Direction.

"God, help me to be open to whatever direction You want to move in my life."

It's the first conscious thought that slips through my mind every morning, without fail. It's a prayer, a pleading, for guidance from my Father. Guidance in my words and actions, definitely, but also guidance in my thoughts and in my heart. Because, quite simply, I don't know what to think, and I don't know what to feel. I don't know how to exist in this situation.

And oh, how I long to do so much more than exist.

But here's where I struggle:
I have no idea what God has store in for the rest of my life. Absolutely no idea.

And while I do trust Him, because I know that His plans for my life are so much greater than anything I could ever ask or imagine, day-to-day living is not always so cut and dry.

For example, I am very aware that every second of every day I am making a conscious decision to live as if my ex-husband will never, ever be a part of my life again. It's a decision I wrestled with for weeks, maybe even months, and it's one I made only after many conversations with some very godly people, and after even more long nights of prayer. And while, to the outsider, it seems like the obvious choice to make (he did, after all, divorce me), I don't know how to make myself stop loving him.

But I also know that in order to maintain my sanity, and maybe, more importantly, parent my children to the best of my ability, I cannot allow the door to that relationship to remain open in my heart and/or mind. Words cannot even begin to describe the damage done to my heart when I allow myself to hope for a certain reaction from him, only to realize I've been lied to yet again. It simply makes my heart hurt.

There is more, though. I still believe that my family could be restored beyond my wildest imagination. I believe I serve a God who is in the business of working miracles, and I believe that my relationship with my ex-husband is not beyond repair.

I also, however, believe, that there could be a beautiful vision in my Father's eyes of my life with someone new, or maybe even a life without a husband. While I will never believe that God's plan for my life included divorce, I do know that God is still good, and that He is still working on my behalf, even if things don't seem to be going my way right now.

And that's the tension of faith, isn't it? Living in this world, but not being of this world. Trying to reconcile the last few paragraphs is next to impossible, and yet, somehow, it's what I'm learning to do. It's how I'm learning to be. It's my reality.

And so God, help me to be open to whatever direction You want to move in my life. Open my eyes so that I might be able to see the ways in which You are moving all around me, working on my behalf. Give me clear guidance, and help the desires of my heart become the desires of Your heart. Amen.