Hi, everyone! It's good to be back on the board! It's been an amazing, marvelous, wonderful, peaceful time for the last six months or so. God is doing so much that I don't know where to begin.
I just skimmed through the posts and responses on this topic which I had started, and it looks like January of this year was the last time I posted, when I thought the divorce was going to be final. It was never finalized until June 19th thanks to my ex's TERRIBLE attorney--and I do mean terrible! She never did anything she was supposed to do, sat on paperwork and did not respond, BUT she never sent him a bill either.
Since then I have talked with or stopped in at the house of my ex several times for various reasons--one being we still have not sold the house we both own. It's been on the market since Easter. It had a few lookers and at one point three people who were interested, but they couldn't come up with the money. So please pray that our house will sell soon because we need the money to move on.
Each time I see or talk to him, it confirms in my heart and mind that I did the right thing. He is still those 4 words: negative, angry, pessimistic, and critical--AND he still won't admit it. Just for example, our nephew was married recently--a wonderful Christian couple--and he and I were at opposite ends of the room at the reception, but I could see him. He and his Dad (who won't talk to me at all) sat there looking bored stiff and mad at the world. My son who was in the wedding commented the same thing. When I asked my ex what he thought of the wedding (It was rather too modern and contemporary for my tastes.), he said "it was OK", and then I commented that he looked bored, etc. He DENIED it. He just has no concept or realization of how he looks and acts to and with others or even how he feels inside. In the past year + since I left, nothing has changed in his life.
Another example is I stopped in Saturday to show him a quilt I had someone finish that my mother and grandmother had made the top for and never finished, and in the 10-15 minutes I was there, he went from "tender" when he was looking at the quilt and admiring it, to "human" when he showed me his new high def TV he got, and finally to "agitated" when I asked him a simple question. I left thinking to myself, well, that is clear enough that there's nothing different about him.
I settled on a very nice, warm caring fellowship of believers and am planning to be baptized by immersion and join church on December 14th. They are very understanding and caring, and I have NOT heard ANY negatives, criticisms, or anything like that from anyone to me or anyone else. I won't say it's a perfect church
BUT it's pretty close!
We got a new pastor several months ago and he started a support group just for my friend and I, and it has been great to have his support, understanding, and counsel.
Even this morning, I called him and we talked for 25 minutes on the phone. I just had to share with him what the Lord revealed to me this morning in my time of devotions. (It's a long story but all good.) He rejoiced with me.
I have been gradually getting involved in the church. I sing solos and in the choir. Then they needed Sunday School teachers and helpers, so I am co-teaching a class of 3-4-year-olds with another lady. They had a website and needed someone to put time into updating it, so I've done that, and I maintain it. Now I'm working on a special one-time project of a pictorial directory. I really enjoy doing these things and serving the Lord.
Outside of the church, I had taken a course about 3 years ago to be a volunteer visitor for the chaplain's office at a local hospital. Then all the deaths I referred to in a previous post here had started taking place and I never got back to it. So now it's been about a month that I've been going in once a week for two hours and visiting patients, encouraging, praying, talking, seeing if they need anything, etc. I love it, and some days the patients and/or their visitors lift me up more than I do them.
Finances was a big, big concern for me earlier in the year, but the Lord brought me through that, supplying all along the way, even when I got impatient and said when, Lord? how, Lord? I downsized from the brand new double-wide I had purchased to a single-wide mobile home in a different park to save money and to be close to my friend. She also went through a divorce, and I keep her boy while she's at work/school. We trade things and services and help each other along, so that's been a big blessing to have a Christian friend to turn to in a moment's notice.
So to any who read this and are discouraged, upset, tense, and worried, please take heart.
Everything will work out somehow, sometime, somewhere if you just keep trusting the Lord with all your heart. I have come out of this divorce a much better person, closer to the Lord, and with better relationships than I've had before with those at my church and family. God bless.
I don't know when I'll have time to come back here because the Lord is keeping me busy, but I have a notifier set to let me know when someone posts, and I'll try to come back and respond. If I don't get back on before, have a wonderful Thanksgiving--I know I will--even if I'm alone!
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