Finding a New Balance After Divorce and Child Loss

Lately I’ve been feeling stuck in a kind of twilight zone. I’ve been living with part of my heart in the past while the rest of me has moved on towards the future.

I’ve been walking on eggshells trying desperately to avoid upsetting the balance between my old life and the new as I take each step towards the future that’s meant for me. It’s been exhausting.

Over the weekend the balance I had been hoping for was shattered. And it absolutely broke my heart. Divorce is tricky, and keeping a balance between two families after heartbreak can be impossible in this broken world we live in.

I have shed a lot of tears the past two days.

Then I came across a quote this morning that helped lift me back up:  “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.” —  C.S. Lewis

I realized  I can no longer live in this grey area. I can’t change a thing about the past that led me to where I am right now. But I can choose to take my foot out of the past and move towards the future. I can choose to start fresh and take each new step towards the future with true joy, peace and dignity.

It’s time to embrace the beauty in this new season of life and live life as the woman I have become as the result of my life and this eventful year.

This past year was one of the worst years of my entire life. I had to make countless heartbreaking decisions and I spent far too much time in utter despair and chaos.

But 2017 was also the year I finally found myself, and learned how to break the unhealthy patterns and sadness that had caused my heart to break so completely.

I am far from perfect and I will always be the first to admit that. But I will no longer live in a state of fear and anxiety. This life has been hard enough without taking on everyone else’s impossible expectations and judgments.

Life is too short to live in bitterness. If there’s anything I’ve learned from all the losses in this life, it is that tomorrow is never promised. And each moment is far too precious to waste.

Choose to love wholeheartedly and to see the good in others.

Serve without expectation.

Live and love like Jesus in spite of all the brokenness.

Life is too short to do it any other way.

The Olivia Caldwell Foundation is a 501c3 nonprofit that raises money for pediatric cancer research in memory of Olivia Caldwell, who passed away from brain cancer at 20 months old in October 2013. To date we have given $225,000 to pediatric cancer research. You can learn more and donate by visiting www.oliviacaldwellfoundation.org.

This post was originally published on the Olivia Caldwell Foundation blog.

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