My Jerusalem Moment inspired by "The Principle of the Path" by Andy Stanley

This week has been filled with endless episodes of Netflix and reading, followed by napping and pain, after having outpatient surgery. Luckily, I'm surrounded by talented individuals who love reading as much as I do and are always willing to share their latest read. One of these shared with me the book entitled "The Principle of the Path" by Andy Stanley. There are books that are good for mindless entertainment and then there are books that remind you of who you are and where you belong in life. This book is one of the latter. In Andy Stanley's book on page 169 he describes The Jerusalem Moment. It's explained as being a moment that forces us to turn our backs on something we hoped for, prayed for, dreamed about and planned for. It's the day we are forced to realize it's not going to happen for us. That dream isn't coming true. For those that know me, mine was getting divorced. As most do, I wanted that marriage of 50 years, where we prayed together, read the bible together, spent warm winter nights wrapped up in blankets reading together by the fire, fished watching the sun set , traveled and explored the world together and changed lives. Maybe it was Hollywood movies that inspired me to paint stories in my head but I wanted it and I knew at one point in life that would be where I would end up. I was willing to give up all that I was and could be to live that dream. I think that's where my path diverged. My faith has always been an enormous part of my life. As a child I went to two services on Sundays and one on Wednesdays in a Baptist church and then often went to church with my Great Grandma to the Catholic church on Saturday nights. Hymns filled my soul, moments around grandma's piano singing as a family, now distant memories were real and all that I wanted to do was to reflect Christ in my life. I believe that thus far I have had moments where I did not live this way but as a whole my behaviors reflect my faith. I remember vividly prior to getting married, as we were going through premarital counseling, my fiance at the time getting into a deep discussion about faith and if God existed with the priest that married us. I remember leaving there shocked at the exhaustion that set forth from that experience but aware that our beliefs were very different. I KNEW without a doubt that God is real and have seen this manifested time and time again in my life, and he did not. Innately I had the conversation within that it would be okay, that we didn't have to believe the same to have a strong marriage and that love would conquer all. This was where my path went a different direction. That moment of judgement came back to haunt me many years later as in reality, it did matter. More than I could have ever imagined. Today I only look back on that relationship with love and kindness for the inevitable grace and joy that came from the dissolution for both of us. However, I remember thinking the day that I signed those papers that the dream I had for a 50 year anniversary would most likely never come true. At 42 and unmarried, its looking even more unlikely at this point. I was crushed, I was destroyed, I curled in the floor in my closet, crying like a wounded kitten that was dying. My hopes, dreams and all that I though my life would be were no more. To think of those moments, still hurts. Not from anger or hate but rather from the hurt we inflicted upon each other. I holding on to something I thought belonged to me and did not until finally I knew that love isn't something you beg for or require from another, it is something that they must give freely. Noone wants someone to love them because they must but rather because it is in all that they are. I begged God, I pleaded with God, I remember prayers of submission and willfulness in all that I would do if he would just help my marriage survive. It did not. Life ended at that moment as I saw it. Yet then it begin anew and their was peace. Irrevocable peace that only the father's arms could provide. Peace and love that loving someone more than you loved yourself could give and we were both set free. I dropped to my knees in prayer one night and after the unrelenting prayer of true submission, there was peach. Months and years of pleading and all that was left, was peace. Not my will but the Lord's was done.I honestly believe that. Mistakes don't happen, choices do happen. Each choice sets our direction along the path.