I have a Word document on my computer simply entitled New Thing.  This is what I do when I can tell something’s brewing but I don’t know what yet.  It’s filled with some thoughts, some resources, some possible actions steps, and lots of “???”’s. 

I stumbled upon this quote and felt like it was screaming out my name:  “Traveler, there is no path, the path must be forged as you walk.” -Antonio Machado- 

I feel like I know that God wants to take my marriage and divorce pain and do something with it, I just don’t know what yet. 

But here are a few things I’ve jotted down, to sort of pull back the veil a bit on what I’m currently thinking and praying through. 

Vision: Helping broken women heal and become whole women living redemptive lives. 

Mission: To reach out through authentic words and grace-filled actions to three sets of people…
Women in difficult/abusive/addiction-fraught marriages:  to help them know they’re not alone, and to encourage them to get real help.
Women who have divorced: to help them know they don’t need to be ashamed, and that there is life after divorce.
Pastors/church leaders who work with hurting couples: to educate them in better ways to handle abusive and addiction-filled marriages. 

Now, I’m already sort of doing some of this, but I’m feeling this pull to go deeper and wider. I’m reading and I’m going through some training and I’m talking with women one-on-one to hear their stories of abusive marriages and difficult divorces and sometimes-helpful/sometimes-not-so-much church experiences, and of course, I’m writing. 

But I have no idea what this is all going to look like so I invite you, my sweet blog readers, to pray with me. I want to be guided to my next steps clearly and, bottomline, I want to use my pain and my healing to help other women. God did not bring me through all this for nothing, that I am certain of.