Several good things coalesced for me to help make my healing possible and reveal to me all the light that had always been present in my life.
These allowed me to help myself. Mind you, no one could help me if I wasn't willing to help myself. After my daughter decided we should be estranged from one another, for the first time I found an actual psychologist, a woman with an actual doctor's degree trained to help heal the psyche of wounded patients living in the dark with deep emotional pain. She reached me at a time I was willing, to be honest with my doctor as well as with myself.
I'd found a health store (for lack of a better description) in downtown Newburgh, which sold me something I'd actually been looking for, sure it would have a benefit for becoming better. There I met some really good people who always seemed to welcome me and were even glad when I stopped by. They opened me up to the possibility that I might be a worthwhile person, someone worth wanting to see and share time and conversation. One lady there especially helped me both emotionally and spiritually by just taking the time to talk about God with me. Her deep, abiding love for God reached me, making me take a new look at what life with God was supposed to encompass and how this life with God is supposed to be lived out. I believe this part of my healing process happened because of this beautiful friend, but things got complicated in that too. I allowed myself to become confused and unable to separate my feelings of friendship from something else I felt, feelings I'd been unfamiliar with for a really long time, if ever. But I learned something in this: you can't just explain your intent when you've hurt or offended someone—especially when it's something you don't truly understand yourself—and hope that all will be suddenly and completely forgiven. That's what I tried to do and failed miserably doing it. You have to just admit the thing you did wrong and how you were wrong for doing it, take responsibility for it by owning it, and then apologize with no expectation of being forgiven. In hindsight, even though we can never be the friends we were or have the conversations it brought; God even used that lesson through her to bring me closer to reconciliation with my daughter. Through this experience, I realized I was trying to do the same thing with my daughter. I had just been trying to explain to Anastasia why I'd done everything I ever did and didn't do with her and her brother and thought explaining it to her would cause her to forgive me. Finally, I knew I had to admit I had screwed up big time, own everything I'd done, and apologize even if she could never see a way to forgive me.
Finally, there was the young lady I worked with for several years, just being a colleague, then a friend—and a friend who actually paid attention to me at that. It was her encouragement that would finally pierce all my darkness with that wondrous beacon of light. She would become my much-needed lighthouse, the one I've lovingly named Terpsichore.
A doctor really understanding of the psyche, a health store, friendly people, a Christian woman who took the time to talk to me about God, Terpsichore, God. Is it unusual that this confluence should happen at just the time in my life when "I knew that I knew" I was ready to heal? Some people might righteously say it was what it was, and a wonderful thing happened for me and to me. Still, I might remember that "God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end." I should tell you with as much light, color and beauty I can marshal, I've reconciled with my daughter! After writing all this out, well, I feel better. And I am learning to live again. It took a lifetime to get here, and I think it'll be a lifelong process moving forward.
By the way, that last verse I shared is from Ecclesiastes 3:11. You might also recognize the rest of the chapter from having heard some Byrds sing it to you. But hey, maybe as you listen, you can picture being that precocious, gorgeous little kid who when in school drew pictures of being outside and you made the grass green, the sky blue, the clouds puffy and white, but especially the sun big, bright and yellow with those warm yellow rays coming off it.
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