This Is Not the End: Reflections on Finding Hope During the End of a Marriage

By Sarah Burke

Sarah thought she was moving toward a long-awaited dream: a new adventure on the West Coast with her husband and two adopted children. As the boxes were unpacked, though, so were a lot of surprises that left her reeling as she learned that her marriage was in peril. The life shed built with her husband was suddenly on the brink of ruin. In This Is Not the End, Sarah shares a hopeful perspective and helpful insights on navigating the highs and lows of divorce without losing faith.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9781512791525

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Copyright © 2017 Sarah Burke.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-9154-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9153-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-9152-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017909765

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/19/2017

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1     Cracked Open

Chapter 2     Finding My Wings

Chapter 3     You Are Not Alone, No Matter How Lonely You Feel

Chapter 4     Love Thyself

Chapter 5     Hope Shows Up

Chapter 6     Letting Go, but Not Giving Up

Chapter 7     Setting New Standards

Chapter 8     Making Peace with What Has Passed

Chapter 9     Grief

Chapter 10   Forgiving When You Can’t Forget

Chapter 11   No More Sacred Cows

Chapter 12   Living Inside the Silver Lining

Chapter 13   Learning to Live Well

Chapter 14   The Interim of Waiting

Epilogue

Bibliography

About the Author

Prologue

I saw misty days, my daughter riding her bike on a stretch of road along the Puget Sound, somewhere that seemed familiar but was yet unknown to me. This was in my mind’s eye. I imagined it vividly enough that it felt in some ways real. To a very small and limited extent, I neared it, never really getting close enough, though, to turn that dream into a true memory. Instead, a bend in the road turned me very much in the opposite direction, and I was deposited back in the house I’d left in Maryland a little more than nine bewildering months earlier. Instead of planning family camping trips and exploring the Pacific Northwest with my husband and kids, I was looking for a job. A shocking plot twist left me a single mom, facing a devastating season of loss and an ache so deep that it still lingers. That wasn’t how the story was supposed to unfold.

Some time ago, while reading through writing I’ve done during the past couple of years, I came across one document titled, What I Know So Far. I opened it, curious to find whatever wisdom I’d left for myself, only to discover it was blank. I had a good laugh and updated my Facebook status to share in the humor. One friend commented that the book might be a bestseller because so many people could relate.

Unlike you, (insert snicker) I’ve always wished I was smarter, more politically astute, more educated, more talented, more well-traveled. I’ve wished I was more patient, more humble, a better mom, friend, and the list goes on and on. I don’t know enough about social justice, or theology, or history to impress anyone. I don’t know so very many things. I’ve aspired to more dreams that have fallen flat than I care to share, including the loss of my marriage and plans for a future I’d imagined to be pretty picture perfect.

Then life handed me a lemon—one so sour that I’m still mastering the mixture for making lemonade. My plans, my expectations, were altered in what felt like mere seconds, and all those ideas about what was next crumbled around me when my life took a very different turn. Among my expectations had been all sorts of good things, good ideas, healthy hopes.

When I was a kid, I can recall lying in bed one night, listening to an animal screaming outside my window. A fox or a deer, maybe a raccoon—whatever it was, it wailed in a way that sounded as if it was troubled. I didn’t know animals, so hidden they are during the day, could make such sounds. In the darkness, though, there it was, its voice shrill and intent on drawing attention to itself. In the darkness, it found its voice.

Some days I would love to change my story, to feel less disappointed by plans that have now fallen by the wayside and, instead, to be more sure of what I have to offer. Yet, all any of us really has to give is ourselves, no escaping the thoughts, habits, and experiences that have made us just who we are at this very moment. When we try to be anything else, people can sense it.

What is it that you’d re-write if you could? Look there. Listen for the wail, trying to get your attention. What is that voice telling you about yourself? What does that voice know that in real time you struggle to accept about yourself because you’d rather be more of something else? Could it be the very thing that punctuates your unique narrative, turning what may have been unsuspecting about you by day into a groan of sufferable wisdom by night? Are you willing to speak on behalf of that voice, instead of the one in your head that tells you to be more of whatever it is you think will make you more impressive, sound smarter, look cooler? For that’s your story. That is what you know.

