The Summer of New

When I became newly single after five years of marriage, I was faced with the horror of a life I’d never envisioned. This wasn’t what I wanted. I had taken steps to create the world I so longed for. It was a tragedy for the desires I had to come to a careening stop, and I was faced with an entirely different dimension. One I didn’t know and had no desire to know. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to adapt in order to survive, we do it, but everything inside of us cries out for mercy. I came to a place of knowing this season to be “The Epic Disportion of Singleness.” Disportion means: The amount of singleness applied to me that was only reserved for others. I’ve since come to the place of accepting the exciting and never ending story of the plot of “new.” It’s intriguing and beguiling in word alone. It excites the imagination and spurs motion. It twirls us around, lights up our eyes, and causes us to say, “Do it again!”

I wake up every morning asking for the gift of the abundant life that is ours if only we ask.

I ask Jesus to blow me away with a gift, every single day. And no matter what, no matter how grand, as long as I am still awake, I ask Him to “Do it again!” This is my heart’s desire, to live in the utmost state of being alive.

Related Post: The The Relationship that Changed My Life

I can be found on any given day by the ocean’s side, wandering the aisles of an enchanting bookstore, scoping the depths of an arts market, staring at a painting in a museum, laughing as I get caught in the rain, sitting in a café, sipping coffee, or speaking with other artists and musicians. I might wake up and decide to take a road trip to the next state over, there and back in a day. And occasionally, I can be found in an orphanage or school, in another country, bestowing the gift of love.To look at my life on paper, I would seem “perfectly and incandescently happy,” to quote one Elizabeth Bennett. But how does one cope with one’s soul, when one’s soul was created in the Garden of Eden, for companionship and a marriage now lost?

I have since learned that only when we experience the loss of a dream, do we truly appreciate, cling to, cherish, and fight for the thing we so dearly love.

When what we desire and long for with every ounce of our being comes into place, we fight vigorously to keep it. What do I know of sorrows and tears? I am blessed to be here with vision and fears being dispelled round every corner. My horizons are expanding with each new moment I have embraced. When the soul of another my heart longs to know is bestowed upon my wellbeing, I will cherish and protect it in a way that is new, with a tenacious encounter, so alive, I never knew.

Here I stand, arms wide open, ready to receive the ultimate gift of every single day of the rest of my life.

I now know this pleasure through the gift of being single. For the moment in time when Jesus freed and made me a bird with wings, to soar over every mountain, to dip in every ocean and live on every shore, Thank You, I cherish the “me” you showed me I can be, with only me.