Trial by Fire

Today is our 12th anniversary. It should be filled with cards, and flowers and the anticipation of a fantastic date night out. But it isn't. I've never before anticipated a date that I know will be filled with pain instead of celebration. Things crumbled last year around this time. Jon had been hurt by me a few years prior and despite plowing forward and attempting normalcy for a couple of years, the band-aid covering his gaping wounds just wouldn't hold any longer and so began my husband's retreat to try to find healing. I remember last summer being so sure it would just be a handful of months, but here we are a year later. The pain of separation isn't much easier. I'm just more used to the feeling of it.

I've found that people can fairly easily talk about those rough patches once they're back on smooth ground. But I don't hear people talking about it when they're stuck in the middle; at least not outside their trusted circle of family and friends. But you know what's even harder than walking through the toughest time in my life? Pretending I'm not. I can't and I won't. I will not put on a mask of perfection when my heart is aching on the best days and feels like it's being ripped in two on the worst days. I sometimes want to hang a sign around my neck that says, "Tread lightly. Broken heart inside."
People often tell me I'm brave for sharing my story. I don't feel brave. I feel free. I'm free of guilt and shame. I'm free of worrying about any sort of reputation that I may or may not have. Freedom in Christ is so very real in my life. And the more I talk, the more my story is in the light and able to be used for His glory. I want others to experience that same freedom. The sin in my past is ugly. But God is already redeeming it and I think I've only seen a fraction of the redemption to come.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. -James 5:16 MSG

On this day, August 3rd, 2014, I choose joy. I have compassion and empathy for others that I didn't have a year ago. I have more grace and less judgment than I had a year ago. I have a much bigger faith than I did a year ago. And I have had far too many blessings to count this past year, particularly in the area of friendships. When I was at my loneliest, God flooded my life with incredible, deep, authentic friendships. But most importantly I have a desperate need for my Savior. There were times about six or eight months ago that I would honestly think, "God, I'm not sure I want this season to end because I don't ever want to stop needing you as desperately as I do right now." Being at your wit's end is sometimes the most beautiful place to be.
My friend once wrote a great blog post about what to do for a friend who's miscarried and I so appreciated it. (I'd link to it but I don't think it's live anymore.) So here are my tips if you have a friend walking through any sort of difficult and painful time:
Acknowledge it. Don't ignore it. If they know you know about it, ask them how they're doing. Sometimes the conversation is awkward when people ask me how I am (because I'm usually brutally honest) but I feel so incredibly loved by the people who do and sometimes hurt by the people who don't. Send a text or a card if the thought of bringing it up in person seems scary. If you're very close to them, find out their love language and meet it from time to time. You have to remember that someone in a marriage separation or recently divorced isn't receiving any sort of affection, besides from their kids. And although, I'm learning to rely on God and fully realize that He is and always will be enough, it sure does feel good to be loved by a friend. And lastly, buy them a copy of the Streams in the Desert devotional. I don't know where I'd be without it.

My life does not look at all what I imagined it would right now. I can't say yet that I wouldn't change it, although some parts I definitely would. But I trust that I'll be able to say that a few years from now. I just couldn't produce spiritual growth like this on my own terms if I tried. And I know its not in vain. I want to be used on this Earth for the kingdom. And if my broken and redeemed past and broken and someday redeemed marriage will ultimately bring Him glory, then I will continue to praise Him for this storm. My God is big. And He's got this.

Here's an excerpt from one of my favorite Streams in the Desert devos, because I can't ever quote that book enough:

We are to honor the Lord in the trial--in the very thing that afflicts us. And although there are examples where God did not allow His saints to even feel the fire, usually the fire causes pain.
It is precisely there, in the heat of the fire, we are to glorify Him. We do this by exercising perfect faith in His goodness and love that has permitted this trial to come upon us. Even more, we are to believe that out of the fire will arise something more worthy of praise to Him than had we never experienced it.
A person has only as much faith as he shows in times of trouble. The three men who were thrown into the fiery furnace came out just as they went in--except for the ropes that had bound them. How often God removes our shackles in the furnace of affliction!
This is the way Christians should come out of the furnace of fiery trials--liberated from their shackles but untouched by the flames.