What I am confident of now are the truths that surfaced after hitting rock bottom. I did not want to find my voice through hardship and loss, but in the darkness the call began. The wail that emerged has become a rally cry, reminding me that I am strong; that God is still good; that I will, indeed, be okay; and that I want to instill the same hope in others when they aren’t so convinced. For now, that’s enough. It’s what I know thus far.

CHAPTER 1

Cracked Open

I had just watched movers meticulously number our belongings and load them one by one into the back of a moving truck. I had bade farewell to dear friends who still felt new to me. Having met just a few years prior in our young adulthood, we’d enjoyed our child-free years with long dinners over wine and long-winded conversations around campfires. Together we’d transitioned into parenthood, as we each started families. With the comfort of those friendships behind me, I anticipated the unexplored landscape of the west coast.

Only two years earlier, I left my job on the pastoral staff of a church to stay home with my daughter, not yet two years old. My days were spent searching for the best playground, babysitting for extra cash, and planning the next play date. Family had not come easily to me and my husband. After years of infertility, we decided to adopt, beginning with our daughter from Ethiopia, followed by our son, barely two years later, also from Ethiopia. This seemed a natural path to follow after our stint in that beautiful country where we’d lived and worked as volunteers during the first few years of our marriage. Many dusty rides down rural roads, one dangerous car accident, a bout of malaria and countless memories of dear friendships with the people of Gambella later, Ethiopia had pressed itself deeply into our hearts.

Just before the move west, we’d celebrated our thirteenth wedding anniversary with dinner one last time at one of our favorite restaurants in Baltimore. The next morning, my husband packed up one of our cars to drive it to Washington, while I held down the fort and waited for the movers to arrive. Ours had been an easy relationship, outside of the ups and downs that college can do to a young teenage romance. We’d met our senior year of high school when we were seventeen, eyes set on adventure, and our hearts full of optimism and expectation about what we’d do, where we’d go. It was an easy love for me. We used to joke about how many miles we had walked together, beginning in our teens in our local arboretum or spending countless evenings strolling around one of the many community parks in our neighborhood.

He’d been my best friend. I had banked on that. I had expected there would be a rough patch, yet I trusted. Even as distance crept in and I couldn’t discern the far-away look in his eyes, I believed our friendship could get us through anything, until one day, it didn’t.

I couldn’t put my finger on it; I couldn’t find any evidence. Beginning with a quiet sense that something was off, it grew into a nagging in my heart that something was not right. But it was just a feeling. So, I ignored it. Because the facts didn’t support the feeling, at least none that I had uncovered. After all, why would we be living our dream to move out West if there was anything as horrible as a divorce on the horizon?

My worry was not concrete at the time. I was in the throes of early motherhood, with two children, ages three and barely two. Staying home for a few years had me feeling isolated and without value. I felt unloved and unseen. I didn’t connect those feelings at the time with the state of my marriage. After all, day in and day out, things felt pretty normal. Moving held the promise of adventure; a fresh outlook on the future in a place that we had both dreamed of living. So together we undertook the move, even as my intuition gnawed at me.

Just three or so weeks into my new surroundings, I attempted to settle into a house that was larger than we really needed in a neighborhood that was unsettling in its dual personality. Across the street, in view of the window, was a home overtaken by vines that crept up its sides. My daughter, just turning four that December, asked me why the house was, ripped, meaning to her that it was broken in some way. Next to that was an adorable, newly-renovated bungalow owned by a couple who recently had a baby. The houses lining the streets were suspended in an urban transition that couldn’t sort itself out, a metaphor of sorts for the months that lay ahead.

My husband had been on a business trip, returning for a brief weekend before another work-related flight would take him away for another ten days to Africa. Working for an international relief and development non-profit required frequent visits to partner organizations all over the world. Lonely for adult conversation, I was eager for the chance to reconnect after the whirlwind move that was behind us. Saturday passed without an inkling of interest from him to catch up after his travels. After a run and a trip to the barbershop that afternoon, he concluded the day by stowing away in our bedroom for the evening to read. I sat on the couch,