You know the amazing thing about faith is how fleeting it is. One incident can completely erode faith. And I know firsthand.
Many years ago, I was in school working on my master’s degree and I met a man. I had no idea that he would become one of the greatest influences in my life.
When I returned to school for my master’s I was at the peak of my spiritual life. I was devout in the church and my focus was Jesus Jesus Jesus. I had “rededicated my life to God” and decided that I was going to do whatever it took to live a life of “purity.” I gave up all secular television and music. I only watched kid’s programming and the news, outside of Christian music and tv shows. I didn’t want to risk seeing or hearing something that would cause me to sin.
And then I went away to school and on my first day of registration I met this man who would become my undoing.
I’ll spare you the details, and just say that after he became involved in my life my ethics and morals went out the window. I was doing things I would NEVER do just to keep him. I became dedicated to him and no longer to God, and my life was going down down down.
I began to lose … focus… autonomy…. money…. my health… my friends, family, freedom… and eventually my faith.
So much kept going wrong once I brought him into my life. It was like the Universe was shouting “Run, Forrest!” and I wasn’t catching on. Unfortunate incident after unfortunate incident happened, maybe in an attempt to wake me up and slap some sense into me, but I didn’t get the message. I was all in, dedicated, and trying daily to prove to him that I was loyal, committed, and worthy. As my life, my dreams, my health, my relationships, and my focus in school unraveled, I turned on God. I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t support us, wouldn’t help us, I mean we were dedicated to doing the “Lord’s work.” Without a ring… ever… I took him as my head. I followed him around like a puppy, constantly doing all I could to prove to him that I was his “ride or die.” I even slept in our car with him in a Kroger parking lot… multiple nights. He was dedicated to God (apparently) and I was dedicated to him.
Seeing how bad our lives had become on his journey to follow God’s voice, I became increasingly frustrated. I was following what he believes God told him and was living off of baby carrots, peanut butter, and 2 percent milk (that we kept cold by leaving it on the roof of our car at night). I wasn’t receiving messages of confirmation, but I figured God liked men more so didn’t feel the need to fill me in on what was happening with our life. I could see it was tanking, but God had stopped answering my prayers long ago so I didn’t have anything to say to “Him” anyway. I had dedicated my entire life to God, being a bible thumping, Jesus tee wearing, devoted as heck Christian (I even had one that said “Crack a bible. Get high with Jesus,” that I proudly wore to high school!) And for that dedication, all I had to show for it was a million bad days.
I was living in a roach infested apartment with no furniture. Correction, we had one piece of furniture—one of those polyester folding chairs that slides into the matching polyester bag with the shoulder strap. Yeah… we had nothing but our clothes, linens, my computer, and my beautiful puppy.
BTW… I was 6 months pregnant. When we arrived at our new apartment we had one more furniture item, a full sized air mattress. But my larger than life “fake fiance” refused to let the pregnant woman have the bed while he slept on the floor so he climbed onto that air mattress with me night after night until it eventually gave under the pressure of his weight plus mine. I hated him for that. But of course I never said anything. Instead I grabbed our towels and clothes and stuffed them in pillow cases and made myself a pallet on the floor. It was terribly uncomfortable, with all my pregnant woman aches and pains. I hid under a fitted sheet tucked under my head, and feet and all around me, to keep bugs off of me while I slept.
I was in hell.
My life had been a sh*t storm from the second he entered it, but it wasn’t until a decade later that I truly saw the pattern. From declining grades and falling ill, to getting into a car accident the day we were to move in together. (Yep. As I was pulling over to park at our apartment, I took the side mirror off an Escalade with our U-Haul.) One day, I accompanied him for an outdoor workout, and got hit in the face with a golf ball and cracked my jaw. (He, of course, was kind enough to drop me off at home—not the ER—then returned to the forest preserve to complete his workout.) We got evicted (twice), couch surfed, slept in our car, lost our minivan (that was totaled when he allowed a teen driver to use it to practice for her driver’s ed exam). I gave up my family, my friends, lost my dog, and had more embarrassing moments than I can count.
I prayed in vain for support all our years together and finally accepted that God was not listening. So I decided to stop talking to “Him.” I literally in one final prayer told God to eff off, and that I was done.
Surprisingly, the heavens didn’t open with one targeted lighting bolt to take me out. Nothing happened. I accepted the silence and when problems arose, I took the approach of a realist. No more nonsense praying. God wasn’t taking my calls, so I decided to hang up my faith.
What I realized recently, is that although I have rebuilt my spiritual life and have chosen a bit of a different approach regarding the presence of God, my faith is still up in the air.
Although that relationship was over a decade ago, I still haven’t found my way back to hope, joy, or most importantly, faith.
Sometimes we lose more than just time in toxic relationships. We lose our family, friends, goals, dreams, possessions, health, and credibility…. And sometimes we lose even more.
So today I am writing to you honestly to say that I acknowledge that although I lost plenty of tangible things, the greatest loss was my faith. And I don’t mean my religious affiliations. I mean my ability to believe that more is possible, that things get better, that the universe supports me.
It’s been just in the last few days that a shift began within me. I am feeling the lens of hopelessness lifting from my eyes. I am beginning to believe again… and deeper than I ever have before.
I’m not putting my belief and faith in others, but in the divinity that lies within me. I am taking less outside advice and tapping into the higher voice within me and listening for guidance. I am seeing ways to combine my gifts and share them with my audience. I am accepting that I have something of value to say.
If you have found value in my blog posts, I believe you’re really going to love my podcast. I currently post DAILY and it’s FREE! You can listen on SoundCloud or (as of two days ago) on Youtube. I will continue to blog here bi-weekly (approximately once every 10-14 days). If you want more of my work, words, and insights, I highly recommend you check out my new podcast Share & Let’s Live! with Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist. For the month of August, I’ve been focusing on inner healing regarding the use of our imagination. It’s a powerful series and you can catch it daily. Links & a preview below.
Maybe you can relate to bits of my story. Maybe there’s a person, or a past incident, that kicked the faith legs right from under you. Maybe you had a bad relationship that taught it’s unsafe to love. Maybe you’ve had so many bad breaks that you no longer experience joy….
I wrote this post for you. We get to heal from what we’ve been through. We can grab the lessons and slowly discard the pain. We can see these incidents as moments rather than predictions of what life gets to be for us. We can take our lives back a little at a time.
Let’s begin to seek our inner guidance for clarity on next steps we can take to restore our lives and our core values. Maybe we rewrite a few rules on how we know what to believe in, whom to love, and what qualifies as joy. Maybe we breathe deeply in nature and slowly take the trek back from lost to found. I won’t tell you specifically what you need to do, because I believe our answers are within.
I just know it’s time to slowly work our way back to peace, love and faith. I am so ready. Are you?
Blessings,
Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist
Don’t forget to check out my new podcast on YouTube! It’s also available on SoundCloud. Tons of empowering episodes to listen to there. New episodes will be on both platforms. Blessings, always.
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