A complete change in perspective

I had a conversation with a fellow photographer the other day that ended up bringing about a serious change in my perspective of the period immediately before and during my divorce. Prior to this conversation I had learned to forgive my now ex-wife for the divorce and all of the chaos which it brought with it, but I still looked rather negatively upon that time. To me it was a time of murkiness, darkness and destruction, and I could see no good coming from it. Much like the photo to the left I could see very little light in that situation. However, it seems that God actually had a plan which required me to go through that painful time in my life.

I had already gotten to the point where I acknowledged the good that the ex-wife did in teaching me how to teach Byzantine Iconography and that she also did me a favor in challenging me to learn portrait photography. While teaching her to paint Byzantine Iconography she taught me how to teach others. When I first started teaching her, I was rather harsh in giving directions. By the time I had completed teaching her and she was competent on her own, I had become much more gentle in explaining the art that I love so passionately. With the photography, prior to meeting her I photographed the city of Pittsburgh, my dogs, my rose garden, cars, etc but never got into portrait and event photography. She told me no-one could take a good photo of her, and I accepted the challenge to prove her wrong. She also blessed me in buying me my first upgrade from my original DSLR and upgraded lenses. And yet, because of the way it all came crashing to an end, I never viewed her as a blessing.

I did not view this as a blessing due to the way it all unraveled and ended. Looking back, I could see the unravelling began 18 months before she left, and yet even during that time I seemed powerless to do anything to stop the unravelling. I knew one or two of the major players who were working to convince her to leave, but I did not know the whole story until after she had left, and divorce was filed for. Some of the people who I thought were my closest friends and even family, all had a major hand in her leaving. When she left, I was devastated. I could see the writing on the wall, and yet the way it all happened hit me like a hammer. I ended up losing my house, most of the people who I thought were my friends, my entire extended family. Everything. And yet at that time what I could not see was that none of that, the house, the people who called themselves my friends, the extended family had any place in the next stage of my life. The thing is, as miserable as our marriage had become, I was rather comfortable where I was in life. I would not have left on my own. I took the vows of marriage seriously and was not about to break them or bring them to an end. It took a swift kick in the butt for me to move out of that comfort zone. God knew this and so he allowed that swift kick to happen.

Naturally I was angry when it all fell apart that day in July 2014. In 24 hours, my entire world fell apart, or at least that is the way I saw it. The anger and bitterness toward the entire situation stayed with me for years. Even once I began to see the good things which had come out of the drastic change in my life, I was still bitter toward the whole process. It was such a drastic change, as if in the middle of my life a sign flashed that said: “PLOT TWIST!” and everything changed overnight. Bob Seger in the song Hollywood Nights sings the line “then came the morning he woke up alone.” I literally woke up alone that morning to realize that not only had my wife left me, but the vast majority of people who called themselves my friends and family had as well. It was just me, a small handful of loyal friends, and my dogs. At the time it looked like the end of my life. What it really was, was the beginning of my life. A disconnect so massive that I would have never undertaken it on my own. It had to be forced upon me by outside forces. A few years after the end of my marriage and former life began, I went to confession with my saintly friend the late Fr. George Livanos. Fr. George gave me a huge bear hug as he always did, and after confession, he said to me: “Michael, if I were you, I would be doing cartwheels backwards! God took a seriously sick soul from your life and in the process gave you your own soul back! I know you lost a lot over the past few years, but you really need to view what happened as God doing you a huge favor!” Despite this and even with a few rounds of therapy, it still took until the other day when I had the conversation with my photographer friend for the whole event to make sense.

It took the conversation with my friend the other day for me to realize that while my ex-wife prepared me for my new life in encouraging me to learn portrait photography, in buying me cameras and lenses and teaching me how to teach others the art that I do, among other things, she did not fit in the life that I was about to begin. Neither were any of the obsequious sychophant people who posed to be family or friends. They all had to go. Their energy and presence simply would not fit in my new world. I was so comfortable in my old life, as difficult as it was for me, that I would never have made the change myself. Thus, it took her leaving in the way she did in order to get me to make the change. Yes, it hurt like mad when it happened. Yes, I lost my house, many people and many other things, but what I gained was the freedom to finally be myself. I had already forgiven them for what happened, but it was time to admit the truth. So much good has happened in the past seven years that it is about time for me to admit the whole process that I once viewed as being a monumental disaster was actually a major blessing from God.

Sometimes people are put in our life to prepare us for what God wants us to do, but God does not want those people to remain in our life permanently. They are simply there as a means to get to the end. When God decides to take those people out of our lives and your life takes an unexpected turn, or dare I even say a plot twist, be patient. Give yourself time to heal and accept that there are often blessings in the change. It is our job to let the process work itself out, be open to the new possibilities ahead of us, and be thankful.

Glory be to God!