Wrestling with fear.

September 2, 2011 from my journal:

I don’t like this day very much.  I really just feel sad today.  Quiet.  Kind of scared and for sure feeling stressed.  Jesus, I need You to carry me today.  I was starting to believe that maybe I could limp along on my own a little bit, but I can’t.  I can’t at all.

I’m wrestling with fear and worry today.  C seemed to choose to go to “affair land” aka Disneyland because he wasn’t happy in our marriage.  He needed to vacation from me.  Well, his life really sucks now.  He’s under house arrest, he has a wife who’s a wreck.  We’re trying to find a place to live.  He’s having to confess over and over to people.  We have to go to counseling.  If he was unhappy, stressed and needing a vacation to “affair land” where he could dance and drink and kiss his worries away, how much more is he going to want to escape now?  I know, I know, God. Trust You.  Trust You. I’m just so scared.  I feel so helpless.  My life is a nightmare.  Carry me, Jesus, carry me. 

I feel like retreating.  I feel smothered.  I’m so tired of having to “fill” people in.  Tired of touching base.  I just want to be alone.  I don’t’ want sympathy. I’m tired of being looked at like, poor little R.  I just want You, Jesus.  I want to retreat, to close off from everyone else. 

Am I lovely?

It was not only my marriage that Satan sought to destroy through my husbands adultery, but me.  Who I was, am, would be.  There were days that Satan had me convinced that I deserved to have a husband who cheated.  There were days that Satan had me convinced that I wasn't lovely or lovable.  It is so much easier to believe the lies of Satan than Truth.  I don't know why that is, but I do know that is the very reason we need to consistently be in the Word.  That is why we need to be praying and communicating with God, with Truth Himself.  That is why we need fellowship and people willing to speak hard truths into our lives.  Because Satan is a destroyer and he will attack us in our most weak places.

The weight of forgiveness is heavy.  More so for the person withholding it than for the person who it needs to be offered to.  And forgiveness is a process, and a process of the heart that happens again and again and again.  Forgiveness is not a magical fix all.  I had hoped for a laid out timeline for forgiveness, but learned that it's individual and there is no "plan" to follow.  It just happens, by the grace of God, it can happen.

September 1, 2011 from my journal:

Dear Jesus, it’s a new month.  A new morning.  I’m still holding onto Isaiah 42:9: Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things no I declare.

It’s a new day.  You are shaping a new husband for me.  A new marriage.  A new me.  Thank You that Your mercies never come to an end.  I still feel heavy this morning, with the weight of my reality, with the work of the things I have set before me.  But you make me feel strong enough to handle it.

Today the tape that Satan is playing in my ear is one of my own insecurities.  My every physical flaw has never stuck out so clearly to me.  So painfully.  “She’s skinny as a rail.” Is what he told me about her.  I am not.  Not even close.  Never has the stretch marks, the cellulite and the looseness of my skin after having babies ever been so painfully and glaringly obvious to me.  I’m battling the thoughts that one day, when we are intimate again, they will be glaringly obvious to him too.  And unappealing.  I do not look like the girls in porn.  My boobs are saggy and have stretch marks.  My butt is flat.  My arms are flabby.  My calves are too big. My stomach too loose.  I’m not physically lovely.  This is my battle today.  This my wound. 

God, I know there is no magic timeline.  I know I’m going to have good days and bad.  Part of me feels really hopeful, really ready to move forward.  And another part of me thinks that’s too fast.  That I am not ready to forgive.  But what I’m struggling to discern is if my hesitancy to more forward is because people keep telling me I need to go slow?  Or because I want C to continue to feel the sting?  Or do I want to move forward because I truly am ready to forgive?  Or out of fear of pushing C away/over the edge?  How can I discern?

How to survive when your lungs aren't working.

I've mentioned on another post that I was able to talk with a woman who had been through this, J.  Her husband had a similar affair.  She and her husband were triage for us.  They didn't even know us, but they loved us, counseled us, shed tears with us.  We are forever grateful to them.  One of the greatest gifts of counsel that J gave me was to take each day, half hour by half hour.

