I don’t think my mom will ever get it. And I can’t say that I blame her. I never thought I would EVER get it either. In fact, I judged many divorcees for it. Didn’t have a clue how they could even go there. But now, it’s no longer a concept I bashed….it is my life.

It’s that place where you’re done with bitterness.

Perhaps the fact that the love of my life has walked into my life, filling up my tank with joy. Maybe there’s just no space for bitterness anymore when a human’s heart is so big that he walks into our messy life and only stirs up peace.

Maybe it’s the fact that carrying bitterness is much heavier and stressful than just letting go. Maybe the Sunday School teacher was right all along – forgiveness is for you, not for the offender. It’s pretty exhausting to think of the comebacks, the disagreements, the right cut of the eye anymore.

Maybe it’s my daughter’s face when she sees no disdain on my countenance as her father walks up to the door – a nine year old’s release; a nine year old’s confirmation that mom and dad weren’t a mistake. She wasn’t a mistake. And everything is going to be ok.

My conclusion: it’s all of the above and so much more.

This is where we are. Life is different. It looks entirely different than what today was “supposed” to look like in my pretty little handbook of ‘life plans’ ten years ago. It’s messier. Far from cookie cutter. But the imprints on our hearts carry much more eternal value than any picket fence ever could.

I can speak to him audibly. Look him in the eye [sometimes]. Watch him small talk with my new love and the future step father of our children and not shoo him away. I can have a conversation instead of cutting him off with a, “Just text me.” I can hear his voice and no longer miss him. I can open the door and show grace – the little bit of grace my human heart can show. Because in the end, what he did will never fall on me. Never will I condone it, yet never will I have the place to judge it. It is his mess. No longer mine.  And when the mess isn’t yours anymore, you do like any good daughter would do – you pass it on to Abba and you move on, with grace.

Goodbye bitterness. There is no space for you anymore.