After winter

It was a beautiful Saturday morning in October. I was doing yard work when she came outside. By the look on her face I knew she was going to share some bad news.

“I don’t want to be married anymore,” she said. It was a jolt I’d been bracing myself to receive for some time. But when those words actually hit me, I was crushed.

Six weeks later she had filed for legal separation and the snow had started to fall. Inside and out, I was heading into winter. And it was going to be a cold one.

“How does it make you feel?” my therapist asked me. Feel? I couldn’t feel. I was numb.

“I feel like I just had a filling done at the dentist’s,” I said. “Like when your jaw is still frozen and you’re salivating uncontrollably. And when you get the bill you realize you have three more cavities that need filling.”

Sentences such as I didn’t want this! What’s wrong with me? What will people think? popped up in my mind repeatedly, like spam. If only there was a program I could download to stop unwanted doubts, I thought; to stop quarrelling with myself.

I soon realized that besides the emotional cost, the financial cost would be huge. I never started a divorce fund when we were married. (Does anyone?) An article I saved from the newspaper about the cost of divorce stated that one’s savings account goes down to zero. It said I could expect three to five years to pass before being in the same financial position as before.

With legal and counselling fees, as well as dividing assets, I realized I was going to have to get into survival mode. I didn’t want to lose the house so I forced myself to get up and go to work every day. Normally I love to work, but I was so depressed I just wanted to crawl away and die.

I had to take care of myself – financially, emotionally, and spiritually. I also knew I couldn’t walk this road alone. I needed God. I wanted to learn to forgive like Jesus forgave. I needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, giving me life. I learned to let go.

It’s easy to have strong faith when times are good. But when you can’t stand because your knees are buckled, you need support. You need your community. You need your friends. You need your family.

While there may have been some whispering in my church, I was oblivious to it. My friends and family protected me, made me feel safe.

And the amazing thing is, eventually the cold weather broke. Spring came, and more springs after that. There is laughter in my house again, different furniture, other colours on the walls, new life, new love.

I look at the tree sapling my wife and I planted at our recent wedding and see new growth already. I picture the tree it wants to become. I smile. It’s been a long winter, but spring is definitely here.

Jason T. attends Crossroads Church in Winnipeg.