What do you want to give your life to?

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In the end, that turned out to be the question I had to answer.  Again and again and again. Sometimes the question demanded to be answered with an urgency and intensity that made everything else in my world stop until I faced it.  Other times, the question called me quietly, patiently, waiting to see if I’d pause in my busyness to notice it and pay attention.

When the day came that I had to decide whether or not to end my marriage – this question burned everything outside it to oblivion.  I had wrestled with whether or not to leave my marriage for a bit too long.  Life was becoming impatient.  My husband was becoming impatient.  It was time.  I jokingly called this day “My come to Jesus day.”

I spent the day in silence by the ocean. The whole day was a prayer, “Please show me what is true for me.  Please show me what will most serve all of us – my husband, my daughter, Life, the Whole…and well, me – this tender, earnest being on a journey of waking up fully.

I cried.  I listened.  I cried.  I sat with huge amounts of anxiety and sadness that I don’t even have words to describe.  And then, the question arose, loudly, clearly.  “What do you want to give your Life to?”

In that moment, I could no longer deny this truth that had been present in me the last couple of years – this truth that I knew, but didn’t want to know.  My marriage was done.

At the time, I didn’t even know all the reasons why it was done.  That would take time to unravel and understand.  I simply knew it was done.  And that left me with this question, “What did I want to give my life to?”  If my marriage was done and I stayed, I would be giving my life to safety and comfort, and I would be blatantly denying what was true for me.  I would be denying how Life wanted to move in me.  I would be choosing safety over truth.  Or, I could give my life over to Truth.  I could jump into the unknown and trust this Mystery unfolding to take me wherever It wanted me to go.

So I jumped.  And here is what I discovered.  I can trust this Mystery.  Completely.  If I can give up every idea of how I think things should look, what I think is “best” for myself or others, every should and shouldn’t – and instead – just listen deeply to the undercurrent of Life and let go into it, then things unfold with a magic, grace and ease that I could never conjure up on my own.

I also learned that every time I ignore or resist how Life wants to move or what is true for me, I suffer.  As soon as I catch myself suffering, the questions arises again, “What do I want to give my life to?”  And I get to choose once again.