Marshall Mathers? Jesus Christ. Christ? This is Marshall

It is Monday, January 3 at 6:51 p.m. and I am sitting my car in the parking lot of Kensington Church. My ten week “Divorce Recovery” group meets for the first time in 9 minutes. I am terrified. I don’t know what to expect and I hate surprises. Is it going to be two hours of prayer? Because I have been praying for his death in a firy inferno of a car accident. Like dental records only typed of CSI stuff. Not too Christian of me and there is no way I am sharing that one here—in church of all places.

The radio is on and just as I am about to pop the car into drive—making excuses to myself for myself I hear the voice of Detroit’s own Eminem and by the time I hear:

            “It's a little too late to say that you're sorry now

            You kicked me when I was down….        

             
             You showed me nothing but hate,

             you ran me into the ground
             But what comes around goes around
             And you don't hurt me
            You don't hurt me, no more”

I realize two things. First, that there is a reason I am in a church parking lot listening to, “What comes around goes around” and it doesn’t matter that it’s in the middle of a song rife with profanity. I get the message. I put the car in park and began to laugh. Marshal Bruce Mathers III is speaking to ME.

Walking into the Divorce Recovery seminar I smell shitty coffee and see Kleenex boxes placed strategically around the room. I realize recovering from this can and will take on many different forms. There will be laughter, tears, journaling, counseling, church, and support groups. I will have days where I need to be alone, days when I don’t want to get out of bed, and days when all I want is to be surrounded by family and friends. It doesn’t matter. I check in, put my name tag on & walk over to my assigned table. What matters is that I recover. That my girls recover. That the three of us are a family and THIS is our new normal.