Beauty and Ashes

“Every child has three core needs that must be met in order to develop into an emotionally healthy adult. They need to feel unconditionally loved, ultimately secure, and deeply significant. Of those three things, which do you feel like you lacked the most as a child?”

That felt like a heavy question for a first session with a new counselor. “I’ve only been here for thirty minutes, but I guess we’re just going to dive right in, aren’t we?” I thought to myself. “I am here for help though, so why not just rip the Band-aid off?”

I sat there on her comfy couch, leaned forward over my knees, staring at the handout explaining each of these emotional needs, pretending like I had to think really hard about it. I didn’t. I knew immediately which one of the three was my long-standing Achilles’ heel…

“Significance,” I replied. “I’ve always felt so utterly insignificant.”

The frustrating thing about that is I don’t even know why I’ve always felt so insignificant. I knew my parents loved me. They supported me in whatever endeavors I wanted to pursue, even from a young age. They did their best to help me achieve all the things I wanted to achieve. They were and still are great cheerleaders, but yet, something inside me has always screamed “You don’t matter!”

This belief has manifested itself in different ways throughout the course of my life. It was reinforced by bad relationships in early adulthood when boyfriends were unfaithful or when seemingly good friends just disappeared from my life like we were never even friends at all; when I didn’t get invited to the luncheon or to the girls’ night; or worse yet, when I did get invited and then people forgot I was even there; when I was once part of “the group” but then suddenly not part of the group anymore. All of these things and so many more just reiterating the belief that I don’t really matter.

Even being aware of this tendency after spending a lot of hours in counseling, I still have to fight this feeling today.

Just last month when I was checking into the gym, I walked up to the instructor to get my station assignment. He was looking at me waiting for me to tell him which station number; I thought he’d forgotten my name, so I said, “Shannon.”

He looked at me and smirked with his eyes, because his face was covered with his mask, and said, “I know your name, Shannon. You’ve been in three or four of my classes,” as he kind of chuckled.

And without even knowing what was really coming out of my mouth, I tried to recover and said, “Oh! I didn’t know. I’m super forgettable,” with an awkward laugh.

He gave me those crazy, confused eyes you make when you’re literally trying to process what was just said and replied, “You are not forgettable!”

And of instead of laughing it off, I countered back with, “Yes I am! Totally forgettable.”

*Insert Facepalm*

I finally got my station assignment and walked off super embarrassed, thinking, “What is wrong with you? Who argues with someone over how forgettable they are? I bet he remembers you now, you IDIOT!”

Your heart will tattle on itself, if you’re paying attention. My self-talk clearly needs work. And so does my real-talk, apparently. I probably need more counseling. Sigh…

Two and a half years into the loss of my husband and feeling “insignificant” is probably one of the most persistent emotions that I currently struggle with. I’m past the point of crying for hours on end or being stuck in a trance reminiscing about us. I don’t cry very much at all anymore, and it’s not that I’m no longer sad, but more that grief changes as you grow, and it manifests itself in other ways besides extreme sadness.

On the days when I feel the most grief-stricken, it’s usually because, in all honesty, I am so incredibly lonely.

I deeply miss sharing my life with someone and feeling important to someone; and not just “important” but being one of the most important people in their life. My husband would have moved heaven and earth for me, and I knew it. He was my biggest fan. I so completely knew that our kids and I were his entire world, and that’s a void that even the dearest friendships just can’t fill.

A couple of weeks ago, our Pastor preached an awesome sermon about the value of staying connected in biblical community. It was so great. You can watch it Here. But one of the things he said struck me in a different way than he probably intended. He was referencing the Creation story in Genesis when he pointed out that the first time God declared something “not good” was when he said it was not good for Adam to be alone.

Light – Good

Land and Seas – Good

Vegetation – Good

Sun, Moon, and Stars – Good

Sea Creatures – Good

Land Creatures – Good

Man – Good

Man Being Alone – NOT GOOD

Did celestial sirens start to wail in Eden when God declared this ‘not good’? Because I feel like they should have. I mean, this was such a big deal to God that he stopped whatever else he was doing and immediately started hunting for a partner for Adam, and he couldn’t find one, so he made one. Man being alone was so ‘not good’ that God created an addendum to his Creation Plan. Let that sink in for a minute.

I felt the sting of hot tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat as I choked back my emotion at this revelation. Not because this idea was hurtful, but because it was validating. It was a scriptural confirmation of all the feelings I’ve been having for months.

