My Poker Face

"Mum mum mum mah...I wanna hold em' 

like they do in Texas please.." 
"Poker Face" LADY GAGA

It is said that 'great pain yields great art' and thus I am attempting to make myself write my thoughts down as it is all still raw and in the process of sinking in.  I can definitely say that in my unexpected entrance this year into the world of being single for the first time since age 19, I have had to work on my "poker face" (and boy oh boy does it need some work)!!

As I was watching the movie HITCH tonight, I had to laugh at the irony of my favorite scene!  You know the one..Will Smith is teaching Kevin James' character, Albert, how to/how not to dance to impress the girl he likes. Believe it or not, I saw SUCH a parallel between my "game," or "poker face" if you will, and Kevin James in that famous scene.  There is a way you are 'supposed to' do being single: to be cool, to play hard to get, don't seem too interested too soon, or to appear if at all possible cooler than you are.  Then there is the way Albert is: goofy, just being himself, awkward, clumsy, and a just a glorious, hot mess!  As I am barely getting my footing in this new stage, I would say I so identify!!

(MOVIE CLIP:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bH0OXsmsbQ )

At times, the sheer abundance of NEW aspects in my life~new city, new friends, new job, new church, new school for kids, new home/belongings (Well, not "new", but new to me since I had sold most of my stuff prior to leaving California in thinking I was moving up to Alaska for my now ex-husband's job), and yes, new relationship status-from married to single~well, it's just been pretty darn overwhelming at times!

There are moments when I have had the BRING IT ON! attitude~Is the new relationship I allowed myself to be open to going to pan out how I'd thought? No?! Bring it on! Is it always going to be so weird being around my husband of nearly 11 years when he visits Reno from Alaska to see the kids..except OOPSY DAISY...he isn't my husband anymore and sometimes feels a little more like a stranger everytime I see him?!! Well, shee-ooot, bring THAT on too! 

Ain't nothin'..I mean..NO-THING and no part..about divorce that feels natural or comfortable to me. Granted, it may never feel alright or truly sit well in my soul.  It's like you get in this head space where you realize that anything and anyone could be taken away at any given moment. This was always the truth, but this year really brought it all up in my face! The crazy part, as it all starts to be even a little bit normal, is that you know that you are in a situation that will have ripple effects for the rest of your life. These effects will, admittedly, be both good and bad; but at first, it seems you see a lot more of the bad.  Although he in no way would have wanted this divorce, I come back often to the comfort of the simple truth that God is not at all surprised about where I find myself RIGHT now and he most definitely allowed the circumstances that brought me to this point. 

 "Sometimes my heart is on the ground
And hope is nowhere to be found
"Love is a figment I once knew
And yet I hold on to what I know is true
Yes I will rise
Out of these ashes rise
From this trouble I have found
And this rubble on the ground
I will rise
Cause He Who is in me
Is greater than I will ever be
And I will rise"
"Rise" SHAWN MCDONALD
 Listen(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ti1BikZrA)

Sure, there are still days where the pain is so real that I just have to catch my breath. There are these unpredictable waves of sadness that come and go almost without warning.  As sometimes Ella gets upset if I am and I DO NOT LIKE crying around other people, I am relieved that these times come along a lot less now than they did at first. The holidays definitely were a trigger for me to feel the weight of how everything is changing before my eyes. A complete shake up of life as I know it.

"Blessed are the ones who understand

We’ve got nothing to bring but empty hands

Nothing to hide and nothing to prove

Our heartbreak brings us back to You

And it all seems upside down

‘Cause my whole world is caving in

But I feel You now more than I did then

How can I come to the end of me

And somehow still have all I need

God, I want to know You more

Maybe this is how it starts

I find You when I fall apart."

"Fall Apart" JOSH WILSON
Listen(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKISYTwnn0A)

On a brighter side, I am definitely learning life lessons that would have never come in the same way had this all not happened!  I am a planner. I find great comfort in routine and knowing what to expect. This experience has been NONE of that!  I looked for a job off and on for almost three months-doing a Temp Job when I first got here as a Leasing Agent at an Apartment complex. Since then I had probably 4-5 job possibilities where, for whatever out-of-my-hands reason, the door closed right before they worked out. 

About an hour after one of these jobs unexpectedly disappeared, I got a call from one of the pastors at my church. Mind you, if you'd asked me what my dream job would be in moving to Reno, I would have said: Working in some capacity for Living Stones Church. (They are part of the same ACTS 29 NETWORK of churches that my church in Dallas area, The Village Church, is part of and I knew the raw, gospel-centered, non-religious style of how they do ministry). So, the pastor calls me out of the blue to ask me if I am still interested in doing an internship that I had expressed interest in upon first moving to Reno. I knew that it was a TOTAL stretch to think that a single mom could somehow work out the logistics of being able to do an unpaid part-time internship, but I also knew that if God wanted me to do it, HE was going to provide the paid job to go along with it. 

