Rebirth

In the summer of 2009, I spent a couple of months immersed in Italian culture through a brief study abroad program through the University of Oklahoma. As someone who has always loved renaissance art and whose maternal great-great grandparents were immigrants from Italy, this trip was a dream come true for me. Genealogy, traveling, amazing food, and my favorite artistic works from history combined to produce a truly “once in a lifetime” experience for this Oklahoma girl who had never been away from home for more than a handful of days at a time.

One of the best features of this trip was that we had an American professor who lived in Italy exclusively available to our cohort as a personal tour guide. And not just any professor. This man was a literal expert in renaissance art and wrote his doctoral dissertation on none other than Michelangelo himself. To say he was an “expert” still doesn’t seem to do his breadth of knowledge justice.

As we ventured through the various tourist attractions you’ve all seen on the travel channel (St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, the Duomo, St. Mark’s Square, the Doge’s Palace, the Trevi Fountain, and so many gardens and sculptures and cathedrals. So many.) our history-professor-turned-tour-guide was usually talking in our ears through wireless headsets, narrating the intricate nuances of the artistic and cultural marvels that laid before us.

I remember feeling pity as I looked at other American tourists who were struggling to understand their native-Italian guides when we had this incredible, English-speaking asset with us to gush over the minute details that made each piece of art profound and significant. The largely unknown facts (and even scandalous secrets) about the artists, cities, and governing authorities of those days, as well as some of the overlooked flaws in many of your favorite works of art that once seen, can never be unseen, were usually his favorite things to share.

In Michelangelo’s famous sculpture of “David” for example, the hands of David are disproportionately large compared to the rest of his body, as well as his head and … er… other anatomical parts … being disproportionately small compared to the rest of his body. Look it up. You’ll never unsee his giant hands again. You’re welcome.

Similar proportionality flaws are also present in Michelangelo’s famous, and my particular favorite, “la pieta” or “the suffering” which captures the solemnity of Christ’s slain body draped across his mother Mary’s lap. Mary, interestingly enough, is bearing the peaceful face of young child instead of that of a grown woman who had born and raised many children.

Did you know that Michelangelo painted the backside of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Truly, as if painting a graven image of the face of God himself wasn’t controversial enough at that time, he also painted God’s butt for everyone to see. And, as our professor reiterated through just about every piece of art, Michelangelo was known to have had quite the temper, did not like having his artistic license quenched, and would often paint hidden elements into his beautiful frescoes as a tongue-in-cheek way of saying, “I do what I want.”

(I might have a little Michelangelo flare in my bones. Haha.)

But of all the things I learned about renaissance art that summer, I think the thing that makes all of it even more mesmerizing is to imagine the time in history through which this movement was birthed… or rebirthed, which is what the word renaissance actually means – rebirth.

By the 14^th century, the (then) western world had endured almost a thousand years of famines, droughts, poverty, wars, diseases, religious abuse, illiteracy, cultural and intellectual decline through the loss of Greek and Roman philosophical studies, the suppression of scripture, and a slew of other offenses committed by ruling parties that, over time, thrust everyone but the wealthy and powerful into abject destitution.

“The Dark Ages,” as they’re commonly known, are generally accepted to have begun with the fall of the Roman empire in the 5^th century, ending sometime in the 15^th century when the Renaissance began to take hold.

But, as if the world had not endured a hard enough millennium, the Bubonic Plague struck Western Europe by the middle of the 14^th century, killing over 20 million people, one-third of the entire population on the continent of Europe alone, for which it so aptly became referred to as simply the “Black Death.”

Just by comparison, as of this writing, the world has currently lost approximately 5.6 million lives to COVID-19. That’s roughly the population of Chicago. Whereas, the current population of the continent of Europe is approximately 750 million people. Could you imagine a disease wiping out one-third, or 250 million people, from Europe today? By a percentage of total population comparison, the Bubonic Plague killed 50x more people than this coronavirus has. That was the extent of the “black death.”

Mass death, more lives lost than humanly fathomable, then or now, was the immediate precursor to the greatest cultural, intellectual, and religious re-awakening in recorded history.

Death preceded rebirth. Something must die before it can be reborn.

Jesus even said this to Nicodemus in John chapter 3 when he insisted that a man must be reborn in the spirit to see the kingdom of God. His message was simple: die to yourself and truly live – a paradox that confused even an expert of the Jewish law like Nicodemus.

