Finding time to Blog is getting harder and harder. Work fills much of my time but in reality I am trying to find purpose again.
Let me explain.
Almost 7 years ago I took my first step to finally having emotional health and well being. I didn't realize at the time just exactly where the journey would lead me or to what extent my whole outlook on life would change but my reality is that it has, all of it, been extremely worth it.
The cost however was at a cultural standing that over the years has proven impossible to change. For the 20 + years prior to my divorce I was, over and over again, assigned church callings that required my teaching and leading amongst the Young Women and Women of the church. I served in the primary too but as a general rule, the callings were challenging and fulfilling, even the nursery that I was in charge of, with it's 65 children, yes, that's right, 65 kids.
The moment I left M I became invisible. I no longer was able to even come close to the YOUNG WOMEN and RS shunned me. Junior Primary was my calling and I was checked on constantly. It was frustrating to say the least. At first, I thought it was a penance and found myself deciding to do "my best" in whatever calling I found myself in but then I looked around me in that Junior Primary room and every single divorced woman in our ward was with me, I began to realize that what a better place to put the riminders of failures that no one wanted to admit were happening. I then started to speak to other's in the Single Adult program in other wards and found that the axillary I was in was a common place for all of us. I wasn't alone at all in my concern. A woman I adored had been called as the YW president and when her husband left her for another woman she was immediately released and had never served in YW again. She was a pillar of strength and dedication and could have easily remained an incredible role model but alas, there is no place for divorce amongst YW in the LDS faith.
I found myself needing a calling that at least challenged me. I wasn't looking for leadership but more something that felt like I at least belonged. After waiting nearly 5 years it just wasn't happening. Even in my calling as a RS teacher I was rotated in only every three months and when I did teach, the reception I received was the walking out of both the 1st and 2nd councillor who no doubt opposed the calling in the first place. Only once in the three times I taught did they attend. They made it clear it wasn't their idea for me to be there, the Bishop had called me without the knowledge of any of the RS presidency. I am not even going to address the reception I received from the 10 or so women who in the 20 some odd years I had been in the ward have not even changed their seating arrangements in the RS room.
About 1 1/2 years ago, I started to earnest pray for some way to fill the need I had to make a difference. Overwhelmingly, I was impressed that if this is what I needed it would have to come outside the walls of the chapel. I had the scarlet letter D, and always would have it and because of it, my cultural life as a member of the LDS church was changed forever.
I started looking for opportunities and prayed over and over again. One day, I looked in "Calgary Volunteers" and my heart song sung. There it was, the answer. The Reading Advantage program at the Calgary Public Library was the answer. I could see that I could couple my love of words with the love I have of service and thus began my odyssey.
It takes over a year to go through the process. Criminal checks, interviews, matching to the learner, workshops. I can't even describe how I felt in the library yesterday as I finally realized my goal of being paired with a learner and starting what I hope will be years of service to literacy and learning in Clagary. I finally feel fulfilled.
My first learner, a young Japanese woman who's goal is to be able to read English children's books to her young daughter as she is raised in our beautiful country. Now that is inspiring.
I spent nearly 50 years of my life serving a religion that in the end simply spit me out because I divorced a cruel and evil man. The CPL welcomed me in feeling the great love for words and learning I have and accepted me in spite of what others in the church would say make me different.
My whole life I was taught service is a good thing and for the first time I am actually feeling like the service I render is deeper and more meaningful in the world community as a whole rather than a small judgmental portion of it. Not many members serve outside the church. I wonder why?
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