The days following that night at my truck were completely different.
I started feeling a sense of worth and I began to have hope for our future. The biggest weight lifted off of me was being able to finally let go of control of my own life and give that to God with full trust and faith. The anxiety, stress and depression were reduced to a tolerable amount and each morning that passed brought more and more healing.
My life was taking a turn in the right direction.
My kids finally were able to have a father who could function and play a positive role in their lives as they had prior to our separation. But just as I started to feel happy again, I also was scared beyond belief. Three rain clouds hovered over my head and grew darker each day until I finally decided to face them.
My first fear was figuring our how to be a single parent. Simple tasks were made harder and bank accounts grew smaller and smaller. I remember a trip to Target cut short by my daughter getting sick to her stomach. The whole night she had to vomit every 45 minutes on the dot. I stayed up until 3 am with her until she finally fell asleep, only to wake up at 4:45 am to go to work. The following night brought the same events, but with my son. Simply taking care of your kids brings about new challenges when you do not have your spouse around.
The second thing was not necessarily a hurdle to climb, but it was something that brought about lots of hurt and anger. I did not like the new card that had been dealt to me. I now had to be a part-time dad and not have my kids around every day. I still struggle with this, but I have grown in my trust in God and His plans.
The last thing, and the most significant of them all, was finally accepting help. Therapy/counseling for a guy is a no-no, right? Men are strong and rough and have calloused skin in which all of our issues bounce off, right? Men can fix anything, including their own issues like stress, anxiety and depression, right? Wrong…society teaches men to be calloused and unemotional. As a guy, you are taught to be numb to emotions. You can’t be scared. You can’t ask for help or even cry. Someone might be watching, especially your kids, and you do not want them to see Dad like that, right?
Once again, this is completely false and the exact opposite of what a man and his kids need. One quote that stuck with me to this day from my Christian counseling is, “Your wife and kids do not need a real man, but a man that is real.” What he was teaching me was that they don’t need a John Wayne, rough on the outside and emotionless and calloused to life’s struggles. They need a man who is able to show emotions and know that it is okay to be open and raw with them.
The months of counseling led to mountains of change and healing in my own life. The healing of some things that plagued my marriage and wore on my wife so much that they contributed to her decision to file for divorce. Lack of trust and self confidence and some jealousy all took their turns tearing me down day after day, but through counseling God healed those areas in my life.
As I worked through all of this, my wife, who had filed for divorce, finally agreed to attend marriage counseling together. This was it. I thought this had to be where God healed our broken marriage.
Once again, those were my thoughts and motives but not His.
I was there to repair my marriage but she was not. She was there to learn to co-parent in a healthy way and to communicate more civilly for our children. Eventually, the final paper work of our divorce was signed, notarized and complete.
This was it.
It hurt, but through lots of fervent prayer God brought me to a place of peace and I was finally able to let go and accept that it was over. My faith was at an all-time high looking towards whatever God had in store for me next. I was moving forward and letting go of the past.
I knew I could not and would not be alone forever. God didn’t design us to live life alone. Delicate and specific prayer flowed from my mouth day in and day out, begging God to bring the perfect woman to me, in His due time. The result of all of that prayer was a day that would change my life forever. The day I met April.