Jesus himself died and then re-emerged, rebirthed, into a glorified state, and if we’re paying attention, I think we can find this theme of death and rebirth repeated throughout history and throughout our own lives as a constant underpinning to the story of humanity. If we keep pressing forward, eventually, even after the blackest of nights, will come a glorious dawn; a marvelous rebirth; not as before, but beautiful in a new and fresh and previously inconceivable way.

And I think that’s what I have been feeling well up in my spirit for the last two months – a tidal wave of newness and excitement and anticipation waiting to be rebirthed that would propel me forward in a new direction; into a new season filled with hope and joy.

But in order to get here, I first had to let something die.

And that “thing” was the dreams and the plans I had in my heart for how my life would play out.

I wrote about it last month, this engulfing disappointment for how my life has turned out after trying so hard to set myself up to be anything but a single mom of three kids. All I could see was the way things were supposed to be, what my family was supposed to look like, the things we were supposed to be doing, etc., and try as I did to hide it, ignore it, outspend it, and exercise it to death, that disappointment was eroding my soul.

My husband has been dead for four years, but last year, 2021, almost broke me. Through a hard introspective lens, I realized all the things I was doing in an effort to move myself forward were actually not for myself at all. They were vain attempts to make myself more appealing to someone who might be able to piece back together the broken vision for my life. When, all the while, God was trying to give me a new vision. I just wasn’t able to see it.

I had a mini identity crisis halfway through 2021 and cut 16” off my hair (don’t ever let me do that again y’all haha), I had to stop working out due to an injury, and then gained 25 lbs in self-loathing over it, and began to hide myself from the world again, lost and confused about who I was and where I was going, becoming increasingly convinced I would never be happy again.

After some intense counseling sessions in the fall, I finally realized I had to let this go. Let the old dreams die and lay them to rest, I just wasn’t sure how. So I did what I always do and wrote a blog; an honest and vulnerable snapshot in time of where I felt like I was stuck, and through that, something remarkable happened.

I realized that the thing that I thought had a death-grip on me was actually my prisoner instead, and in releasing the white-knuckled hold I had on the plans of my former life, for the first time in four years, my hands were actually open to receive something new.

Being trapped in disappointment was like waking up in a prison cell four years ago and staring longingly at the door year after year wishing I could leave; screaming at the door and hoping it would open; and secretly cursing all the happy people on the outside as they joyfully walked on by. All the while, never checking to see whether the door was in fact locked.

Then one day, I walked over to the door, slid it open, and walked outside like I was never trapped at all, and four years of internal misery seemed to dissipate the way midday sun quickly burns off a heavy morning fog. By the afternoon, you’re hardly convinced it was ever there at all.

And that’s where I find myself today, February 2, 2022, on what would have been my 9^th wedding anniversary. I’ve dreaded this day every year for four years. Truthfully, I didn’t really look forward to it while my husband was still living, being that I was pregnant on three out of the five years we celebrated, but I really did not like this day after he died. It’s always been my least favorite day on the calendar, because it encompasses a lot for me – the happy memories we did have, the bad memories I feel like I can’t share, love, hurt, disappointment, and ultimately the destroyed vision I had for my life as an individual. It’s all wrapped up in this one day for me.

The advent of this day every year has been like the anxious anticipation of a major storm system, gaining speed and intensity as frantic thoughts swirl over waters of deep, dark emotion like a hurricane in the gulf making its way toward land. And I’ve always done what you do for a hurricane – board up the windows, hide from the storm, and assess the damage after it’s gone, which usually took weeks to emotionally decompress.

Except this year, there is no storm.

No anxiety. No sadness. No nauseous anticipation.

Just peace.

And that’s how I know that I’m finally ready to live my life for myself again. Not for a dream I had a decade ago, not for the way things were supposed to be, not for any one person’s approval, not for any measurement of material success to keep up with my friends and their beautiful nuclear families.

Just for me.

Once upon a time, I was an adventurous, witty, determined, and unrelenting girl who refused to take no for an answer; who was always up for a challenge (or a spontaneous adventure); who would always find a way to get to where she wanted to be; who wasn’t afraid of hard work and wasn’t deterred by obstacles and roadblocks in life. The girl who called her parents at 21 years old and told them she bought a house. The girl who packed up her stuff on a whim and lived in Italy for a summer just to have the experience. The girl who was resolved to finish college with no financial help just to make something of herself (and largely because her college advisor told her she’d never make it… Ha!)

