flowers and their physical properties. One is titled bleeding heart. It is red and literally looks like a bleeding heart. Another is love lies bleeding. It is red and looks like a trail of blood spilling out from the stem. I don’t know if it will be placebo or if God does put physical properties into these flowers to help deal with emotions, but I haven’t cried since I began taking them. Granted it has only been five days but I’m thankful.

I have never questioned the existence of God. I feel him mostly when I’m outside looking at mountains creeks rivers plains glaciers peaks warm humid air and such. I love creation and all the intricate mechanisms that make it progress and grow and change. Through this experience I have been brought back to desperately needing communion with God. To feel his physical presence to understand his wisdom. I think in the last 2 years I have taken a break from that. And it is a lack of my character to think I didn’t need God in a time of complacency, it wasn’t intentional.

Thomas Merton has been a beacon of wisdom for me for a long time. He states,

“The man who fears to be alone will never be anything but lonely, no matter how much he may surround himself with people. But the man who learns, in solitude and recollection, to be at peace with his own loneliness, and to prefer its reality to the illusion of merely natural companionship, comes to know the invisible companionship of God. Such a one is alone with God in all places, and he alone truly enjoys the companionship of other men, because he loves them in God in Whom their presence is not tiresome, and because of Whom his own love for them can never know satiety.”

I’m beginning to see and feel that I’m not lonely only by the grace of God. And only by the grace of God can I foster kindness toward my husband/ex husband. People might not see it. From the outside it might look like a raging battle. And because of the battle I have had many moments of “where are you God” “why aren’t you listening” “do you make right your promises” “Are you real” “Please help” “show me what to do” Sometimes there is silence and sometimes there are people who step in and speak into your life and remind you of who God is through kind words and encouragement and harsh truth. There is love and there is disappointment and I think the “Why?” question is the result of the debate between free will and God’s omnipotence. That is a concept that humanity will never straighten out. Our free will allows us mistakes and wise decisions. Here’s another from Thomas Merton.

“Do not depend on the hope of results... you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.”

When I married I expected it to be for a lifetime. I put work into it to be a lifetime. And sometimes I tore down that work with mistakes. But marriage and divorce has some thing to teach me. There is value in both the experiences. There is rightness and truth to learn. I finally am, in month 5, coming to a place where I’m not focused on the wrongness of Divorce. It is an assault on my values and belief system. But maybe divorce can shape my values into something more true and beautiful. As time progresses I’m hopeful of this. Today I am feeling hopeful.