I left.

I moved out.

I never thought I would be saying these words.

I would have staked my life on it.

I’m not going to share details but I came up to a wall and was not breaking through. In times past, when I hit these walls,  I could get in the “tower” and be able to re-engage to where I knew God was calling me to walk.  This time was different.

Completely different.

I was confused, angry, foggy. And the effort to push through felt like slogging through thick, concrete-like mud. It wasn’t happening. At all.

And then I was asked a question.

“Is it possible that God is releasing you?”

I didn’t want to hear it.

I was actually a little bit mad that she would ask the question.

But then she asked another.

And another.

The thing is, I knew I was in this until I died.  Seriously.  I’m not joking.  I had said it over and over again. I believed it. With everything in me. I believed that there was only one way that this was going to be resolved. My marriage was going to be restored. Period.  No question in my mind.  I tattooed my body with my wedding date for heavens sake.  Of course God was going to do it my way!

And then I hit the wall.  And I couldn’t push through.  No amount of praying or asking God to help me was helping me re-engage.

So I set a fleece before the Lord.  Two, in fact.

The first being a place to live.

And he provided it within 24 hours of that prayer.

And the second, he provided within 3 days.

With an abundance that has completely BLOWN. MY. MIND.

And so I moved out.

On my own.

For the first time in my life.

For a fleeting moment, I thought the last 2 1/2 years was for nothing.  In my emotions, it feels totally wasted…..but with God, I know it is nowhere near that.  I know that I did everything the Lord asked me to do.

I don’t regret staying…..

And I don’t regret leaving…..

The things that I have learned in this last season have changed me forever.  I have grown deeper, in ways I never thought possible.  I have shown my children what it means to stand on the love of God.  I have learned that I am an authentic, powerful woman.  I have seen that God has a high calling on my life.  I now know that I have value before the Lord.  I have realized that my life can affect and change the generations that will come after me.  And most of all, I have come to know that God truly is, always, always good.

I fear that some of you may feel betrayed….that I didn’t follow through. That I quit.  That I’m disobeying what God said.  I also feel as if I have disappointed you or made you feel mislead in some way by walking away.  I know so many of you have hoped and wished and prayed your hearts out right along with me. But please do not be disillusioned.  God is NOT done yet.

I wish I could give you a picture into what God said and how He spoke to me.  I don’t know how to do that yet.  I can only say that I truly do believe, that the only way I could have endured the last 2 1/2 years, was to be utterly convinced that God would resolve this the way that I had pictured.  That picture is what kept me going.  It kept me pursuing him.  It drove me deeper into His Word and His heart.  It’s what has changed me forever. What I do know, is that God made it abundantly clear that this season in my life is over….and staying, when He has lifted His grace from the situation, is asking for more pain and suffering….only without His covering over me.  I can’t do that. I won’t.

And so who can know the ways of God?

In my very real, human emotions, I feel as if I will never understand any of this.  Maybe I won’t.  But I can’t stay in that.  I have to let God heal me and move forward in my life.  I think part of the last 2 1/2 years has been processing through the grief and pain of this.  And so, I do, in many respects feel so much relief.  Relief that this part is over.

The waiting is over…

Living in limbo is over…

Daily disappointment is over…

Hope deferred is over…

My dark night of the soul is over.