Betrayal and Loss

Scriptural Reference: Psalm 34:14 ‘Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.’

I’ve been traveling a gruesome and bloody road. Frequently falling down and rising up. Laying quiet while waiting for the pain to resolve. Walking with unsteady gait, eyes blurred, and head muddled. With tear streaked cheeks and aching heart I have stumbled into this moment when I think I might be near to something like acceptance. Something like forgiveness. Something like release and relief. 

About this time of year, 26 years ago, some choices were made and injuries incurred that fractured lives invisibly and visibly.

Recently, I heard a voice, heart, and mind speak to me. Their stated words sounded like a resolution. I think I understood their words to be a firm intent and forthright revelation. Perhaps, they were a declaration of will. Eventually, those words culminated in a quiet unspoken recess and exit with no backward glance. I sat gazing at their receding back and felt irrevocability imprint an indelible ink blot “period” to mark the moment with solemnity and finality.

Since that moment I have felt varying degrees of nothing, perplexity, acceptance, uncertainty, and again the pangs of grief. I have examined my heart and am certain I love them. I am also sure that my heart requires me to protect myself from further injury.

I searched Google to discover what is the opposite of love, when there has been betrayal.

This is what I discovered:

 

I look down at my own hands for signs of blood from the wound(s) my words, my eyes, my tone, my posture and awkwardness may have inflicted. I thought myself correct when I did not accuse or offer rebuttal or reproof for their honest confession. I cannot say for certain that my listener did not feel a dagger pierce their heart while I answered their truth with my truth.


 

It must be said that we agreed, “.... we do not see things the same way...”

I do not expect an apology because I am confident they believe they have done nothing wrong. 

We have no foundation for mutual trust, openness, or the building of a safe community that we can equally occupy because without the most fundamental and minute agreement there is discord, contention, and a wrestling of ideologies. Even in the most contentious of interactions there must be at least 1 point or topic that the 2 share. We have lost our unique 1 that we shared. We have lost trust.

I do not write today because I am complete in this perspective. I do not write today because this personal experience brings me relief. I write because I must unburden myself of the sorrow that aches in my heart. I cannot hide this. I cannot repair this. I cannot remove this.

I must endure this painful grief until I know healing on each level of this griefs pain. I must sit in the ashes of this sorrow until the painful grief is fully healed.

Feel free to shine,

OneLight

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