God's plan in my divorce

Here I sit 8 years later with people constantly asking me how I do it…How do you talk to him all the time? How do you let him sit down to dinner with you? How do you treat him nicely? How do forgive him? How do you move to Atlanta with him? How do you have kids that are so well adjusted? How????????????? The answer is obviously God but just saying that really isn’t going to help anybody. The day my husband said he wanted a divorce God did not automatically take away the pain, in fact the day those dreadful words were actually spoken God wasn’t even part of my life. Yeah, I knew there was a God (12 years of Catholic school taught me something) but that was not where I went for answers, comfort, wisdom, strength or, for that matter, anything. But that day (May 27, 2000) I came to the end of myself.
Before the day my husband said he wanted a divorce, I looked to me to find the answers, fix my problems and go my merry way. But something happened to me that day….I was all out of answers, I had found myself in a place of total emptiness. Oh, sure I could drink, smoke, cry my eyes out and whine to my friends -- and I did quite often--but there was no relief in sight for the pain and anguish that follow those fateful words “I want a divorce.”
How did God come into the picture? In a crazy, unforeseen only God can do it sort of way…. That night after my husband said he wanted a divorce I was lying in bed watching him sleep crying my eyes out when I decided to go get a pack of cigarettes (as if that would solve anything?). I got dress and went to the nearest convenience store for a diet coke and a pack of cigarettes. With my problem solvers in hand, I drove to the levee lit a cigarette and called my sister on her cell phone ( it was around 2am--thanks Donna!). Why I called Donna, I’m not quite sure but something in me told me to call her. I remember my words--“Donna, Trey wants a ddddiivvvoorrrce!” And you know what my sister said to me? “Are you ready?” For some crazy reason (we had never discusses this before) I knew what she was talking about and I said “yes” and right there on the Lake Ponchartrain levee at 2am on May 27, 2000 I let God into my life as more than the creator of the universe but as my Father in heaven who loves me and has a plan for me. That night God began a work in me that he is being faithful to complete.
No, I did not wake up the next morning in spiritual bliss. In fact, may 28th was harder than May 27th because the reality of the situation hit me when I was awaken by the sound of my 1 ½ year old crying and the thought of him and his 3 year old brother coming from a broken home was more than I could stand. As I sit here and write about that day the pain of that reality still brings a tear to my eye. No mother or father wants that for their child. "How could he do this????” was all that kept going through my mind. I picked up the Bible my sister had given my youngest at his baptism and begin to read. For the first time in my life the words had meaning and I found a strange familiar comfort--it was a beginning--- but not a miracle cure for my pain.