Cut the Cord

Every few months my church does a sermon called "Listen to the Music" where the pastor takes a current Billboard top hit and breaks it down. This last Sunday was "Cut the Cord" by Shinedown. As I sat in church listening to the pastor talk about "cords" we need to cut in our lives - relationships, addictions, etc...I reflected on my own life and the cords I've cut. 

Since 2009, I have cut a lot of cords. And especially in the last few years, even more. When you go through a really big "storm" in your life, you learn who is "real", who is not and who is just not healthy to keep around in your life. Storms are perfect times to cut the cord, I think primarily, because they tend to give us clarity and we are better able to see what is not working in our lives. 

As I sat there on Sunday trying to figure out what cord I might have left that I needed to cut, I couldn't really come up with anything. The last cord that needs to be cut is the house I still own with my former husband. And coincidentally (if you believe in those, which I do not...God has perfect timing), the property was listed for sale the Friday before the service. We still own the home, but it won't be long until that final cord, the final link to a life that needs to be dead and gone, is cut once and for all. 

To me, it's always been "just a house." I have no emotional attachment to it, whatsoever! But through all of this, I have learned just how many people view "things" as attachments to other people. You see it in relationships all the time - he buys her a nice car, beautiful jewelry and nice clothes - but the marriage is emotionally empty and loveless. They have things, but they don't have what matters - love. 

When I walked through my empty house on Friday, I expected to feel some kind of emotion. I've lived in that house for 10 years. I raised my children there, brought my newborn twins home from the hospital to that house. I thought maybe there would be some sort of nostalgia. But in that house I lived in fear. In that house, I felt trapped and controlled. I hated that house and everything it represented: someone else's dream, someone else's idea of status and happiness. To me, that house was just another piece of a fake life, a picture of perfection and success to the outside world, while inside the walls was fear and a nightmare I thought I would have to live out for the rest of my life.

I cut that cord. I left that house. I cut the cord to the past and vowed to never look back again. That was the final cord in my past that needed to be cut. You can own things, but you can't own people.