Trivia, Tea and Me
A glimpse into the everyday life of me, a divorced mom who raised two little boys alone. It’s a quick read with a cup of tea (or coffee), no continuous story line to follow except that God loves us and never leaves us or forsakes us no matter what we are going through. My story has some humorous moments along with some of the painful periods of divorce, but it also shows how God can take those hurtful things and make something beautiful out of them. For he has said in Jeremiah 29:11-13: “I know the thoughts I have toward you... thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Then you shall call upon me and ye shall pray unto me and I will hearken unto you …and I will be found of you, says the Lord.”
Excerpt
After he left, I sat at my kitchen counter, my Bible opened in front of me, wondering how had this happened. Where was I that I didn’t suspect something or see the handwriting on the wall? All I could hear were the words ringing in my ears, “I don’t love you. I’m not sure I ever loved you, and I don’t want to live the rest of my life not loving you.”
Shock and disbelief had to have been written all over my face. I was convinced he had loved me. We never fought or argued; he’d taken me out every Saturday night of our married life; we were constantly entertaining and doing things with our friends. How had I been so blind?
Adding insult to injury, he then told me he wanted his house back. He’d bought it after returning from the war. The house had been an office for a quaint old saw mill that had been on a wooded piece of land 50 years prior, far away from the city and the intrusion of the world. He said he needed peace and quiet to escape the memories from the war. He had lived in it a year before we married.
If I let him have the house, where would that put the boys and me? Out on the street? I couldn’t go home to Mom and Dad. They had a tiny house now that all the children were grown and gone.
Before he left, he suggested, “Florida.”
I said, “Florida?”
He said, “Yes, you always liked it.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I liked it to visit, but I didn’t want to live there!”
I sat there holding a separation agreement in my hands and wondering what in the world to do now.
I held in my hands four legal-sized sheets of paper reflecting the sum total of fourteen years of togetherness. Cold facts of date and place of marriage, the issuance of this marriage is two children, party of the first part wants a divorce from party of the second part due to irreconcilable differences.
Is this all there is to represent fourteen years of growing together, I wondered, facing good times and bad times, sweat and tears to reach this point in our lives?
Unbelievable that a lifetime of memories could be reduced to four legal sheets of paper!