Several days later, I received another out of the blue phone call, but this time from my boss from the Temp Job I had done. She asked me to come in to talk about working for her and as I did so the next day, she utters the words "What would be your ideal schedule to come work for me so that you could do the internship you are wanting to do?" Whaaa??!! After all the ups and downs of job hunting (which is already a humbling and scary time without mixing in the plethora of new aspects of my life and going through a divorce at the same time), it was such a gi-normous evidence of grace to find that God had been working it out in his oh so perfect timing, as if I should have been surprised?! 

Seeing the way God put together the job/internship scenario led me to ask myself some questions: "Why do I feel like I need to know everything right now? Is it a reaction to an extreme loss of control? Is it a protection mechanism where if I know a person, job, situation could let me down, I attempt to shutdown to prepare my heart for it? I know I am called to guard my heart, but still being fresh out of the trauma of divorce, do I just go numb instead of allowing valid emotions to surface and meet them head on to accomplish the purposes for which they were meant (i.e-the pain, the over cautiousness, even the euphoria when things do go well)?  I have learned that while I do need to allow myself to feel, there are limits to how those emotions should be allowed to function in my life. As my Pastor Harvey Turner @ Living Stones Church Reno has said: "Feelings are not a source of truth!" So numbing = bad, but letting feelings overtake or direct me = bad too!!

If you know me well, you know if I am happy, sad, upset, excited, angry..it is written ALL OVER MY FACE!! As I tend to be someone who wants to get confrontation or awkward moments out of the way as quickly as possible, this trait isn't all bad. If you and I aren't on the same page, I want us to get to a point where both of us feel completely understood ASAP. Nothing left unsaid! So, for me, there has never been a point in telling lies or trying to put on a facade as my face betrays me and my emotions are evident to all anyway!

"Sometimes I get tired of pins and needles,
Facades are a fire on the skin.
Oh, I'm growing fond of broken people,
As I see that I am one of them."
"Pins and Needles" MUTEMATH
 Listen(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkFTyWjhb-Y)

The part where I am finding I need more of a "poker face" mentality is in learning how to have the heart/mindset of a Christian single person. Ugh! The heart of a Christian wife is full of ways to love her husband well, to notice and anticipate his needs and serve him well, to be there for him when he needs to feel understood, and to respect him even if you are not in complete agreement with his decisions at times. The heart of a single person approaching the man or woman they like or are dating is SO different! Holding your cards a little tighter and learning how to rock a bit of a "poker face" is apparently part of the equation! 

It's a no brainer that I am going to be coming into any new relationship with the caution that trust issues easily lend themselves to. Furthermore, when you've never been in a truly healthy relationship (as I mentioned in my last post), how do you even know how to be in one? What does it look like? When can you let on that you are into this person and when is it up to them to lead that part in order to allow them to pursue you (and not the other way around)? I have so much to learn!!! ;)

To this, "I wear my heart on my sleeve" kind of gal,  it is strange to hold back thoughts, emotions, affection (mentally and physically) that I had a great deal more freedom of expression when I was married than as a single. I forgot what it means to be at the beginning of a relationship and be OK with being before the point where you know how to define it. As I shared in my last post:

"Your poker face ain’t fooling nobody, nobody here..
Hey brother we’re all learning to love again."
"Learning to Love Again" MAT KEARNEY
Listen(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vepJ-uItI-0)

I can see God teaching me that part of the healing process I am in includes learning how to be content in my singleness and seek wise counsel in learning what a genuinely healthy relationship looks like. Coming from a lifetime of "dysfunction junction what's your function"..that is proving easier said than done. However, we all know that we learn from the hard situations and failures in life-including failed relationships and unwise choices.  I am confident that God has and will use it all.  I am so thankful for how God has put people in my life that have greatly distracted me from the mountains in front of me and have given me pure joy&happiness when it could have been terribly sad.  I can clearly see that I will struggle with being patient in the uncertain times and in the waiting periods God has us all in at one point or another for our good.  This leads me to my last part of what God has been weaving into my new chapter of life...

"By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us...

let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

1 John 3:16a, 18 (ESV)

It has become apparent to me that a key part of my healing process lies in figuring out how I define love~how I give it, how I receive it, and not accepting less than what it was meant to be. I have been thinking a lot about how I have only known conditional love with guys: If you do this for me or look like this or act like this or change this about yourself, THEN I will love you. (Works-based love) At the same time, I see the way God loves me: Without condition, without fail, and pursues my heart completely without me deserving it..that's for sure! That grace-based love has made me aware that I could not settle for anything less than someone who was seeking to love me in the way God does (with his help, of course). 

This single gig can get L-O-N-E-L-Y.  Even with two fantastic, fun kiddos, I have found myself already longing for a companion..but not just any companion~the right one.  As my heart doesn't lend itself to the casual dating scene, I know there may be a significant amount of time before this 'right one' comes along. So, until then, I am striving to find a balance between working on my single girl 'poker face' and, like Albert did in HITCH, finding love by being every bit of who I am (and finding someone who totally digs that)!

"Love; it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be
There is a design, an alignment to cry
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be"
"Sigh No More" MUMFORD&SONS
 Listen(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujv3c0TqLRk)