When I was younger, I assumed that if you did things “the right way,” life would make sense and work out. This is one of the reasons I clung to organized religion and a church community: the message was that if you kept doing “all the things,” like volunteering at the church, then God would bless you with the desires of your heart.

This isn’t how life works.

Tragedies happen, life takes unexpected turns, and sometimes people have fantastic starts, but crash and burn at the end. I recently read Strangers — A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden, which shows that in one moment, the idyllic life can come crashing down without warning.

Author and lawyer Belle Burden had a life most of us only dream of.  Some articles refer to Belle Burden as an heiress, but I don’t think that fits here. Belle Burden is the granddaughter of legendary magazine editor, fashionista, and socialite Babe Paley. Burden was born into immense privilege, and while it would be easy to be snarky and say, “Poor little rich lady with her apartment in New York City and home on Martha’s Vineyard, whose husband left her. She can cry into her all of her wealth and privilege.”

Strangers — A Memoir of Marriage chronicles the implosion of Belle Burden’s twenty-year marriage.  Burden learns of her husband’s affair when the other woman’s husband calls her to reveal the infidelity. After this shocking revelation, Burden’s marriage begins to unravel, and she wonders if she ever really knew her husband at all.

As a single woman reading this story, Burden and her ex-husband’s love story sounded like a romance novel. They had chemistry; her husband pursued her, he knew he wanted to marry her right away, they married soon after getting together, and welcomed children soon after. Burden’s ex-husband climbed the corporate ladder and earned money while Burden stayed home to raise her children. Even as I read the book, I was trying to latch on to clues that her husband would abandon her twenty years down the line.

There were some questionable actions from Burden’s ex-husband, such as altering the prenuptial agreement and Burden not knowing anything about their joint finances, but there were no sirens blaring, “Stay away! This man is going to have an affair and leave your family in twenty years.” In the end, the man Belle Burden loved created a family and a life that turned out to be a complete stranger. It offers an authentic look at how life can implode and be slowly rebuilt, with lots of compassion and care from ourselves and those who love us.

It is easy to judge the situation from the outside looking in, but I have seen enough in my forty-something years to know that all of us are one mistake away from stupid. I live by the old proverb, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Nobody knows for sure how their story will turn out because life is unpredictable.  The one who seemed to have it all together may fall victim to drugs, and their life falls apart. The person who screwed around for most of their adult life but decided to get their life together may be the one who flourishes.  We may believe we have the formula and cheat codes to life, but we don’t because we don’t know how the story will end.

“And doesn’t it all look different? Wouldn’t your own story look different if you knew how it was going to end?” – Belle Burden

Those words resonated with me because we only know the elements of the story we have access to at the present moment. None of us can predict with any certainty how our story will unfold or end.

Burden chronicled her story in this book and began the process of rebuilding her life and continuing to write her life story, even after it took that unexpected turn.

As I am in this transition season, I am letting go of the rigid ideas I had about how my life is supposed to look, which boxes I am supposed to check, and the confining, constricting guidelines for an “ideal life.”  There are no guarantees that what others paint as an idyllic life will be fulfilling or turn out the way we hope.

Spring Awakening often comes after a dark winter

Most often in life, our spring awakening comes after a dark winter season when life implodes, we experience tremendous grief, and it all falls apart.

When it all falls down, we must rebuild.

When we awaken, it’s time to stretch and set about the task of rebuilding and renewing.

Hard winter seasons have a great way of humbling us

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke reminds us that the best things in life will also humble us:

“This is how we grow: by being defeated by greater and greater things.”

I have gotten my behind kicked these last ten years, and I have especially gotten humbled in the last six years. I am not yet grateful for it, because I don’t quite see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I am getting there.

I have grown exponentially from 2020 to 2024. I do not believe I would be able to handle this next era of my life had this not happened.

I would not know without a shadow of a doubt that I am meant for more and to never settle for the short stick.

I would not have known I could survive the WORST moments of my life and still be standing only by the grace of God.  I would not know that God indeed provides for all my needs.

I would not know that church and organized religion are not the sole means of connection with God and, in fact, stifle many of us from being who God has called us to be.

I would not have understood the power of connections and friendships, or the void that comes when you don’t have them anymore. I now know that it is my job to invest in people and nurture and cultivate my relationships.

In the process of losing my identities as a “perfect person”, churchgoer, and uber religious, I came back to myself.  I am authentically myself: spiritually centered and grounded, dramatic, ridiculous, open, high-maintenance, curious, and loving.

The Vernal Equinox

On March 20, the season officially changes to spring as we observe the vernal equinox. Some cultures celebrate spring as the official start of the New Year because it symbolizes awakening and new life. In the Bible, festivals such as Passover are celebrated in the spring, which makes sense because they symbolize a new beginning for the Israelites.  Jesus was crucified during the Passover, which makes sense because his death began the new covenant.

Any Christian who believes that observing the changes in seasons is pagan has not read their Bible.

I am choosing to do a five-day fast and prayer/grounding to center myself as we officially head into this new season. I can already tell that my mindset has changed tremendously over the last three months, and I want to make sure I am anchored before life really takes off this spring and fall.  I believe it is going to get WILD in a good way.

I will be excited to share my insights next week.