Bird Uncaged

Crying. Again.  It was daily, multiple times a day, crying from that day in June 2016, until February 2017.  I was sick of the crying. I would put on a happy face for the girls, take them to a petting zoo where they could play on a jungle gym, sit on a bench to the side and quietly sob with my sunglasses on. They would run over to me and I would switch gears so quickly to smile and talk excitedly with them.  Then there were the days I couldn't wait to put them to bed, so that I could bury my face into the carpet and weep. Or cover my head with my blankets to cry there.  Some days they saw me crying. I knew they had to also see the real me, but I didn't want to overwhelm them with how often these emotions came over me. "Please don't cry, Mommy," their little voices would ring. If only they knew how often. I was sick of the crying. The grief. The anxiety of loss. The anxiety of the future. The death of a marriage. The death of a life I knew. The loss of the comfort ...

That is what my attorney had turned to say to me, at the start of mediation.  But I wasn't. I was only buying half of them. 50% of my time with them would be gone. And it was going to cost me tremendously. Then there was freedom. I had originally said I was buying my freedom. But I wasn't, not truly. The town and state where I would have to live would be dictated by him. I would have to still have communication, I could not disappear to him as I would like. I would have to share custody, and there was no way around that. There was no freedom in the broad sense. Just a wild horse choosing to go back into a fenced pasture so that she could have her foals. "Today you are buying your children," he said, meaning I would have to walk away from so much financially, so much materially.  I laid it all on the table. Even if it meant only half of them, I would purchase them with everything that I had.  <3

 "...but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." Isaiah 40:31 NIV

"Preacher's kids are the worst," they said. Not me, I would think. Not my little sister. Not us. Two good little girls who were tenderhearted and kind. But wearing the title of preacher's daughter was not a thing to take lightly. We were to be examples for everyone around us. Our roles, as it were, were to give hope to those who had no hope. My father was (and is) a humble man. Quiet spoken and gentle. As a child I was known as "Daddy's girl" and that was a label I wore proudly. I loved him. He was never unkind to me. And his faith, well I loved that, too. I was a pupil at the feet of a kind, loving man who practiced what he preached. He was passionate about what he believed. It was his whole life. But his faith wasn't a religion for him, in fact religion was a word he steered away from altogether. For him, it was simply his faith and his ministry to the world around him. It was a relationship with the Divine that he wanted to share with others...

My life. Your life. Another's life. Today is only a snapshot of a complete life. Lately when I pass by someone at the store, or greet someone at my door, I have been reminding myself that what I see before me is only a snapshot. It is not up to me to make any true assessments. We do this by default. We look at the appearance of people. We look at the relationship in which they exist. We look at their financial circumstances. We look at different factors of their lives right now, in the present. And we make assessments about those things, not taking into account that it is only a single snapshot of their lives. I heard the Dalai Lama say, "We accept as reality as it appears. ... Nothing exists as it appears." I believe this wholeheartedly to be true. What would come of our relationships if we were to pause to pass judgments? We only see one part of a life, not the life in totality. Today in your life and in mine, it is a snapshot. Whether it is judgment on y...