Halloween Horror

I'm anxious tonight.

This is the first time I've felt fear or anxiety since Friday night.  We did my DIA  and I haven't had a chance to really write about it in depth yet.  But this overwhelming sense of peace settled over me Friday night, and stayed.

And then today, the anxiety has crept back in.

It was little stabs, here and there, throughout the day.  I was just working, so you'd think that I would have been just fine.  But that's a whole other post entirely!

Then tonight I went to the grocery store.

Read my mind!

Do you ever just wish that your spouse could read your mind?

Do you wish they would just know what you want without having to tell them?

Me neither.

In all seriousness though, I am struggling with this.

I want Kris to just KNOW.  I want him to magically have all the answers.  I want him to guess what I want without having to speak it.  I want him to be God, I guess...

And I get upset with Kris for NOT BEING GOD!  For not having all the answers.  For not doing exactly what I want, the way I want it, without me having to speak the words aloud.

Does anyone else go through this?

Psalm 32

Kris came across this Psalm a couple of weeks ago and he immediately called me and told me that I needed to read it.  Once I read it, I could see why he suggested it.  He kept saying "This is SO us!"  And he's right.  I've come to love this Psalm like no other.  It is the story of our marriage, in a Psalm.  We also really love the wording from the New Living Translation.  The parts that are in bold are phrases that really seemed to scream "Fingerprints of God" and really struck home with me and Kris.

Chaos

Chaos.

It's all around me.

It's inside of me.

It comes out in the form of anger/edginess/sarcasm...

And my husband is usually the one who bears the brunt of it.

Tonight was one of those nights.  The frustration and hurt came on without warning.  I asked Kris to do something, while I was on my way home from work.

And he hesitated before responding.

Fear

Fear dominates my life.

It isn't always in the forefront.  Sometimes it is hidden by distractions.  But it is always there.  I can't escape it.  Sometimes it consumes me.  I'll wake in the middle of the night, either from a nightmare or sleep paralysis, having just felt like someone was standing in my house.  Someone that shouldn't be in there.  And then I have to wake my husband up, have him pray with me, and then have him go through the house to make sure everything is still locked up and the children are safely still in their beds...all the time, I'm praying that he doesn't get killed.

I know it's irrational.  Much of what I fear is unrealistic.  Some of it is possible.  Kris dying.  One of the kids dying.  These are all things that COULD happen.  But, apparently, I'm not supposed to think about these things with the frequency that I do.

Love is not a fight

So many of my friends are experiencing "issues" in their marriages.  It breaks my heart.  You know that song "Jesus, Friend of Sinners"?  There is a line in there that says "break my heart for what breaks yours."  And broken marriages are breaking my heart.  I think they break Jesus' heart too.

I know that every situation is different.  I know that every marriage can't survive what Kris and I have survived (or worse) and that there are always other factors that will make it difficult to STAY married.  Getting out seems like such an easy answer.  I never thought I would want to get out of my marriage.  Until 8 months ago.  8 months ago, I seriously thought "Can I do this alone, or should I try one more time to fix what is broken?"

Second Chances

There is a line towards the end of the movie "What Women Want" that says this:

"It's never too late to do the right thing."

Do you believe this?

I know now that there is an entire world of marriage bloggers out there that understand this truth.  Because they have all been there.  They have made mistakes.  They understand what it is like to screw up.  They've had broken marriages.  Broken lives.

And we all share something in common.

We are all surviving the aftermath of broken marriages, and have come out on the other side.  Stronger people.  Our faith in God restored.  Our marriages healed and made even better than we ever thought would be possible.

We all experienced SECOND CHANCES.

While I'm Waiting

Unlike, Courageous (which I'm not saying wasn't a good movie), the movie Fireproof was very powerful for Kris and I.  Obviously, if you have seen it, you know that it addresses the topic of pornography.  A topic that practically ruined our marriage.  Don't get me wrong. I'm not blaming Kris or saying that my affair was a direct result of his addiction.  I'm just saying that had another man not come along, something else would have pushed me to say "I've had enough.  I'm done putting up with this."

Sexy!

Around my house, my children have a problem with the word "sexy."  It has "sex" in it, and that is "so gross!"  So, if they occasionally hear Kris tell me that I look sexy (which I love when he does!) they freak out and think it is appalling.  They'll learn...some day...

All of that to say that I just really want to talk about how attracted to my husband I am.  Sure, he's handsome.  I love his balding/shaved head and his calves.  And his face, when he remembers to shave it for me.  And so many other things, physical attributes.

But tonight, I discovered something else that attracted me to my husband.

