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out of my darkness
Marta Marta is passionate about protecting nature, honoring diversity (community and biological), creative thinking, building fun relationships and creating a more caring and inspired world for her son Andres and all the children that will also one day be the stewards of our planet. |
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I became pregnant with a baby that was not my husband’s. How could I tell my husband after ten years trying unsuccessfully to have children? How did I grow so distant from my husband and those that cared about me in the first place? I had always been the strong one. I was determined as a teen to live a life of integrity and truth. Why had I moved towards seeking another life, that moved me away from the Truth?
Though I had experienced a lot of pain as a child, I didn’t think that that it would negatively impact me as an adult. My father had an addiction to gambling and frequently neglected our family to feed his addictions. These behaviors caused us serious financial problems. My parents also frequently shared with me how they were both abused and neglected as orphans in postwar Mexico. I absorbed much pain from these stories. Unlike my parents, I was lucky enough to be born in the United States during the civil rights era. My parents came to California in the early 50’s to work in the then booming agricultural industry — one as a cannery worker and the other a farm worker. I was born in the 60’s, in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement. By the time I was four years old, Cesar Chavez was leading the United Farm Workers to fight for their rights in the fields of California. My mother’s determination to join that fight instilled in me a passion for social justice which compelled me to live a life in search of integrity and truth. As early as high school, I created a campaign against the aerial spraying of Malathion (fruit fly pesticide) over our segregated Mexican neighborhoods (enclaves) in San Jose, CA. My friends and I also ran for student body positions in a high school that historically had never had Latinos/Mexicans in any student body position. Our first successful political campaign started a trend and we won every year after that. When I earned my graduate degree from UCLA and got a job working for an environmental consulting firm, I thought I had made it out of my painful childhood into successful adulthood.
I soon discovered, however, that I was the first Latina to be hired as a Team Leader for senior level environmental engineers. Middle-aged men who reported to me resented and harassed me. They would jeer and throw out crude sexual comments to try to dehumanize me and gain some perverse power over me. Eventually, I decided to move on to the non-profit sector where I hoped to find a peaceful environment among kindred spirits. Surrounded by very talented and brilliant leaders that had passion, strategy, and charisma; I felt hopeful again that I had found a healthy environment. The leaders there led with inspiration and gave me freedom to create unique & successful campaigns. I defended workers’ rights. I then spearheaded a campaign across the border to work with Mexican maquiladora workers who had no rights and were being paid the equivalent of two dollars a day. The women were being harassed and killed and the men were treated like slaves. This experience led me to meet many influential grassroots leaders who were incredible professionals in many ways, but they allowed their weaknesses to get the best of them.
I moved on to work on very difficult campaigns against oil refineries and polluters. Our message was to make it clear that there were severe health disparities in communities of color that suffered more than most. The hours at this job were long, the campaigns were stressful; and here, too, the leaders sometimes lost their way to addictions and corruption. I felt powerless and fearful of getting too close to their darkness for fear it might open mine.
Soon after, I lost my sense of hope and inspiration. Maybe it was my own inescapable reflection of how to deal with some of my own wounds, but I felt like a wounded soul. I couldn’t just see those leaders as flawed people because I admired them so much and had such great expectations of them. I blamed myself for failing in these dysfunctional environments that ironically were fighting for social justice, but internally were falling apart due to imbalance of power and pervasive spiritual malaise. The executive director took long leaves of absence to feed his addictions and drunkenness. Many leaders in the organization began to leave. The staff was left demoralized; and I absorbed the pain, the dysfunction, and the hopelessness. I felt responsible that I couldn’t fix it. To the rest of the world we were a leading edge social justice organization that had many successful campaigns against polluters in California and nationwide. But at the core, we were very much battered.
The darkness within the organization reminded me too much of my father’s gambling addictions. I kept remembering how he would leave us all behind to feed his addiction. I kept gravitating toward people with similar tragic lives. I just wanted to heal them and make a difference. I ended up absorbing more pain and really began to accumulate it instead of releasing it. My soul suffered and grew weaker.
My mother’s death came a week before my wedding. Her death, the difficulties I faced in my workplace, and years of unsuccessful attempts to have children negatively affected my marriage. My husband and I argued about everything. I felt like a complete failure in life at this point. I began to see only the dark side of our partnership. I blamed everything on him—even the loss of my inspiration. I took on the victim role. I was so wrong. I also felt like the marriage was over and I was living a lie because there was no love left in my heart for myself or my husband.
By 2003, I had gained tremendous success in my career, but my soul was still lost. I felt like the walking wounded. Then, at a conference, I met a charismatic man who was a leader and creator of the kind of social justice work I dreamed of doing in Mexico. He was making the changes I had hoped to accomplish and his work created so much good for so many people. He was a poetic cowboy, musician, and a doctoral candidate. We co-created ideas together that enlivened my soul and created great change. I felt I had found myself again and fell for him. The problem was, I was still married. I was unfair to everyone around me — living a lie, living half-truths, living in my own shadow.
Then I found out that I was pregnant with his child. My struggles emerged when I realized I was not living a life aligned with my values. I wanted a life of integrity and truth. I had betrayed myself and perhaps even my unborn son. The thing that got me through this was the fact that I was going to have a child. But I couldn’t live the lie anymore. I felt compelled to tell my husband and my family about the pregnancy when I had reached 4 weeks. Amazingly my husband forgave me and stood beside me. However, I couldn’t overcome the darkness inside; I couldn’t let go of the desire for the dream life I created in my mind. I legally separated from my husband, thinking I should be on my own until I figured out with whom to remain in relationship — “the social justice leader” or “the Husband.” I didn’t want to be unfair to either, but most of all, to my son. The burden and the guilt of making a decision now of what would be best for my son was overwhelming. Should I stay with his biological father, or my husband?
It was during my separation and after I came clean about the darkness in my life that I found Mosaic — or Jesus found me through Mosaic! I was reading through the magazine, Ciudad, about an innovative Salvadorian leader of Mosaic who reached people in a revolutionary way. The article intrigued me because I found words of hope that ignited my soul. I thought that Mosaic must be great if it works with the fragmented and broken people of our world to create something beautiful. I felt very broken. I had no real relationship with God prior to this; I only knew of Him on an intellectual level. I said I believed, but never felt God in my heart and soul. When I attended the service with my son, I cried relentlessly. I knew then I was beginning to heal. I had found God and He came into my heart so overwhelmingly that I felt love and joy as tears fell down my cheeks. Jesus spoke to me the moment I stepped in and heard the words of compassion, hope, and how He came to earth to love us — especially those who had been hurt and who needed Him. I felt like I could live with joy again with Jesus at my side. I discovered how I had been looking to people instead of God for inspiration. I also became aware that the love I had been searching for was Jesus’ love. The first thing that began to happen was that I felt a wholeness I had not sensed since my youth. I felt inspired to be a great mom and to live a life of Truth. I began to repair the relationship with myself. This in turn led to healing other relationships in my life too.
I realized then, that the “social justice leader” was not going to follow Jesus, and that he had chosen to remain in his own darkness because he would not and could not live a life with us and Jesus. I pray for him, but no I longer love him. I thank God for showing me this truth.
The crisis I experienced was used by God to heal me, to help my marriage, and to help me find Him and the life He wants for me. God forced me to look within and forgive myself, my father, and those that I allowed to cause pain in my life. Three years after our separation, I am now reunited with my husband. I think the loss of our marriage gave way to a new and improved version. We no longer fight constantly. I know that, because my husband is also committed to Christ and to Mosaic, we have a great journey ahead of us. I am grateful to him for his forgiveness, for loving me so much, and for being a super dad to our son.
The journey through this crisis has also given me a beautiful son and a renewed career in leadership coaching and nonprofit consulting. I have been using my gift to coach women, and leaders in the nonprofit sector, and also to give workshops to pregnant Latina teens and to inner city youth. I find ways to relate to their experiences from my life. I feel strengthened to inspire and develop others who have lost hope. I want to continue to find ways to help develop inspired living for people who have yet to discover their talents and connect to God.
I am now truly inspired to live a life of truth and integrity; but this time my inspiration comes from Jesus who has healed my wounds, restored my family, and given me my son. |
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