In His Likeness w/ AntTBri

The final straw broke in January.  Life and love forever changed for me.  But the most devastating blow occurred in November two months before… the beginning of the end.  It’s  funny how dates trigger memories and retrospection. I’d like to think that I’m over it, that I’m better as a result of growing through it.  I no longer mourn the loss or resent the process of discovery.  But I remember the look of disappointment,  devastation and defeat plastered across the face barely  able to look at me. That marked the moment of no return.There would be no bouncing back from this and it really scared me.  Life and love today still bares the markings of a broken promise.

All this time I thought my apprehension in approaching, coming close had to do with protocol,  propriety and proper behavior for a respectable woman.  I attributed the pause, hang back, allow life and love to come to you as a spiritual strength and advantage..
wisdom even.  My heart wonders in this moment if my running,  avoiding or limiting access early on was in response to the residual effect of a broken promise.  Let’s see…

Mentally, I rationalized that November and January’s look was the same because affections had already been explored elsewhere.  I surmised that the anger,  accusation and agitation was a derivative of a guilty conscious. It soothed my ego to believe nothing was lacking in my technique, touch or talk…it was just one of those things in November that grew into a monstrosity in January.   There were no other instances or indicators (intimately anyway) that there was a problem.  So why the drastic change?  Why did the things that worked previously loose there appeal and no longer summons applause or appreciation?  Because in the room with us, that November was the  harsh reality of a broken promise that could no longer be denied or disguised.

Years prior to our union we spent so much time together.   In the clarity of this moment, he spent that time listening and learning to see life and love through my eyes.  He however never asserted the same confidence in life and love.  He, in all fairness moved out, married me and made a life based upon my word… the promise and plan of God for me. The wedding pictures, the 14 years together portrayed it but I couldn’t see it then and it breaks my heart that the image seated or seared in my memory hurt me but failed to help me see how my vision damaged, darkened and damn near destroyed him. 

It is wrong to prescribe life and love as you see it before allowing, allotting and and accepting their right to come to it.  No matter how well intentioned, much you claim the disclosure to be motivated by love it is abuse and most damaging to expose someone to a truth they didn’t ask for, wasn’t mentally and spiritually prepared for.  We cannot give, gift or grace others with purpose,  perception or promise.  

Healthy relationships enhance, embrace, encourage, edify and equip us to live and love up into God’s promise. 

Toxic relationship attacks all notions of ones faith in God or feelings towards a greater purpose. As wonderful a vision, the purpose and promise of God on my life I was wrong to invite,  involve and insist he be part of it without checking to see whose or what word he was building his hope upon.  We cannot assume the role of God nor make what we believe to be true of someone else experience and reality. I was and am guilty of breaking my promise and denying him the right and process of discovery.   He was trapped in a life and love that suited and satisfied me but left him lacking.  It was an epic fail that resulted in an enormous amount and account of fear in me.  More than a mere break up, being left or cheated on it was that I  broke my promise.  All this time I’ve been struggling although striving  to move forward.

November shook me it was a blow to my woman…it definitely did a job on my self confidence. I didn’t realize it but a part of me began to retreat… and is now being restored. 

I never wanted to see that look again.  So to meet it again in January under crazier circumstances  not only frightened me but caused me to fixate on this notion of not being the one to give voice to what God says concerning me, my life or love.  God is restoring the part of my heart that freely shared and trusted my experience of life and love with another. 

He and I had many conversations before marrying but one heated 15 minute conversation to end it where he looked at me and said “you said we would make it. I trusted you …you broke your promise” That look, those words stabbed everywhere life and love had ever hurt.  I managed to ask one question the answer silenced every other rebuttal.   “Do you see purpose in our being together”?  He didn’t see it, probably never had but he bought in and believed based upon what I said..It devastated and almost destroyed my desire to live and love as a part of a team.

There is where this timidity began.  Deep within I resolved nobody else would look at me or say those words with any merit or credence.   So God would be speaking to me about purpose and sharing and showing me his heart towards me and I would purposely run in the opposite direction, try to avoid close proximity and freak out every time opportunity presented itself. Residual effects of a broken promise.  A promise I made and didn’t intentionally break but broke none the less.  I’ve been living and attempting to love at a distance,  from the sidelines… on pause because I don’t have the heart to break my promise, to live in fear of seeing the look of disappointment glaring at me.  It will never be documented that someone I love lived through my  cruel and inhumane treatment of them because they moved out or on what I said.   Is that wisdom?  Spiritual? Strength? It’s perception (ally) debatable and personally definable… it’s very likely a combination contrived as a result of a broken promise.

Fear however holds us hostage and hinders and hampers what could be. Having to know if God was dealing with you, if He was sharing and showing you what was visibly apparent to me kept me stand offish,  silent and slow to respond back then.  How schizophrenic I must have appeared…

I still  believe people need to know and have a God spoken Word for and over their life and love.  I believe that knowing prerequisites any hope, encouragement,  dialogue I can give or offer.  I also realize that although vast and vividly painted my vision is to be shared not the starting point for interaction, investment, involvement and intimacy.  A very good friend says that I talk so good she believes if I speak in a grave yard people would want to come back and try life and love again. So I live and love careful not to abuse, manipulate and take advantage of the power of influence.  Not that I think or consider you weak, easily influenced or lacking in hearing or knowing the voice of God for yourself.   Pardon my schizophrenia and anything done in the past that came across confusing,  conflicting and like I didn’t know, see or feel what was transpiring between and before us when all this began.  I never wanted to nor do I want to handle life or love improperly again. 

My truth didn’t necessarily have to be true to your experience and the absolute truth is I was afraid to discover that you didn’t know or have a clue about the plan, promise and purpose of God for life and love together.   So running WAS a option that is no more, fear of the unknown will no longer rule, regulate or be regarded more than the promise God gave concerning life and love.  This is a new day and although flawed I believe I’ve grown up in God enough to know that purpose is combining the wholeness of each other’s promise.

 

May God’s purpose for us enhance, encourage, edify, equip, elevate and educate us and others what it is to live and love beyond the broken(ness) of one’s promise.

Life and love brings us to these defining moments of Divine intervention, introspection and information that helps us appropriate, appreciate and accept life and love should be built upon one’s assurance of God’s Word.  God keeps God’s promises.   So we can live and love free of the burden of fear in and of a sound mind, in the power and authority of Him who reveals all things.  Reflecting upon God’s promise~AntTBri