Nothing is Wasted

For anyone who has hurt, been hurt, made mistakes, or needs a little hope, NOTHING IS WASTED.  I love this concept and song!  God uses our pain.  He doesn't cause it.  But He doesn't waste it either.

What about the kids?

By now you know much of my story.

I left home for a short period of time after Kris found out about my affair.

I left behind four children.

I didn't just leave without talking to them though.  I knew that they would need some sort of explanation for why I was going to be gone.

If this had happened four years ago, the kids would have been too young to really understand anything that was going on, except for the oldest, maybe.

If this had happened when they were 16 and older, that is an entirely different story.  I honestly believe that, depending on each child and what they could handle, we likely would have told them what happened.

But as it is, my children, once the birthdays are all over in 2 weeks, will be 7, 10, 11, and 12.

How do they process the fact that mommy is leaving for a while?

Memories, sweet memories...

Memories

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened thru the ages just like wine

Quiet thought come floating down
And settle softly to the ground
Like golden autumn leaves around my feet
I touched them and they burst apart with sweet memories,
Sweet memories

Of holding hands and red bouquets
And twilight trimmed in purple haze
And laughing eyes and simple ways
And quiet nights and gentle days with you

Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind
Memories, sweetened thru the ages just like wine,
Memories, memories, sweet memories

Is it possible to rebuild?

When Kris and I first started going to marriage counseling, I was treading lightly.  I hadn't yet encountered The Cross.  So, while I thought all the pictures and verses on the wall were good for the ambiance, they didn't speak to my heart.

Except for one.

I saw it the very first day that we went to counseling.

I was anxious, and I'm sure I had taken a Xanax or two so I could make it through the appointment without falling completely apart.  Side note - I fell apart anyway!

Song of Gomer

It wasn't until after I posted about Hosea and Gomer yesterday that this song came to mind.  It is such a redemptive song.  And the words are ones that I related to, all too well.  I could have snuck the words and video into that post, but I really wanted to have a new post, and write a little bit more about Gomer.

When I was in high school, I loved listening to Michael Card.  Not for the soft, gentle sound of his melodies. But for the words.  His lyrics were always powerful and always caught me off guard.  The same was true with this "Song of Gomer."

Hosea and Gomer

I can remember, while I was still hiding my prolonged affair, asking my husband if he ever got angry, thinking back to the affair he KNEW about.  He would tell me that sometimes he thought about it, but most of the time, it didn't even come to his mind.  He would also tell me, as I would be weeping thinking he MUST be only seeing "the affair" when he looked at me, that I was wrong. He didn't look at me and see the affair and feel the hurt I had caused him.  He would reassure me and tell me that he loved me and that was that.

I wonder if that is just the way men are wired, or if my husband was just given an extra measure of  grace, a deeper insight of what it means to be my Hosea.  That's how I see him, by the way.  As my Hosea.  

Understanding dawns

Without all of the specifics of the UGLY TRUTH that my life had become, I wrote a lot in April (on my "regular" blog) about my experience before, during and after God rescued my soul.  This is another exceprt from that...really, a combination of two of those posts.

April 6, 2012 (in the morning on Good Friday) I wrote this:

"Because I won't allow myself to forgive myself for wrongs I have done to others, I can't truly understand and accept God's forgiveness. There is something standing in the way.

And it's me.

Would I ever forgive myself?

Life wasn't easy back in February.

February 11, 2012 is a day that is etched into my memory and deep in my heart.  It is a day that I will never forget.  It began what would become the worst week of my life to date.  During the following 8 days, I wasn't sure that I would survive.  I wasn't sure I wanted to.  I didn't know who I was, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, whether I wanted to fight for my marriage.  I wasn't even sure I cared about anything at all.

And I wasn't sure that what was broken between Kris and I would ever be fixed.

Kris and I had some deep wounds.  Wounds we had inflicted on each other.  For the last seven years, we had basically just been existing together;  we lost each other somewhere along our 13 year journey together.  And I will never forget the things that transpired since that day.

The shift

There have been pivotal moments in my life.

Where I was going in one direction, and then, without warning, the route was altered.  There was a shift.  Sometimes it was caused by me. Other times it was unwanted, and I was dragged along kicking and screaming.

I can remember the first semester of college back in 1997.  I had fallen hopelessly in love with a guy.  I thought he liked me back.  It's your typical boy meets girl, girl falls in love, boy-shatters-girl's-hopes-and-dreams story.

Can I Just Say Something?

I want to take a minute or two to share something that is on my heart.

I don't have all the answers.

I haven't figured it all out.

I make mistakes and I am not perfect.

I do believe that my marriage is being blessed and is blossoming, because of God's work in my heart, my husband's heart and our lives.  This is not something I could have done on my own.  It is only by God's grace that I have this story to tell.