That girl had grit and passion and unrivaled zeal for experiencing the wonders of life. She was confident and capable; strong-willed and decisive.

But I lost her somewhere along the road, after marriage and babies… and babies… and more babies. Or rather, I buried her, and assumed the identity of what I thought I was supposed to be in our marriage, however untrue to myself that felt at times, just to keep peace and be the godly, submissive wife I was told I needed to be. But once the relationship was gone, I was left with a version of myself that I didn’t really like or know; that didn’t make sense; and that no longer worked without a complimentary role.

And much like the resurrection of the classical Greek philosophical studies had a lot to do with the cultural and intellectual revival of Western Europe during the Renaissance, I too had to excavate some long-since buried things about myself to reach this place of rebirth. Truths about the way God wired me; about my strengths as a person; about my value and my worth as a woman whether I’m married or not; about my beauty; about my capabilities; about my uniqueness and my innate desire to achieve and succeed and lead and make tough decision and do hard things. I had to figure out how to like myself again, standing alone on my own two feet, as the independent and confident person I was a decade before.

Deep stuff.

Scary stuff even, when you’re unsure how deep the darkness goes, but I think I’m finally there. Or Here. Because I’m no longer intimidated or ashamed by the broken pieces of my past. The relics of my former life – what seemed like meaningless shards of broken glass – are actually colorful pieces of my history, rich with experience and depth of emotion, just waiting to be arranged with someone else’s broken pieces to form a beautiful and complex mosaic that no one could have imagined or that could have even existed before that very moment.

Much like Michelangelo’s art, it’s the imperfection, the real and the raw, that summons our attention to the true beauty of the human condition, and oh, how beautiful it is to be human. To fall and get back up; to fail and overcome; to break and somehow heal; to die and be reborn into someone stronger, wiser, deeper, and more resilient than before.

I’ve spent the last four years honoring and memorializing my late-husband, and now I feel so firmly that time is over. That season has ended. I was widowed, but I no longer consider myself “a widow.”

An incident does not have to become an identity.

Loss is something that happens, but it doesn’t have to define who we are, what we are capable of, or where we will go in the future. It’s taken my therapist 10 months of repeating that for me to finally believe it.

I’ve spent the last four years afraid to look up from the pavement before my feet for fear of not knowing where I was going or if I’d even make it there.

Today, for the first time in a very long time, I have my eyes straight ahead scanning the horizon, and I’m more excited and hopeful about the paths that lie before me than I’ve maybe ever been.

Today I’m more at peace with myself and my imperfection than I ever thought I could be.

Today was my wedding anniversary – a sad reminder of what was, but now it feels more like a springboard beyond the pain I’ve endured to a full and adventurous and joyful future, wherever that may be.

As Paul said to the Philippians, “Letting go of what is behind me and straining forward to what lies ahead…”

The world may be in uncertainty and chaos right now, but I’m determined to squeeze every ounce of love and joy and passion out of the time that I’m afforded in this life no matter what the news anchors say.

I’m determined to take the risks and make the memories and build something uniquely beautiful for myself and my kids. We all hope that eventually someone will want to build something with us (Lord knows Lilly has prayed for this every single night for 18 months now), but even if that’s not the case, I’m going to rest confidently between the goodness and the mercy of God, knowing I gave this life everything I had, and that I refused to surrender my passion to a grave of disappointment and regret.

I’ll always be thankful for the five short years I was married to Chad, grateful for the ways our marriage helped temper my fieriness and pride and taught me patience and forgiveness and compromise. And I’m eternally blessed by our three children, but I’m now so resolved to believe that the best is still yet to come; that there is more love and opportunity before me than there is behind me, and this is a feeling I haven’t felt in a very long time.

I had to let a huge piece of myself die a cold and black death to get to this place, but this is my renaissance. This is my rebirth.

And I’m so ready for it.

Blessings!

Shannon

After-thoughts:

What things do you need to let die in order to be reborn? Have something you want to share? The light is the best disinfectant! Sometimes just sharing your feelings can untwist the knots in your soul. I’d love to hear your heart. Feel free to email me your story, send it to me in Messenger, or just comment below!