We had been married 6 years and were about to celebrate our 7 year anniversary on the 28th of November. I didn't see it coming at all. We were active in our church, volunteering and teaching in a marriage ministry. I was working full time in a church office and he worked for a local trucking company in the office; we had a 7 year old daughter in private school and as far as I could tell we were doing good.
We had our ups and downs don't get me wrong and I knew we had things to work on but I didn't really look at him. I didn't really want to see what may or may not be going on. I just wanted it to be okay and if I didn't examine it hard enough, if it stayed fuzzy around the edges, out of focus, then it was okay. I chose to believe we were alright when in fact we weren't, we really, really weren't. He wasn't honest either...and no matter how bad it was it wasn't bad enough to excuse what he did. No one ever deserves to have that type of betrayal done to them.
This month my husband and I celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. This month we officially have been together longer than we were before the affair happened...this is significant to me. I didn't know if would make it through the pain and heartache that was my life after I found out what he did. I didn't know if I would be able to get me back, does that make sense? I was lost in it all. There wasn't an area of my life that wasn't effected. I questioned my faith, I railed at God then just as quickly ran to Him, wept at His feet, begged for mercy, for relief, for the agony to stop. My feelings for my husband swung a wide pendulum - from extreme anger to desperate hope, from unrelenting hurt to forced happiness, from planning my escape to stubbornly holding on waiting for the rescue to come.
I knew really early on I wasn't going to leave him over this. God did a work in my heart and I knew I wanted to be married to this man even though what he did was awful, I quickly was able to separate what he did from who he was. He isn't awful what he did was but he wasn't and isn't. With the decision made to not leave him...which was really easy with God's help, the hardest part began, walking out the decision to stay, figuring out what the DNA of this relationship was going to be now that this horrible thing had happened. I grasped at everything I could to be happy. My nerves were raw, I was an emotional time bomb. Where he had simply moved on, I was rehearsing everything that had ever happened in our relationship. I was replaying every word I had read on those text messages, I was planning and plotting for what I don't know but I was making plans nonetheless. I would look at him while he slept and I would just weep, sob for what he had done, cry for where it taken us, weep for what I had become. I would get angry that with so little pain to himself he moved on, I wanted to be unforgiving, I wanted to hold it against him, and make him pay for all he had done. But I knew my survival in every area of my life depended on me doing exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do. I had to choose to forgive and chose to forgive him a hundred times a day in the beginning. I had to choose to let it go and to not associate our entire relationship with this one event. I had to release him from getting what he deserved and bless him and wish for the best for him instead. I had to stop rehearsing what had happened and start planning for my future.
We met with a couple together and they helped us work through all the many steps that we encountered for the next couple of years. They prayed for me when I had reoccurring nightmares and my husband I discovered hadn't gotten of scott-free, he was walking out his own healing. He was coming to grips with the fact that due to his decision our lives changed forever and there wasn't any changing that fact so we had to figure out. Things started to get into a routine, we were coasting. But my heart wasn't right...I wasn't right...I was bitter and my heart was hardened. I had to do something and quick...otherwise I wasn't going to be the same person at the end of this ordeal.
I sought counsel from a Godly woman on my own. At first my husband was concerned that I was looking for a reason to leave but in truth I was looking for my reason to stay. I had to get myself right, my heart right towards my husband, towards the Lord, towards myself, if I didn't do this I wasn't going to be able to last. I was only allowing God to do just so much work in my life, not enough to be completely healed because if that happened then he would be completely forgiven and if that happened and something happened again I didn't think I would be able to survive it. I used my own bitterness and hurt as a shield against a future hurt that still to this day hasn't happened. I was planning in the event of another battle and I was using my hurt as a weapon. After much honest reflection, counsel, conversation, and prayer, I came to the conclusion that I had three choices:- Accept my life the way it was, embrace the woman I was becoming, hurt and bitter, and stop complaining about it.
- Leave him and the situation behind.
- Allow God to do the work He was capable of doing the entire time and let Him transform my mess into a message, my brokenness into wholeness, my hurt into healing, my despair into hope. I had to choose to really forgive.
I chose #3.
The work to stay together has been hard. I can't say it has been harder on my part than on his, his journey has been very different from my own. However, the work has been worth it. When I decided to stay with my husband that was the easiest part, walking that decision out has been the hardest, most rewarding, most spiritually challenging, most transforming process of my life. I am so glad I did it.
I told my husband today that even though I wish that situation didn't happen in our lives, when I look back I am thankful for who we are today. I like us as people better and as a couple better. I know I have allowed God to work in my life, He has made me into someone closer to who He desires me to be through this experience. It is still an ongoing healing and battle. I work diligently to guard my thoughts and we work hard to communicate effectively together. We still miss it and we still mess up but we have fought long and hard for this relationship and we have discovered we don't go down easily. When I couldn't do anything else in the midst of my pain I cried out to Jesus and He was there. My only regret is not allowing Him full reign over my life to complete the work that took so much longer to do than necessary. He is able to do what we couldn't even imagine if we only allow Him. When I finally allowed Him to do it in my life the result was amazing.
So today is a milestone day for me. We have lasted longer than most people would have imagined to begin with and we have been together longer than we were before this event happened in our lives. I started confessing that this situation would only be a tiny blip on the radar of our lives and I can see it happening. Today doesn't hurt me like it did for so many years, I didn't grieve today like I did for so many years, I have had no tears today as I had for so many years. No, today I am grateful, today I am rejoicing, today I am married to my husband and we are happy and more in love than I ever thought possible. Today God gets all the glory for doing what only He could do, without Him I would be lost and alone, with Him I am found and embraced.
Today it is easy for me to choose joy, when I remember a time when my joy was lost and I see how far we have come and all He has done...yes today my heart overflows with joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment