Making Peace with What Is and What Isn’t

Tamara Bernal
5 days ago
6 min read

A Quiet Reflection on Love, Faith, and Finding Peace with the Life That Is

Most of us, at some point, find ourselves wondering if we’ll ever truly know what it feels like to be deeply loved, not just in words or routine, but in that mutual, steady, deep sense of knowing you are cherished and loved in a way that feels like home. It’s the kind of thought that only seems to visit when everything else is still, and when the world goes quiet enough for the whispers of the heart to be heard.

This is one of those reflections.

When Love Becomes a Quiet Ache

Some nights, when I finally sit still, I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever know what it feels like to be truly loved, not just in duty or comfort, but in that deep, mutual kind of love where both hearts beat to the same rhythm.The kind my grandparents had. The kind I used to believe was waiting for me somewhere down the road.

It’s not a cry of loneliness anymore. There’s no sting or tears. It’s just a quiet acknowledgment, a soft truth that I might live the rest of my life never having known that kind of love.I suspect I’m not alone in that. Many of us have walked through long marriages, short marriages, long relationships, almost-loves, unrequited loves, and painful goodbyes. We’ve come out wiser, grateful, but also changed.

My Grandparents’Example

When I was a little girl, I didn’t grow up surrounded by strong marriages. My parents divorced when I was very young, and I was raised by my mom. Most of the families I knew in our communities had their own struggles, single parents, unhappy marriages-etc. so the idea of a happy, lasting marriage felt almost mythical, something other people had, something you might glimpse and appreciate but never hold.

My beautiful paternal grandparents were the exception. They were together nearly sixty years, childhood friends who grew old side by side. Their life wasn’t perfect, but from my perspective, it was. It was steady, kind, and full of love and respect. I used to watch them and think, “That’s what I want someday.” They truly were special and had a beautiful life together.

Faith, Waiting, and the Long Road

Faith didn’t enter my life until later. I came to know Jesus during the worst and most painful part of my first marriage, which ended not long after that. For years, it was just me and Him…..learning, healing, raising my kids, and rebuilding my life. I truly believed that in His time, He’d bring me someone who would love me the way I’d always dreamed.

I waited eleven years, faithful, celibate, and hopeful. As the years ticked on, I began to grow weary and felt the desire to have more children; my biological clock ticked the loudest. By the time someone finally asked me to marry him, I said yes. I wanted so much to believe it was the answer to prayer.

It wasn’t. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20. It was a long and painful marriage, not without blessings, but heavy with dysfunction and disappointment. And though I never lost my faith, I did lose a certain kind of hope. I stopped believing that I was meant to experience that deep, mutual, Christ-centered love I’d prayed for.

For many years, I prayed and waited, and for much of the time, resigned myself to commitment and tolerance. This wasn't noble or deep. It was lonely, it was long-suffering, maybe, but not from a place of love.

It went on as long as it did because, in my mind, divorce equaled failure, and I had already failed once. Pride and shame factored in for sure.

I stayed because my sons had grown up without their father, and I didn’t want my daughter to do the same. So I also stayed from compassion mixed with guilt and condemnation.

Along the way, several well-meaning “counselors” advised, “Just be a better wife,” so I tried, I did, again and again….I even stayed out of hope that something magical might change everything, that somehow God would redeem it if I just prayed harder, tried harder, held on longer.

But it didn’t......

It dragged on and on, and over time, the collateral damage to my family relationships, my own children, parents and friends occurred. To avoid failure by leaving, I failed by staying…. In all of that, I lost my voice, the part of me that used to write, encourage, and lift others up.

I no longer felt qualified or like I had anything of value left to give. What do I have to say or contribute? Just a two-time loser at the very thing I thought mattered most.

And yet, even in all that pain, I never stopped loving the idea of marriage and admiring the good ones; however, my perspective on it has changed somewhat. I still smile when I see couples who’ve weathered life together, lasting, loving, and committed. I’m definitely not bitter or anti-marriage. I’ve just made peace with the idea that it might not be in the cards for me this side of heaven ( in heaven I won’t care about it anyway)….And that...is okay.

I’m not looking for it, and I’m not praying for it. I’m simply navigating these next years with prayer and hope for a beautiful, peaceful life……whatever shape that takes.

Have No Idols

Looking back, I can see now that I had made an idol of marriage. I wanted it so badly that I put it on a pedestal. After raising kids on my own for more than a decade, I just wanted to belong somewhere to someone who loved me for real. I wanted to build a life with someone, to stop being the only adult in the room. So when the chance came, I took it …..even when red flags waved in the distance ( and some in my face)

Sadly, over the 21 years…I was still the only adult in the room.

I don’t regret the choice I made, though, because it gave me my daughter along with many lessons that shaped me into who I am now. My story is a cautionary tale, though, to women of faith who want to force the hand of God or make Mr. Wrong be Mr. Right.

I see now how easy that is, especially for women of faith, to mistake longing for calling, to believe marriage itself is the answer to the ache, rather than Jesus, along with the person He has for you. I suppose I thought marriage would make me whole or worthy,....it didn’t; however, it has made me much more humble.

Love, Redefined

There’s a tender kind of loss in realizing I’ve never really known what it feels like to be deeply loved by a man whom I loved equally. Not the kind of love you have to earn, negotiate, or hold together by force, but the kind that’s mutual, peaceful, and safe.

Sometimes that truth hits me harder than I expect. But it isn’t depression; it’s simply honest reflection, a quiet ache that settles somewhere behind the ribs when you allow yourself to stop pretending it doesn’t matter.

At my age, mid-50s, even the idea of loving and committing to another feels heavier.

When you’re young, love carries a kind of blind optimism, the excitement of building a future, of growing a family, of becoming something together. But now, love and marriage look quite different. They mean walking beside someone through the golden years, through health changes, through loss, through the long, slow unraveling of time.

To love someone at this stage of life means saying, “I’ll be there when it’s hard,” because the reality is that those times are........ not so far into the future as they had once been.

That carries its own sacred weight and frankly, it scares me quite a bit.

If I ever love again, I want it to be the kind that is so unmistakably mutual, so rooted in respect and tenderness, that committing to it feels like peace, not compromise. I don’t ever want to settle again….not for safety, not for convenience, not for the illusion of companionship. I actually quite enjoy being alone, so giving that up would be monumental.

Yet, if I’m being completely honest, I'm not sure if I trust myself to know what that kind of love feels like. I’ve never had it. I’ve imagined it, prayed for it, longed for it….. but I’ve never lived it. There’s a strange ache in that realization, a mourning not for someone I lost, but for something I’ve never known.

Finding Grace in What Remains

Still, even in that, I find grace. Because what I do know now is that love takes many forms. It lives in my faith, in my children, in the animals I care for, in the beauty of creation, and in the quiet peace I feel when I finally stop striving.

Maybe the great love of my life isn’t a person after all… maybe it’s simply the life I have and the ongoing journey of learning to live with a pliable and open heart.

I still believe in romantic love. Only, I see it differently now. If it ever finds me, I’ll welcome it . And if it doesn’t, I’ll keep living this wild and graceful life. Learning every day what it means to love and be loved in all the ways that still matter.

Tamara Bernal

October 2025