When your husband has confessed adultery to you, it's all you can do to just keep breathing.  If breathing is terribly hard, imagine what happens to your lungs when you think about the next day, the next week, the next year.  I'll tell you what happens to your lungs, they shut down.  It is far too overwhelming to try and think about or imagine what the future might hold.  So J told me to just breath through the current half hour.  Just think about the current half hour.  There were half hours where I felt like I needed to be on oxygen, breathing in the Word and the truth that the Lord had for me.  Then, there were some half hours where my lungs inhaled and exhaled easily.  Half hour by half hour.

August 31^st

Hi gals.  I hope it doesn't seem annoying to you to have to keep reading the things I'm praying through from my journal...but it's just the simplest way for me to communicate right now.  Taken from my journal this morning:

I'm not sure why, Lord, the mornings can feel the hardest.  The mornings are when my stomach feels the most nauseous, my appetite the least.  It's when the despair and weight of the situation feels the heaviest.  

Lamentations 3:21-33

²² The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;^[a] 21But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:   his mercies never come to an end;²³they are new every morning;    great is your faithfulness.²⁴ "The LORD is my portion," says my soul,  "therefore I will hope in him." ²⁵The LORD is good to those who wait for him,   to the soul who seeks him.²⁶ It is good that one should wait quietly   for the salvation of the LORD.²⁷ It is good for a man that he bear  the yoke in his youth. ²⁸Let him sit alone in silence   when it is laid on him;²⁹ let him put his mouth in the dust—   there may yet be hope;³⁰ let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults  ³¹ For the Lord will not   cast off forever,³²but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion    according to the abundance of his steadfast love;³³ for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.

It says your mercies are new each morning.  I know they are.  It says Your faithfulness is great.  I know it is.  But I feel so crushed today.  So hopeless.  But Your Word promises me that You will not cast me off forever- but You will have compassion according to the abundance of Your steadfast love.  It says You do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of man.  Jesus, remind me of the truth always, that You didn't want this for me.  You don't want to see my heart crushed and in despair.  But Your Word does say, it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.  This is a heavy yoke--for both C and I.  And we are young.  I have hope that we can recover.  Your Word promises we can.

Lamentations 3: 55-59

I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, ' Do not close your ear to my cry for help!'  You came near when I called on you: you said, ' do not fear!'  You have taken up my cause, O LORD; you have redeemed my life.  You have seen the wrong done to me, O LORD; judge my cause.

I read these scriptures and I want them to give me hope.  I said above that they do-- and I suppose they do, but I just still feel so defeated.  So crushed.  It's so hard to have a peaceful, truth filled day like yesterday, then wake up in the morning feeling so...afraid.  Afraid that since the ball's already dropped, that something is going to come along and crush it.

I laughed on the phone last night with C.  This morning, I think of him and cannot even fathom being able to laugh with him.  I feel so mad, so hurt by him. Help me, Lord, to remember- half hour by half hour.  Some of those are going to be good ones, some bad.  Just help me to cling to Your truth!  Help me to discern the whispers of Satan.  Help me to not believe the lie that there is a magical time line for this.  I'm anxious to start counseling, to feel like we're really taking steps to DO something instead of just being separated.  I know praying is life giving.  It's my lifeline.  But I want to do more...

Psalm 86:47-5

Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you Lord, do I lift up my soul.  For you, O LORD, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you.

I feel compelled, God, to really pray for C right now.  He says he's broken.  He says he regrets every moment of how he was living. He says he has no affection for K.  He says he will do anything to make our marriage work.  He says it doesn't matter how long it takes for me to forgive him.  To love him again.  he says, he says, he says....But his words mean nothing to me now.  Nothing.  Help me to trust him again.  Give me discernment in his words to know what is truth and what is a lie.  Jesus, help me to forgive his lies.  Help me  to remember that I am a liar too.  Help me to not compare my iniquities with C's, or anyone else's for that matter.  Jesus, forgiveness seems so impossible.  I feel heavy with the weight of it.  Help me, one moment, one instant at a time.

Jesus, You love me so well.  You have me, I know you have me, no matter what.

Isaiah 42:3-4

a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.  He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth.

Isaiah 42:9

Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things now I declare...

Isaiah 43:1-3

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel: "Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine.  when you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I am clinging to the truths in Your Word.  Clinging to them for dear life.  Because I feel like I am drowning--- but Your Word promises me I won't. 

So gals, that's where I'm at in this half hour.  Please pray for my next.