Raising kids by myself – Not Good

Working on life by myself – Not Good

Juggling all the things by myself – Not Good

Not having a helper – NOT GOOD

A verse I’ve read dozens of times suddenly jumped off the page and seemed to clearly explain the animosity and dissatisfaction I have with my current situation. Simply put – it’s just not the way God intended it to be. My entire existence feels counter to the perfect design of partnership that God established in the Garden, and I feel every single ounce of the daily struggle to keep moving forward alone.

This confirmation hit me extra hard, because I was watching this sermon online from a resort in Florida, on a mini, CHILD FREE, vacay with my Bestie, and two days prior, I attended a time-share presentation where the sales associate (who I’ll leave unnamed) and I had a really great connection. I’d spent the better part of 3 hours engaged in discussions about my life, things I like to do, adventures I’d been on, places I want to travel to, memories I want to make, all mixed with some friendly bantering, and toward the end of the conversation, which felt so genuine and unsales-y, he smiled at me from behind his mask and said, “You have to be the coolest girl I’ve ever met. If I wasn’t in a relationship, I’d so be taking you out tonight.”

I sort of giggled, and then he complimented my laugh, which no one has ever done before, and reiterated his comment, making me promise that if I come back to Destin next summer, I’ll look him up so we can have dinner.

I walked out of that building with an extra pep in my step, reeling off the excitement that someone thought I was interesting and funny, and dare I say… attractive? I basked in the warmth of that satisfaction like the Destin sun, remembering what it felt like to have someone’s undivided attention and experience the adrenaline rush of a new interest. For the rest of the day, my mind was saturated with mushy thoughts of what it would feel like to be in love again someday.

I creeped on his Fb a few hours later, and realistically, we probably wouldn’t be a good match, just based on the sole fact that his current girlfriend has a Jolly Roger tattooed on her arm and more cleavage than a Hooter’s girl peddling lust with a side of hot wings.

We had a great conversation, but beyond that, it looks like he’d probably prefer the 21 year old version of me who was all taking shot and shaking tail-feathers on Friday nights. Even as hard loneliness tries to convince me otherwise, I’m just not that girl anymore. I haven’t been in a long time, and I know that road only leads to emptiness and more loneliness.

Was he a good Dad? I don’t know. Was he financially responsible? No clue. Did he love the Lord like I do? Doubtful, since he didn’t mention it. But he was easy to talk to, he made me laugh, and he had that reckless abandon in his eyes that made me wonder if we’d end up slow-dancing to Brett Eldridge in a parking lot at midnight or laughing hysterically at bad jokes all night long.

For three hours, I didn’t know what was happening in Portland, how many children had been sold into sex-trafficking, how many new cases of Coronavirus there were, what the stock market was doing, how many jobs had been lost, or what Congress was (not) doing to save our country imploding. For three carefree hours, all I knew was that someone found me significant. And it was glorious.

So I’ve had a bit of the vacation blues since I got home from Destin.

Not to mention, I lost my coveted Kate Spade frames on the way to the airport… and that more than doubled the cost of this little weekend getaway.

And then a varicose vein in my leg swelled up so badly from the cabin pressure on the flight back that I was sure I had a blood clot in my leg for the next 3 days.

And then I realized I accidentally let the hosting on my original blog site expire, dumping 3 years of posts and over 500 subscribers into the abyss of the interwebs. (All. The. Tears.)

And then our church temporarily closed for in-person services, because people who I love dearly have tested positive for Coronavirus.

And I’m going for an MRI of my abdomen today to figure out this unexplained pain in my liver that just won’t go away – cue my anxiety – all within ten days of being home.

There is nothing quite like a relaxing vacation to illuminate how stressful reality is.

So I’ve just been here, in a house I can’t seem to keep picked up, worried about people I love who are sick, mad about the money it cost to replace my glasses, devastated about my blog, concerned about my own health, ignoring the list of things I need to do to send my kids back to school next month, struggling to juggle all the emotions and responsibilities, and I’ve never been more aware of just how alone I am.

Now, before you come at me with your “Jesus is your husband” babble, let me just kindly say:  Can it, Karen.

Last I checked, Jesus isn’t going to take the boys for haircuts, help me brush teeth 8… EIGHT… literal times a day, vacuum out my van that has enough crumbs in the floorboard to feed starving children in India, cook dinner, make money to pay these bills, fold the mountains of laundry that keep accumulating, and juggle putting all these kids to bed.

You get the point. At least, I hope you do. My hope in Christ keeps me sane, for the most part, and empowers me to do these things, but there are very real physical demands of being a single parent of three kids. Please don’t downplay them with some cliché.

