An intense feeling of abandonment weighed over me for the last few weeks when it came to my heart.  I kept moving and doing what I needed to, but overall, I felt kind of in the dark.  It felt like most of my relationships were falling apart and it felt lonely on that level as well.  I started to really think about my actions and my personality and questioning the nature of my relationships and how we got here.  I didn’t want to look at this as a spiritual thing, but I have to start admitting that I am finding more and more comfort in spiritual guidance.  Can’t say that I’ve fully surrendered to that level of faith, but I’ve taken to taking the guidance available to me and trusting there may be more.  So when I started to feel isolated and excluded again, I took it personally, like I had done something to these people.  As I’ve processed some of this, I understand that it had nothing to do with me doing anything, rather it was me waking up to realize that I am not the same person as them and we have differing opinions on the matter.  And truth be told, I understood they were only around if I allowed myself to become a doormat and for them to treat my home like a dumping ground. That hurt and still sent me spinning: how could I still attract this type of person in my life, especially when I’ve done my best to help these people.  I’d already gone above and beyond, the least they could do is respect the boundary of not destroying my things. 

When we wander alone or as relationships start to change or even sever, we can feel lost.  We speak of The Dark Night of The Soul in reference to a tribulation or trial we must go through to get to the next level.  It is not a punishment nor is it the consequence of a faltering soul–It is an experience initiated by God for the purpose of bringing us to a greater state of spiritual maturity. It leads to a break-through in our faith-we come out more mature, more trusting of God’s goodness and presence.  I want to take us to a reminder about what this season really means.  It’s connecting with each other and it’s about finding the light, the hope, the love in all of us and recognizing it in each other.  We have to go through dark periods to understand the light exists.  And often we have to go through it alone because that lesson is for us. Other people can’t walk that journey for us.  Sometimes they are only in our lives to get us to the point of the beginning of that journey. I’m not turning this into a religious conversation, but this concept of the dark night of the soul applies in so many ways.  Sometimes we have to go through multiple iterations of these things to get to where we need to be.  Something like the greater the burden the greater the purpose?  I don’t know.  I will be speaking later next week about how sometimes we have to get to that low point to really get where we need to, but for our purposes here today, I want to share an experience that brought me to a low point. 

In the same text/context discussing this phenomenon, it is noted that “The soul is pained but not hopeless.”  So in that regard, we can hit even our most challenging point and still have hope that we are supported and can turn things around.  Often times we don’t expect it and last weekend threw me for a loop, one I didn’t anticipate by any means.  I’m not sure I feel entirely ready to share all the details of what happened because I’m not entirely sure what happened—I mean this was completely left field.  How and why there were still secrets after all this time, I have no idea.  I found someone really close to me doing something they shouldn’t be—perhaps it wasn’t that they shouldn’t have been doing it, but they shouldn’t have been doing this in the way they were—hiding it from me, lying about it.  Yes there were physical concerns as well but I know this person is experienced enough they wouldn’t do anything that stupid, but it was still an unnecessarily risky thing.  We’d been talking about another individual we know doing the same thing and there was 0 reference to any desire for this person close to me to do the same. I had NO idea that this person wanted to do it.  What bothered me the most besides the lying was the fact that it felt like I had no clue who this person was anymore after finally feeling like I knew them.  These were things they had done years previously and I just hadn’t considered they were still interested in it. 

There are things in relationships that pivot and can’t go back, specific things we can’t undo or take back.  So when someone lies about something important, something they’ve indicated is no longer part of who they are, it’s impactful.  Relationships aren’t supposed to be one-sided, we are supposed to be able to share all of who we are.  When someone keeps part of that to themselves, we’re blindsided because we were making decisions and plans based on what we were shown or told.  To see something opposite contradicts the brain’s pathways for what we thought we knew.  That’s just the physiological component of the psychology behind this.  The emotional part is that we have formed a trust based on the understanding we had and if that is broken, especially when it’s broken over something stupid or for no reason, it becomes difficult to trust that person on the bigger stuff.  That loneliness can lead to a dark night because we feel alone and confused and misunderstood because we no longer understand the situation.  We must navigate that to find our strength.  People’s actions are not indicative of who we are.  It’s always who they are and their perception of us.  If they feel they can manipulate us by presenting a façade and we trust it, that doesn’t mean we are stupid and naïve—it means we are open and caring and someone took advantage.  It hurts to lose that trust but that doesn’t mean all is lost.  That is the dark night that shows us the light we carry for ourselves.