“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” –C.S. Lewis
Sometimes letting go is the hardest part of getting over a divorce. There is so much pain floating around it can be hard to forgive the person that caused it. The only way to truly let go of the pain is to show forgiveness. The memories of what happened still linger and at times can be consuming. Don’t let them. Change your focus. Just because you forgive someone doesn’t mean that you forget what they’ve done. Oprah Winfrey once said, “Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past could have been any different.” You can’t change the past. What’s done is done, now it is time to move forward, for you and for your children.
You are always going to wish that things had turned out differently. In a perfect world it wouldn’t be like this. Your children would have their parents together. You would be living happily as a family; but our perfect world isn’t always so perfect. Things happen, people go their separate ways, and we are left to pick up the pieces. One by one you start putting your life back together. You start to build back what you lost. The wounds start to heal and as you heal you start to move on. Little by little you start to let go of the past and look toward the future. It may not be as you imagined it, but it can still be all that you dreamed it would be. You will still have trials, we all do, but it’s what you do with them that makes the difference. Let go of the past; let go of the pain. Let go and let yourself cross those monkey bars.