More Important Than Staying Together

Whenever I mention our separation to anyone, I see fear flash across their face. 

Could this be the end of our hero?!

It's true.  It COULD BE.  Endings scare people, I'm finding.  I don't know why exactly -maybe it reminds us all of a ultimate ending?  of life ending? 

Having to defend my separation makes me feel crazy, so -I have found out the hard way -I don't.  The thing is: GOD is okay with Danny and I not sleeping in the same bed, and I am okay with it and that's that... as the quote written above my piano says, "Trust in God and Thyself."

It does bother me -really it does -that it's seemingly more accepted for a wife in an emotionally abusive situation to STAY LIVING IN IT than it is for her to GET OUT OF IT.  But here's the thing: a separation *can be* the key to healing a marriage scorched by addiction.  It can be very healing.
As my intuitive Bishop put it, "You aren't handling things in the conventional way, but I would go so far as to say your marriage won't survive if you don't do this."

Sweet validation.  Nectar, nectar, nectar.

In my time apart from Danny, I have shred fear.  I have found myself AND FOUND that -contrary to what I once thought -I actually like myself.  Always?  No, not always.  But "I like myself most of the time" shows 95% improvement over where I was in 2012.  Two years ago, I hated even looking in the mirror.
I frequently struggled with my faulty image beliefs.  Today, I can look at a woman with fake boobs and polished abs and NOT automatically believe that I am less than, ugly, and worthless. 

Today, there is hope.

I find in my life a creation cycle -similar to those held by God as he created the very Earth I stomp every day.

For a long time, I was in this dark, scary place... it was in it's very beginning phases when, without light, the Earth tossed and turned and heaved and exploded.  Something very important was taking place, something called TRANSFORMATION, but in the thick of darkness, all I could see was just that: darkness.
Hopeless.
Scary.
So scary.

Then, slowly, the heavings slowed and illumination took their place.  LIGHT filled every darkened crevice, and God was seen.  I was able to see what the darkness had produced, and it was beautiful.
"Could it be?" I asked myself, looking across the variety of canyons, rivers, lakes, pastures.  My own complexities amazed me.

After the light came the seeds -beautiful seeds planted every dang where.
After the seeds came LIFE.
And after LIFE?  Came a new woman.

This is God's creation cycle.  This is the cycle that repeats itself over and over and over in my own life -lately, it's been one VERY VERY BIG AND GIGANTIC creation process.  The darkness could have won.

But right now, I stand illuminated.

This is what my separation has given me.
LIVING WITH emotional abuse was very, very dark.  God didn't want me to stay there.

There can be wholeness in marriage.
More importantly, there can be wholeness in SELF.

I believe strongly that individual healing comes BEFORE marital sticking-it-out.
For me, individual healing could not take place IN my marriage, and I'm okay with that.  God is guiding me and letting me know what is okay, when it's okay... maybe not always WHY, but that's His way.

As light surrounds and fills me, I can say that I am on my way to becoming a new woman filled with fresh life.  In the meantime, God is taking care of everything else.
Fear has no place in the creation cycle.

And when the new woman steps bravely out into her new world, perhaps God may initiate a new creation cycle in my marriage. 
Can I handle more darkness?  More tumult?  More tossings?

I can't.
God can.
I will let Him.