I gave myself roses and chocolate

Oh y'all what a delightful ending to a long but good day~

I spent most of my day working in the office of my new consulting client. (see Holy Crap! I'm a self-employed single mama) While I'm thrilled with the way my store is doing, it will be a while until the store can sustain DC and me. So in the meantime, I'm reviving my corporate career and looking for gigs. I delivered some great results to my client today. They were so happy with the results I showed them that they gave me a raise on the spot. Wow! When I arrived back on my side of town, it had been 16 hours since I left home this morning. Ready to chill, but contented, I decided that the only thing that would make this evening more perfect was Guittard Fair Trade Dark Chocolate. So i drove to the grocery store. When I entered the store, I saw that flowers were on sale at a significant discount. Y'all know me and flowers, right? That's when I saw them, the perfect coralpink color of roses that i like so much. And blue iris were the perfect contrast.

I moseyed over to the wine section to get another bottle of the fabulous red wine that I had enjoyed at my friend's house for dinner last week.

Then over to the baking aisle to get the chocolate. Guittard Fair Trade, dontchaknow? My mercy me!

I was standing in line at the checkout when i realized. It looks like I am going home to romance my man. These are the same kind of goodies I bought for years in my marriage. The kind of goodies that made me sing out "Honnnneeee look what IIIIII founnnnnd" I smiled because I realized there's not a reason in the world I shouldn't still do this. No longer for my husband but for myself. And that felt so darn good.

So I got home and realized dangit all I cannot find a vase. A single vase. My china cabinet used to have several nice vases and I bet those were lost in the divorce. I was really getting bummed that I had these gorgeous flowers and nowhere to put them. For a brief moment I actually considered putting the bouquet in the glass pitcher of the blender just to keep them alive. I couldn't let the poor darlings die. I prayed, "Oh God don't let me have gone this far with the Sacred Romance and have the flowers die because all the vases are with Ex. That's just wrong."

And then I remembered the basil.

When I had the sweetest couple and their two adorable children over for dinner they brought me fresh basil from their garden. In a vase. I had been so focused on the basil, I had forgotten the vase. So I washed out the vase and wouldn't ya know it-the roses and iris fit perfectly.

Here is what I learned:

God still loves me even though I do not live with Ex anymore. I experienced so much of God's love during my years as a wife, I had to realize that God's love and God validating my desire for romance are still alive and kicking now that I'm single again.

I still love me even though I don't live with Ex anymore. Doing sweet nurturing things for myself are really important now. Perhaps even more important than when Ex did them from time to time.

Just because my sexual and spiritual awakening occurred during my married era doesn't mean it all blew up in smoke with my divorce. Quite the contrary. Cause I need God now more than ever. The simple act of recognizing and acknowledging my desire-truly owning it-is an act of faith. It takes faith to want something you can't make happen yourself. It takes faith to let yourself want when you must depend on God to supply that want in his way and his time. Cause y'all know I want to enjoy a sexual relationship. It would seem like a tremendous waste for me to never again unleash my passion on a man I adore and to receive every drop of the love he wanted to give me. For me to never again do that? That's just wrong. Which brings me to depending so much on God, because I want that kind of sharing to occur with a man who wants to marry me and for the purpose of developing a lifelong bond. And who else but God can supply that?

It's clear to me that the this era of my life is about learning from what went wrong in my first marriage, healing my heart and offering it one day at a time. I feel that I'm ready to share more often here and I will. About how God is healing me and what I'm learning on this stage of my journey from sensuous wife to single mama while remaining sensuous and seeking God about being a wife again, it's sure to be anything but boring.

Love y'all,
Shula