looking behind, looking ahead

My heart has been under some scrutiny lately, both by me and by a family member very close to me - close enough that she has permission to say some of the things she said, even if they made me cry (we talked it out and are all okay).

Here's the thing: I love two men. I probably always will, and because of my circumstances, there's no sin in that. Despite how messy my heart can feel at times, this mess doesn't affect how I feel towards the one who could most be affected right now. And the miracle is that he knows this. He gets it. Evidently, he instinctively understands what I find difficult to put into words and is not threatened or frightened or competitive with a past I cannot change (summary: happily married for two years, widowed when very pregnant). When I said below that he's not scared of my crappy baggage, I should have added that he's no more scared of my happy baggage... and I'm so grateful and amazed by his tender and enormous heart.

What this boils down to is that I have, without any external prodding, begun to make some changes in my home and in my behavior. I'm rearranging some of my photos so that, while I still have many of big Blake (the majority have always been in photo albums), I have slightly fewer scattered around my room. I stopped wearing my wedding ring over a month ago, with no fanfare. Though I still have his ashes, I finally know exactly what I'd like to do with them, which was keeping me from moving them up until this point. These and a few other things are helping me to move from the past to the present, and while they feel bittersweet, they also feel timely. My heart has taken longer than I would have expected to heal this much. Certain things still sting. They might always. I do not want to feel as though anyone is scrubbing big Blake from their memories or mementos.

The difference is that I have something - someone - else to look ahead with. That is both terrifying and exhilarating (probably to both of us) as we see where God is leading us. And believe me, I did my very best to scare him off. If he was going to be gun-shy, I needed to know early. I pulled out all the stops and wound up feeling almost nude in how vulnerable and exposed I made my heart... which is why I kept quiet about this on the blog-front for so long. I didn't know if I could trust the poor man not to run screaming for the hills, and I certainly wouldn't have blamed him if he had.

But he didn't. So now, the discussions about my heart and where it is can take a new direction. Feel free to ask. If you see a recurring sin, please point it out to me. But pointed questions about the state of my heart and its readiness for this new thing God is doing? You can stop and rest easy.

My heart is Rob's business now. It's in good hands.