The wound is the place where the light enters you. –Rumi

An interesting thing happens once you get divorced – people immediately start asking you if you’re dating again. I get it – we want our friends to be happy, to find love again. And I think most divorcees want this for themselves too. I certainly did because I knew that the holes in my heart would slowly be plugged, allowing me to stretch the muscles of my heart again. That my capacity to love would be renewed stronger than the anchor of defeat weighing me down.

But you can want something and still be terrified of it. After enduring that season two years ago of immense turmoil and stress, love seemed like a distant blip on my radar. I had a vision for my future, but didn’t know when I would be ready to put myself in a position to risk that level of pain again.

It made me think of the people I know who seem totally undaunted by rejection. They have no problem putting themselves out there and, if and when rejected, seem to bounce back believing in love just as much as they did before. I used to think these people were a little brave, and a lot stupid.

But I now have a theory about those kinds of people, and it’s this: men and women who have been turned down – whether from a romantic relationship or a job interview or anything in between – experience an injury. They find themselves a little beaten and bruised, and maybe even bloodied. But they eventually find themselves standing on two feet. Surviving. Maybe believing that everything happens for a reason, and quite possibly, still living a crazy, good life.

Then I realized I was one of them: a fellow survivor. Someone who didn’t have to be ruled by fear. A person who could laugh, experience joy, see the world, jump out of a plane, snowboard in Patagonia, and put myself out there to find love again. In other words, a woman living abundantly, squeezing the marrow out of the life I was making for myself despite having been rejected in the most profound ways by the person who was supposed to love me forever.

See, although heartache in the midst of any kind of rejection is real and can be devastating, it doesn’t permanently knock you down if you don’t let it. God is in the reconstruction business. Like a plastic surgeon, the Holy Spirit goes in and does a heart graft if you surrender, do the work, and then let him do his thing.

And then one day, after many days, you look in the mirror and start to recognize yourself again. You see the light in your eyes that made you believe you would live an extraordinary life, and realize that you already are.

[Photo: Skydiving over the Remarkables in Queenstown, New Zealand; August 2017]