#3: Becoming a Real Woman in a Fairy Tale World

Join me while I anticipate 40 as I share my journey of beauty through brokenness

Why am I so sensitive about the false fairy tale stories that persist in our culture? (see last week’s post for more…)

Because I lived through my own personal nightmare, and have been held by the beauty of being part of God’s good story.

A few nights ago as I was praying and journaling before bed, I noticed my stomach start to tense and I felt some anxiety begin to burn in my chest. Could it be the caffeine I had in the morning, I wondered? As I wrote, the feelings intensified as my nerves started to tingle throughout my whole body. I decided I’d just try and will it away by going to bed, so I turned off my light, and curled into a ball on my side.

That didn’t help. My anxiety increased and seemed to be escalating into panic. I tried a few breath prayers and wondered what was going on, and why I felt so intensely afraid, as if something terrible was about to happen.

Then I realized what the turning of this day into tomorrow signified.

I reached for my bedside light, squinting from the intrusion of light while grateful that the dark had dispersed as I scrambled for my pen and journal. Writing prayers always helps me get the feelings out of my body, and I scribbled furiously hoping the fear would flow out of my fingers as an offering to God on my page for protection. 

Despite reaching a place of peace here at 39 where my painful past feels more like a distant life, my body, designed by God, remembered. 

My body remembered that exactly seven years prior, I was about to descend into two weeks of hell. I had already been living through a season of suffering as I was trying to grapple with my husband’s sex addiction. It was dark and lonely and I was operating out of a constant state of freeze (which is very detrimental to the body and brain). 

But several weeks in mid-November became the setting for everything imploding into an absolute nightmare. Stories of my husband’s betrayal, infidelity, and double-life became known to me through the internet, subject to the public discovering at the same time as me, due to his public position. I was violated, heartbroken, and humiliated all at the same time.

It was absolutely devastating - to my body and soul - so much so that seven years later despite the fact that I wasn’t actively thinking about the memories, my body started to panic on the anniversary of the night before that nightmare began. 

During those weeks of crushing, it felt like my life was completely over. The thing is, a certain version of my life was over. The reality I thought was true, and the life I’d dreamed of with my husband, was absolutely done. 

But the truth that I have been coming to not just believe but know deeply is that this life I call “mine” really belongs to God. He is the one who created me and this world and wanted it to be good, but we humans chose our own way, which opened the door to a lot of brokenness. 

I tasted the bitterness of this brokenness in that season, and I am sure you have too in your own suffering. 

But God has a greater story for you and for me.

A picture from the next day after that panic attack seeking peace on the Chesapeake Bay, because I like to take a selfie and say, “I’m still here. I can smile with confidence.”

You see, the fairy tales that we’ve written in this world - even if they are realistic or even a bit warped (I’m still annoyed with Beauty and the Beast - see last week’s post!) - reflect the grand story we all have written on our hearts.

God story is the one true story of love, justice, and redemption.

Seven years since my nightmare and the death of my marriage, a lot of good has grown in my life. New dreams have been planted, taken root, and begun to grow. Much of that has come from my creative life, the healing of my body, and my recovery in healthy relationships (more to come on that in this series!).

But there were many days that I did not see growth and the clouds of anxiety, PTSD, and depression felt overwhelmingly dark. 

Even now, there are still days when grief capsizes me. The losses from my marriage and divorce can still sting, and the reality of being single and childless at 39 when the story in my heart longs for a husband and a family aches.

Those are the moments that I draw on the hope of living in God’s story - knowing that my trials and suffering have purpose, preparing me for a life of sheer beauty with Christ to come. 

So here I am today to say, I got through my PTSD episode the other night. I got through my nightmare from seven years ago, even though I still carry the scars. I doubted new life could come from that wreckage, but God has proven me wrong. 

The hurt of injustice and loss and grief and pain still linger. I’m feeling that entering this 40th year when I wish certain things in my life looked different. I’m content and yet scared too. How about for you in your season?

So that’s why each day of this year, I will continue to dig deep into seeing myself and the life God has given me, as part of His grand narrative. Without that greater hope, our suffering could really feel too bleak some days. It would be easy to succumb to despair. And I’ve teetered there, I’ll tell you. 

So when our souls feel lost, let’s remember our living hope.

1 Peter 1: 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Thanks for your tenderness in reading some of my story. This week, I’ll also be sharing a poem of mine that will be published in The Way Back To Ourselves Fall Literary Journal, “The Peace of Wild Things.” It’s called “Road Stop Refuge,” and it’s a story about a time I found peace in a wild display inside a Cabela’s along Interstate 68 in West Virginia. Weird, right?

Ironically, the poem will be published almost exactly seven years after the experience, by one day. I don’t take that timing lightly. The vignette was the conclusion of the aforementioned two week nightmare when I knew I needed to set the biggest boundary I’ve ever done in my life and leave my marriage. 

The poem just flowed out of me on paper a few months ago, and then I finally typed it up with a few edits. For the first few weeks I reviewed it, I cried every time I read it, as I remembered the heartache of those days. Then I decided to go read it at an open mic night. THAT was a surreal experience. Everyone clapped politely.  

I guess this is one of those references to regeneration and new dreams - turning ache into art. Turning my bleeding into boldness, and words that reckon with death, into a song that sings of serenity. 

I hope it will help you consider the ways that God creatively provides comfort through our darkest days. Thanks for reading :)