Remembering

This time of year is a cause for remembrance for a lot of people. It's a new year, a chance to reflect back on the year that has just been completed, to take stock and evaluate. It's a time to look forward at an entire year stretching out before you like a blank canvas, waiting to be filled in. It's a time to dream, to create resolutions, to wonder, to celebrate.... And for me, this time of year is a time of remembrance for a little bit of a different reason.

January 14, 2006 was my wedding day. Five years ago this Friday to be exact - well, the wedding was on a Saturday, but you know what I mean! And on this Friday, I won't be celebrating my five year anniversary. Instead, I've been divorced for almost four. There are times when that still makes me stop and shake my head. I wonder if I dreamed that part of my life or if any of it was actually real. So much time has gone by now that January 14th is really just another date. I mean, I think I'll always know what it meant when that day pops up on the calendar, but I really am okay. However, there's just something weird about the five year mark.

Five years is a long time. I think about all I would have been celebrating five years into a marriage. I'm one of those people that thinks it's cool to celebrate five years and ten years and such. Not that you don't celebrate the other years, but I love the "marker" years - the ones that make the year seem even more special, be it a birthday or an anniversary. I think I would have had fun with my fifth anniversary. I might also be celebrating the life of a child - or perhaps more than one child. Who knows. And while I can't help but wonder what life would have looked like, the truth is that it looks very different than how I would have imagined it. If I had written my story, I would not have included this script. But you know what? I wouldn't change a thing.

Don't get me wrong - divorce sucks and I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone. But I am who I am today because of the journey of the last five years. I would not be where I am in life, doing the things I am doing, having had some of the experiences I've had, without this story. I wouldn't be able to be in a counseling program, learning how to walk with other people through their valleys without experiencing my own.

When I walked down the aisle that day five years ago, I was walking toward my groom. But I was also walking to Jesus, saying yes to Him, and pledging to follow Him with my life. The groom might have walked away, but Jesus hasn't. So on this five year mark, I celebrate in new ways. I celebrate life and healing, hope and expectation. I celebrate salvation and redemption and joy. I praise God for loving me enough and caring about me enough to continue His refining of me - even when it's painful and annoying at times. :) And at this time of year, I choose to remember God's faithfulness to me.

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post on what was the first January 14th after my divorce. You can read that entry here if you'd like - it's a pretty good summation of that time in my life. At the end of that entry, I quoted part of a David Crowder song that says this: "After night comes the light, dawn is here.... It's a new day, everything will change, things will never be the same, we will never be the same..." Those words were true then, they're true now, and I think they'll be even truer five years from now. God is faithful to His promises. After night comes the light. He redeems and He restores, and we are never the same.

So happy day of remembrance to me! And a sincere thank you to all of you who have shared the journey with me in some capacity in these five years. I could have never done it alone. Much love, and may God continue to refine as we walk through 2011 together.