Knock and the Door Shall Be Opened

Home:  population around 6,800 people; one local high school that also caters to smaller surrounding towns; Bojangles, McDonald’s, Burger King, Hardees, Subway, Captain D’s, KFC, two Chinese joints, three Mexican cuisine restaurants, some mom & pop eateries, Belk, and of course the spot to see everyone you ain’t seen all week—Walmart.  (Forgive me if I failed to mention someplace you deem mentionable.)

Recently, an out-of- towner who’d just moved to and set up business in Lake City, asked me what brought me back to the area.  Not wanting to share my sad song, I replied, “There’s no place like home, right?”  His raised eyebrows accompanied by his silence let me know that he could think of a few better places than my home town.  Yeah, I understood what he saw and what he didn’t see.  But still for me, home was safety, trust, calm and escape—a new start. 

However, after a few months home, I became restless.  I wanted to jump start my new life.  I needed to feel vibrant and alive again.  I needed to discover who I was.  I mean, explore who this husbandless woman with two children to provide for was.  In Louisiana, I was a minister’s wife, a mother, and a teacher.  I was comfortable with who I’d become.  My separation, however, seemed to change everything.  Yes, I was still a mother and a teacher, but I was no longer a wife.  I had no one to take care of me.  I was saved and single once again.  I found it very hard to go back to the saved and single woman I was before marriage.  I now had two kids and I was living with my parents--different kind of saved and very different kind of single, if you know what I mean?  At this point in my life, I couldn’t remember how to get back to that place if I tried.  And a large part of me didn’t want to find it again anyway.  I wanted something new and exciting.  I wanted to just get lost in life.  Although I was satisfied with the Louisiana Melva, I couldn’t live the Louisiana Melva’s life in Lake City.  In Lake City, I always found myself trying to explain myself to people--needing other people to understand and accept the place that I was coming from and the place that I wasn’t in.  (This blog’s explanation is different because I have accepted where I am in life, and I oddly appreciate what I have been through and what I am going through.)

I wanted what my married life didn’t offer me.  I wanted the freedom to simply be!  This was a struggle for me:  Transforming myself, so to speak.  How do you do that on your own?

It’s funny how a girl’s first pair of skinny jeans, some cute heels, and a cool new hairstyle can change her perception about herself.  Well, that’s exactly what it did for me.  The more “hip” me made me feel pretty again, confident, and…wait for it…flirty!  I liked it! 

(I still had trouble fitting this new found awareness of myself into the spiritual box that I’d lived in for so long.  My box had sound, firm walls with windows in them.  I could see the world but I was safely tucked away in God’s domain.  I believed nothing could touch me--not that I hadn’t had any trials…had many of them; but I was a good example of what the “church” considered  a good moral leader, so of course I was safe, I thought.  The new me kicked and screamed and beat at the box’s door.  This side of me wanted—not out—but just for a wall or two to maybe fall down. Well, one thing I’ve learned is that if you beat at a door hard enough and long enough, God will allow it to be opened.  However, that doesn’t mean it’s the door that God intended for you to walk through.)

The last weekend of September 2011 was Lake City High School’s Homecoming weekend.  I planned to attend the Friday night activities.  It was while attending the Homecoming festivities that the spiritual box’s door flung wide open.  And the storm that raged outside that door, blew all the walls down…I met someone!

Okay, it wasn’t a first time meeting.  I’d known him since I was a child.  As a pre-teen, I had the biggest crush on him, and there he was standing outside at the game with his friends.  I spoke to him; I was very attracted to him, still…

I don’t think that it is proper to share all the details about how he and I hooked up or our relationship thereafter; but know this, I fell in love.  What ensued between us even until now has been a beautiful, passionate, and crazy roller coaster of a ride. 

It all happened so fast.  Not without warning signs, though:  “Mel, you’re not divorced, yet!” my parents cried; Melva, it is still adultery even if you’re separated, my Bible reminded me; “Think of your children.  They need time to heal, too!” the voices, they were there, but how do you stop a roller coaster when it is at the pinnacle of its tracks?

I had what I wanted, Love.

So we rode until our crazy roller coaster…(wheels screeching)… I…(metal crashing)…AM…(cars flying)…PREGNANT…derailed!  Jesus, help me!

Where do I go from here?  Read next week to see...

This has been Melva’s TRUTH.

Remember:  I am not the good news—Jesus is!

 **One Day I’ll Tell My Kids…  Entry #2

Dear Kids,

Mommy has been through some tough times, but a lot of my hardships, I caused on myself.  I just could not be content in life, at times.  That was because I didn’t believe who I was in Christ, and because I didn’t love myself just as God made me.  I constantly wanted to reconstruct who I was.  My remodeling was always a failure.  That’s because reconstructing or remodeling isn’t my job--it’s God’s!

I have tried to teach you to love who you are as a girl, as a boy, as a Christian.  I know that there will be times when it seems as though you need to add some sugar or maybe a pepper to your pot of life.  But remember, God is the Chef.  He adds the ingredients.  You only stir, or fan the flames.  Let God lead you.  It’ll save you much heartache in the future, I promise.  However, when you take over the cooking (because every Christian at some point in his walk tries to take control), be quick to release the Chef’s apron back to God or you will burn (like Mommy did lots of times).  But even if you burn, know that God can make a great casserole out of what we would throw away.  Don’t ever give up!

Be who you are.  Love each other and yourselves.  Live life as the Word of God teaches.  You’ll find that you can be happy and content…in success or failure.

Love you much,

Mommy