Thursday, October 29, 2009

The Joy Of The Trial

Last November, 20 days away from my 23rd wedding anniversary I was told not by my husband mind you, but by someone who should not have had to carry a dirty, grimy secret like the one she had for years. With tears streaming down her face this precious young woman told me that my husband was cheating on me and had been for 8 years. I promptly told him that since he was spending so much time with her in NC then he had no reason to come home he could just stay there.
In the last 11 months I've learned not only a lot about the process of a divorce. I've also learned a lot about myself, and my marriage. I realized that 23 yrs ago I wasn't ready to get married, and I don't believe my husband really wanted to get married, he did it because approval from his parents was something he always wanted and longed for and he believed that getting married and having a family would gain him the approval he so desperately wanted. Me, he was my childhood sweetheart. He'd carved our initials on a tree at church camp, our pastor had said he was going to marry us one day, and during spring break from college I was visiting my grandparents and we spent a week of bliss together! I was dating TWO guys back in college but that didn't matter. I had a history with him and that was all that mattered! Plus little girls were suppose to grow up, get married, and have babies . . . RIGHT?!? Oh was I ever wrong!
I know that God has taken care of me and my children in ways that I could not even begin to verbalize. Now that I am looking back I do not believe that this person was God's choice for me. I believe I got in the way of God's plan and I can't undo that. A lot has happened in the last 11 months from the minor to the major. As the saying goes divorce doesn't happen in church, and it's not done yet. I've gone through a lot of junk these past 11 months trying to get this divorce finalized, and it seems like every day or every other I'm finding out a new catastrophe in the long line of things he's done or isn't doing. I've had days of anger, tears, rage, more tears, its endless. Yet all through it there has been one person holding my hand, drying my tears, reassuring me that it was all going to be ok, and He's my heavenly Father, who has loved me as I've prayed angry, with tears, or not even knowing what to say. He knows, because He knows how much I was hurting. These last months I've drawn closer to Him in a way that I didn't know was possible. I have longed for a deep faith relationship with God and I while I know that my faith had been tested, I don't think I fully gave myself to Him like I needed to. In these last months, He has gotten all of me because I've needed Him in ways that I didn't need Him before. He really is truly amazing how He uses the worst times in our lives to bring us closer to Him and by doing that that becomes the joy of the trial!

2 comments:

Kathy said...

God is our only hope in this fallen world- but rejoice! He is a glorious Hope, complete and perfect.

Keep clinging to Him, He will protect, comfort and bring you Joy in the trials of life, as you have found.

Kathy

M.A.D. said...

Mary D

You have my deepest compassion and respect for your courage during this difficult time.

As for myself, I've discovered that nothing so humbles the soul and shaves off the 'rough edges' as the trials and tribulations of life.

I once read that 'adversities are really blessings in disguise' - for if we are truly open, we will be left the better for having experienced them.

Hugs ~

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