Sadly we did not make it through this year’s hurricane season without a devastating one. As Hurricane Matthew battered Haiti earlier this month, my heart ached for this country, already existing in such poverty. My daughter was evacuated from her college in West Palm Beach and she headed to central Florida with a car full of friends to hunker down with me. At work we were scrambling to come up with our game plan. Thankfully both West Palm and Orlando were spared, but it really made me think about the hurricanes that have personally swept through my life, and how I have responded to them.

Exactly one year ago, I was bracing myself for the after effects of my personal hurricane. My marriage had been ripped apart, as much as I wanted to believe it could “never happen to me”. I stood alone in an Osceola County courtroom, in front of a judge I never had met, and she declared my marriage dissolved. It seemed wrong that a total stranger could make that decision based on a stack of documents prepared by an attorney. Cold and impersonal, the gavel came down on her desk and thirty years of Mrs. Michael Darr were over. I walked out as “divorced” Julie Schenzel Darr, a label I never wanted, and a new role that I didn’t want to play. As I left the room, I deeply felt the loss, but I knew I had to embrace the life ahead of me, even though it’s not what I had wanted.

The twelve months that have passed have been filled with the hardest days of my life, but I have found renewed peace and joy as well, that I honestly hadn’t realized I had lost. The reason I feel compelled to write about this loss, is to acknowledge the pain, but also to give hope in the midst of the adjustment, in the process of identifying the “new normal”. Perhaps what I share will give someone the courage they need to face their loss, as they define their “new normal”. Because if we cannot redeem the hurt, what is the point? If we don’t allow ourselves to be vulnerable with each other, how can we learn?

“Divorced” is a word that to me has always sounded ugly. I always prided myself in thinking that it would never be a label I would bear. When Mike and I stood in front of our many friends and family at Trinity Church in the summer of 1985, we were in our late twenties. It was a beautiful ceremony where God was honored as we pledged our lives to each other for the rest of our lives. I truly feel we did honor God with our marriage for the bulk of our thirty years. Out of respect for our family, I’m not going to share details. But trust me when I say, I had no choice but to move on.

But the reality is my marriage did end, and so I was faced with what to do after thirty years of marriage. The tough adjusting began as I packed up the kitchen I had fed my family and countless friends in for the past 14 years. The hardest packing moment was dividing up the coffee mugs. Mike always loved getting souvenir coffee mugs wherever we traveled. So there I stood deciding who gets the “Library of Congress” mug, and who gets the “Disney Cruise Line” mug, with tears streaming down my face. It sounds so silly, but it represented so much.

As I moved into a cozy townhome a few miles down the road, it was such a strange feeling. In many, many ways I’m so grateful that our children were grown and out of the house before our marriage ended. But on the other hand it means coming home every day to an empty house, and that can feel very lonely on certain days. Mike and I had always loved having our home full of people. So much so that when our kids started leaving for college, we started having Disney interns and student teachers live with us to fill the empty bedrooms. The times that have been the hardest to return to an empty house are after being on a trip. There is something about walking into the townhome with my suitcase and having no one to greet me that really magnifies the loneliness.  But I truly love this new little home and I call this place my “sanctuary”, for it is a place of peace for my soul, which I so desperately need right now.

Relationally it has been extremely challenging to navigate the new role of ex-wife as well. I’ve lost my best friend. We were a great team. We parented well together, our home was filled with lots of love and laughter. We were intentional with raising our children to know God. We had great years of ministry together taking many on mission trips, doing city-wide worship events. How did we end up in this dark place? There can be times of interaction between us that escalate into extreme ugliness. It results in me feeling guilty and convicted for harsh words that came out of my mouth. I wake up feeling horrible and sad, and sometimes I don’t have the strength to get up. Then I have to remember that God understands and it is His undeserved grace that is there for me to embrace. After the big blowups I retreat relationally from Mike. I told a friend, “I feel selfish, but I can’t take anymore interaction right now.” She corrects me, “That’s self-care Julie, not selfish.” And again I have to give myself the space and time I need to heal up.

 

Then there is the undeniable pain that has been inflicted on our four children. Even though they are all in their twenties, I have to help them process their loss. They are old enough to make their own decisions about what they want their relationship to be with their father. I try not to share the times he hurts and disappoints me, but I blow it sometimes. My children are some of my closest friends. I have a hard time knowing what the boundaries are. Our family has always been an integrated unit, and now there is this fractured dimension that we’ve never had before. This is not the plan we had envisioned for our beautiful family. I worry about the hurt in each of their hearts and how it will impact their relationships in the future. There is absolutely nothing I can do to fix it. I have to pray and trust that their relationship with God will fill any void that exist in their heart.

I also struggle with feeling that I don’t qualify any longer to give advice on marriage. But I have been reminded by friends that they still respect my opinion because they watched the years when our marriage was strong and life-giving. I have to remember that I can still be an advocate for marriage, despite my marital status. I had a friend remind me of this when she said, “Julie, YOU believe in marriage.” I had to be reminded that even though I’m a divorced woman, I can still have hope for other marriages to be strong and Christ centered and to cross the finish line. I can still cheer and support the marriages of my children, nieces and nephews. I refuse to become cynical about the institution of marriage. It’s designed by God and can be the most life-giving relationship on earth.

My first year of singleness was complicated by the death of my only sibling and his wife. Anyone that knew Ty and Terri would say their marriage was one to be envied. And when they both perished on the same day from a tragic car accident, as incredibly hard as it was to lose both of these precious people at once, many of us said they would not have wanted to survive without the other one. Many, many times this year I’ve questioned God. Why would you let them leave this earth when they were such a great example to others? But they crossed the finish line here on earth so very well. I’m so grateful that their children and my children were able to observe and learn from them.

My prayer is most of you cannot relate to the pain I’ve shared in these words. But the longer I live, the more I’m convinced at some point in our lives we will face major loss of some kind. This quote from “A Grace Disguised” resonates with me:

“The supreme challenge to anyone facing catastrophic loss involves facing the loss on one hand, and learning to live with renewed vitality and gratitude on the other. This challenge is met when we learn to take the loss into ourselves and to be enlarged by it, so that our capacity to live life well and to know God intimately increases.”

I don’t think we should compare our losses and rank them. People say to me, “You’re so strong, you’re doing so well. I can’t believe what you’ve been through.” But today I wanted to be vulnerable and share some of the hard stuff. The tears I’ve cried could fill buckets, and I still have nights I cry myself to sleep. I’ve blown it with my attitude and words. But my roots have gone deeper in Christ. Many of my friendships are richer. My children and extended family love me incredibly well. I’ve been blessed with my first grandchild which is beyond wonderful. My marital status has not changed how God designed me and the fact that He has good plans for the rest of my life. It may be His “Plan B” for me, but I have to believe His “Plan B” can be incredibly rich and rewarding. I have found hope after the hurricanes.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  Lamentations 3:22-23