Gesuschic

At the end of 2018 I really thought I had my shit together. Everything was going somewhat okay until I got knocked off of my ass with all things…A FUCKING VIRUS. No need for detail but I lost everything I worked so so hard to get back after my divorce from 2013.
I’ve never in my life known such struggle since that moment I was released from the hospital and came home to a termination from my job, an eviction, my car reposed and my entire world, just gone…again.
My Pastor at the time even said “Cheryl, I gasp at what God allows you to go through. I don’t understand it either.”
Growing up Southern Baptist when you go through trial after fucking trial it’s usually because you’ve done something to really piss God off or there’s some hidden sin you haven’t repented from.
Now I’ll be the first to admit. I’ve met Jesus at the well quite a few damn times.
Dragged before the Lord by angry crowds who were quick to say I had a “Jezebel spirit” but good fuckin’ grief…how many sins do I need to confess and figure out before I get a heavenly break? But even in my darkest days I never doubted God’s existence, but His presence was definitely not felt. Instead I felt alone, scared, abandoned and unsafe. Like an abused child who finds comfort in the night by a covered blanket…mine had been ripped off. Taken and thrown into the depths of the sea with the pigs.
I was so useless and of no value to the point that even God Himself had left me.
Here I was.
Starting over.
For what seemed like the MILLIONTH time. How many do~over’s does one get in life?
Home is such a weird word.
It can mean so many different things to so many different people. But to me? Home has always been a solace. Somewhere to run when the world was unkind.
My dad made our home like that.
My mom made our home like that.
And it seems like ever since my dad died and my mom’s Alzheimer’s began to steal her from me, I’ve been in a whirlwind of constant chaos and panic that I’d never feel that again. Or find it.
Solace.
Home.
I have been so lost. To the point I forget to exhale sometimes. Taking in deep breaths and losing thought in my disorientation of life’s curve balls.
But I’m here. Today I am here. Alive, breathing and remembering to exhale, although slowly at times, ha-ha.
I’ve met so many new and different people. Re-connected with a few. And I’m getting used to a new normalcy within my life. Everything from going to an online church, being gay affirming, and almost half a century old with grandchildren…But through it all, every bit of the trials, the fuck ups, the constant do-over’s I have found one thing.
Freedom.
Freedom in adventure, love, connections…grace.
The blanket of solace is no longer needed. I refuse to run home. Instead I’m pacing myself while walking completely bare ass naked through life (metaphorically speaking) so that I may FEEL every fucking thing it has for me. The spirit of grief I have for my parents death is slowly being replaced with the spirit of dance like David. Free to love and embrace and to choose joy even on days where the tears still fall…it was never that God had bounced out on me like so many others. It was my bitterness and fear of unknown change that was blocking all feeling of His presence to my spirit. My soul was in a drought that kept running and falling to the feet of every mirage I thought I could see. Only to be broken, disappointed and left alone in the wilderness, more lost than before. But no more. The living waters of fresh faith and freedom in a grace that has always, always been sufficient. I just needed to stop, be still, and trust the process of my new and changing world.
In the words of my dad, as he would shout, UNAPOLOGETICALLY as every person in their pews would turn to look as my dad would STAND and in his loud thunderous voice, tears falling from his 350 pound HUGE Marine Corps stature, his hands lifted high in that very conservative Southern Baptist church;
“GLORY HALLELUJAH!! GLOREEEEEEE…HALLELUJAH…ALL GLORY TO YOU GOD. I AM FREE…”
I totally get it now dad.