I guess I should give a little background about why we’re where we are in life and why I may have this obsessive need to prove myself and let those around me know that I’m ok, that I’m living a good life and being blessed because of it.

Where do I even begin??  It’s such a long and complex story.  Part of me just wants to copy and paste the Facebook messages that went back and forth between my family.  I feel like they tell the story a lot better than I ever could.  Hmmm… That could be a really good book…

So, my entire world basically crumbled a week before my wedding.  All because of Facebook.  No, not all because of Facebook.  Facebook was just the means through which these pent up emotions and resentments came spewing forth.

For the couple of years leading up to this event, I’d been experiencing a massive paradigm shift.  I grew up as the perfect little Christian girl.  Baptized when I was 10, active in church all through high school, leader in youth events, award-winning straight A student – perfection.  I loved Jesus and everyone knew it.  I was idolized by my parents and resented by my siblings.

I went to college at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana – just about an hour and a half away from my small hometown in the Midwest.  I studied lots of things – changed my major five times in fact.  I studied religion, language, music, writing, and then ended up with a degree in elementary education with a focus in language arts and humanities.  For my first two years, I lived just off campus in the Christian Student Fellowship house – an old frat house that was renovated for the college ministry.  It was a dorm room for Christians and the mecca of the organization.  My third year, I had an apartment with a friend from home, and by my senior year, I was married and lived with my husband and our dog.

My husband and I were the perfect Christian couple.  He, a pastor’s son, was a hot, tattooed, musician who played in the praise band and offered deep, intellectual thoughts during our small group conversations.  Everyone thought we were perfect together, and we were, ideally.  I was a virgin until we were married, and the thought of living together or having sex before being married was just completely out of the picture.  It would let my parents down too much.  And it was too big of a sin to be considered a respectable decision by our church family.  So, sure, we loved each other and wanted to spend our lives together.  Why not just go ahead and get married?  So we did.

By a year in, things had gone sour.  We’d experienced some things in life that really make you grow and change drastically.  We both grew.  We both changed.  And we both came to realize that we didn’t really love each other.  We were completely, head-over-heels in love with the idea of our life and marriage together.  Everything was going right on paper.  But one-on-one, there wasn’t much there.  Not the spark and fire we’d felt before or desired to feel again.  Luckily, we were both in agreement, and we were able to end our marriage amicably, though suddenly and tragically as viewed by our friends and family.  No one really understood why we split up.  Granted, most didn’t know the entire truth and what exactly went on, as they didn’t need to.  It’s no one’s business but ours.  But it was tough on the family, and I found myself having to defend my actions and being told that my divorce was a sin and disgrace to God.  It was terrible.

Thus began the massive paradigm shift.  What did God really think about divorce?  Where do we draw the line between being obedient and being able to live a happy life?

So fast forward a few years to the week before my second wedding (yeah, I was kind of surprised I was marrying again so soon, too).  I’d basically had a complete change within and was no longer the strong Christian girl others thought me to be.  In fact, I didn’t even consider myself a Christian anymore since I didn’t believe that people with religious views other than Christianity were going to hell, or that hell even existed for that matter.  I had changed, but I didn’t really tell anyone.  I still went to church with my parents occasionally.  I used the right vernacular when speaking with family and friends – God, pray, sin, heaven, hell, etc.  You could say I was being deceptive and manipulative because I kind of was.  But it wasn’t out of ill intent.  It was out of fear.  Fear of what would happen if I expressed how I really felt.  Fear that my parents would never look at me the same, that I would break their hearts.  Fear that my grandmother would die thinking that I was going to burn in a fiery lake for eternity.  So I kept it all to myself.  Deep down, we all believe in the same thing, so why fuss about semantics?  I still valued and appreciated my Christian upbringing.  There were just some big picture things I didn’t agree with.  When I searched inside myself and followed my heart, what I’d been calling the conviction of the Holy Spirit, what my heart was telling me went against what those in my church were telling me.  It made me question everything.  I’d finally decided that no matter what the noise around me was saying, I had to do what I felt was right for me.  Not what I felt others wanted from me.

I started to live life just enjoying the present moment and experiencing all I could experience.  All while acting in love and following my heart, showing compassion and spreading positivity.

Then I met a man.  A complex, intriguing, charming, irresistible man.  He literally rocked my world and rescued me from the doubt-filled waters this shift had thrown me into.  He helped me believe in myself and know that there was nothing wrong with following my own truth, that I wasn’t a bad person or a sinner if I didn’t perfectly fit into this mold set forth by a falsified dogma.  He helped me be comfortable being me, to take pride in it, in fact.  He helped me navigate these new beliefs and explore what my inner truth was trying to tell me.

He didn’t come without his own baggage though.  He had two toddlers and was recently divorced after his wife confessed she didn’t love him anymore.  He’d battled depression since he was a teenager, had some abandonment issues due to his divorce and his biological father not being in the picture, and (like me) was a little bitter at the Church trying to tell him what was right for him instead of allowing him to follow his own intuition.  I was good for him, though – just like how he was good for me.  I reminded him that he was a good man worthy of love, and he reminded me that no one can tell me what is right for me but me.  Our first date at a coffee shop was spent talking about all sorts of political and philosophical things.  His mind intrigued me (and it still does).