If Adam had physical access to God himself in the Garden of Eden, and God still deemed Adam’s lack of a helpmate as “not good”, I feel like I’m well within my scriptural rights to complain here… and pray here.

Don’t get me wrong, I have amazing people who help me. I don’t know what I’d do without them. My yard wouldn’t get mowed and my trash would probably never make it to the curb on Friday mornings if it wasn’t for my Dad, and I’d probably never get a night away from all these children without my in-laws.

What I’m saying doesn’t downplay their sacrifice to keep us going, but even they know their contribution isn’t the same as having someone in the trenches of daily life raising a family. It’s not the same.

And this is the part where I get easily discouraged, because as fun as laughing until my face hurt with some cute guy was, I know I’m not looking for a Good-time Charlie. I don’t want a project; I want a partner, because being 100% responsible for 3 tiny people’s financial, spiritual, social, emotional, nutritional, educational (thanks Rona!) and health needs is the most mentally taxing thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.

And the reality is, being single in your mid-30s is a super hard place to be…

It feels like the pond has done and dried up, because all the great Jesus-loving people you knew in your 20s are happily married with seventeen kids of their own. So your options are 1) people who’ve never been married with no kids, which just the thought of dating someone with no parenting experience sounds like more extra work than I could handle at this point, aside from the obvious question of ‘Why have you never been married?’ or 2) people who are divorced, which begs the question of ‘Why didn’t it work?… and more importantly – ‘On a scale of 1-10, how psycho is your ex-baby mama?’ or 3) people who’ve also been through something traumatic like spousal death.

Being single in your 30s is coming to the realization that just having basic criteria like mutual attraction, generally healthy, responsible, fun, loves God and is open to ministry, and wants to raise 3 young kids he didn’t create equates to a seemingly mathematical impossibility.  

This is the point in my actuarial analysis where I’d like to just resign to soaking in my single misery by turning on some country music, gorging myself with cheesecake, and daydreaming about the time in my life where I felt like I had options and opportunities for love.

But here’s the thing – what you feed, grows.

When you feed your hatred, it grows.

When you feed your anxiety, it grows.

When you feed your loneliness, it grows.

You have to be mindful of and get tactical about controlling your thoughts and how you let the thoughts of others influence you. I know that feeding my dissatisfaction will only enable it to demand a greater presence in my mind, so (for the most part) I just don’t. I indulged it a little bit to write this post, and I’ll let it out of its box every now and then just to reprocess my feelings about it, but otherwise, I consciously try to feed my faith and my hope instead.

When you see me jamming hard to Hillsong, just know I’m feeding my faith. I might even be fighting a mental battle for contentment right then. If you call me and hear Chris Young playing in the background, you might need to stage a Friendervention.

What you feed, grows.

Shortly after my husband died, I met a lady whose husband had also died when she was in her mid-30s, leaving her with 5 small children. The circumstances of our encounter were just a total God-thing, but I’ll leave that for another post. Anyhow, I was messaging with her in the week after his death, and she sent me this scripture as an encouragement. She said someone had given it to her after her husband died, and it was “her verse” that she leaned on during her darkest days, and she was passing it on to me. So here it is: 

In simple terms – “I would have given up if I didn’t believe I would see God do good things again in my lifetime. But I do, so I’m going to be brave, and I’m going to keep waiting for God to answer.”

For two and a half years now, this verse has been my go-to word for a quick infusion of hope when I’m feeling downcast. In it, I find the challenge I need to reset my frame of mind around what I truly believe:  that ultimately God is good; that God has good things planned for my life; and that He loves me enough to bring about that goodness in my life, even in the midst of what has felt like destruction.

And here’s where I hit my turn-around, because when I begin to meditate on this verse, I feel my spirit swell with hope, because I know I serve the God who specializes in making the impossible, possible; the God who, like the song says, turns ‘graves into gardens’; the God who, like Isaiah 61:3 says and this blog is named after, gives a crown of beauty in exchange for your ashes of despair.

Listen Friends, you don’t have to try hard to sell your situation to God like it’s on the discount rack at Dollar General. If you will humbly surrender it to him, He will literally just hand you something beautiful in exchange for it… because He loves you unconditionally… He wants you to feel ultimately secure in Him… and He finds you deeply significant.

Whatever mess you’re standing in the middle of today, whether it’s an unexpected season of chaos and loneliness like me, health challenges, financial hardship, extreme grief, whatever it may be, I pray you take courage; I pray you keep going; and I pray you wait for the Lord.

Blessings!

Shannon