Thank you for sharing!

Standing in the middle of my kitchen, I gently placed my hand on my rounded pregnant belly. Tears streamed down my face as I watched my husband of two and a half years walk out the door of our home with a few bags in his hands.

It was supposed to only be two weeks, but in my heart I knew I was watching him walk out of our home for good.

I walked over to the window that overlooks our driveway and watched until his truck drove out of sight. And then it hit me. Waves of emotion all at once. My knees buckled and I fell to the floor, crying so hard I could hardly catch my breath and so overcome with pain. It was a pain I couldn’t quite explain, but it was fairly familiar to me now.

Rejection, fear, loneliness, heartbreak, grief, and so many more emotions swept in and took over my body, leaving me weak and trembling.

 

A couple of days before, I had tested positive for Covid-19. It was the spring of 2021 so people were still being really cautious about quarantining requirements. My husband, David, tested negative and his employer required that he either separate from me and quarantine for fourteen days or he could stay home and not return to work for twenty-eight days. He decided to separate from me. And I knew that that meant he might not come back.

I had sensed for awhile that David was unhappy in our marriage, but I could never get him to open up or actually confess that something was bothering him. When we found out I was pregnant a few months before, David finally started opening up.

We spent so many hours talking, trying to figure out the source of his unhappiness and how to fix it, but weren’t making any progress. We searched for marriage counselors but couldn’t find any available in our area. Eventually David just decided that there was no more hope to save our marriage and he suggested a permanent separation. This was about a week before I got sick with covid.

I felt completely blindsided. I knew he was unhappy, but not to this extent. I thought he was just struggling with something at work or emotionally and he would eventually come around. We never fought and lived peacefully with each other. Things could always have been better, but I in no way imagined we were in the arena of giving up.

I rallied up my forces and got prepared for a battle for my marriage. But he was already done. He had given up hope before I even knew there was a problem. He had been fighting silently for a long time and didn’t let me in on the fight until he was ready to wave the white flag.

Most days I could cling to the little hope I had left that things would turn around. But watching him walk out the door made it feel so much more real. My whole life exploded around me. All the dreams and desires I had for my life were driving away in a green Ford truck and I was being denied the opportunity to fight for them.

It was like being thrown into a pit of crippling emotional trauma and rejection from the one person I assumed would never reject me or cause me so much pain. My deepest fear had erupted and invaded my life. Things I thought would never happen to me are now daily truths I have to live through.

The world keeps moving. People keep living their lives.

 

But there I was, alone in our home and feeling so stuck. Stuck in my sorrow. Stuck in this moment of my life.

I had never felt so empty, desperate, lonely, or unloved. I felt as though I had been left with nothing and had nothing more to live for.

The first few months after David left, I spent a lot of my time just staring at old pictures of times when we were truly happy. I couldn’t look into my future. It was too painful, too broken. I couldn’t see a hopeful future. It all just looked too depressing and full of broken dreams and desires. So I just obsessed over the past, clinging onto the once happy times and praying for a miracle.

I couldn’t make sense of any of this. I had done all the good Christian girl things and had worked so hard for a beautiful marriage. Why was I failing? Why did I have to lose what I thought was God’s desire for my life and the thing I had worked so hard to have?

My whole life I had felt like God was preparing me to be a wife. It was my biggest desire. I tried to pursue different career options or discover new passions in life, but they all made me feel like I was missing something and they all came up short. I felt such a strong desire to serve as a wife and felt like that was going to be my main calling in life. I dreamed of one day possibly helping other wives in their marriages. That was going to be my ministry.

So as a young teen I started reading blogs, articles, and books on how to prepare to be the best wife possible. By the time I got married I felt so prepared to tackle any problem our marriage faced. Except for the one problem I thought would never be my reality. I never thought I would face a problem so far out of my control that no matter how much effort I put in, it wouldn’t make a difference.

What do you do when you’re faced with a problem that is completely out of your control?

Things aren’t supposed to be this way. This isn’t how you pictured any of it.

 

You feel like your whole life is crumbling and you’re desperately trying to grab all the pieces as they fall apart around you. But no matter how hard you try you can’t put them back together. It’s just completely out of your hands and not something you can fix. So there you are, crippled inside brokenness that used to be a fulfilling life, gripping onto the remains and wishing they were whole again.

I tend to have a fixer personality so even being left in a situation I couldn’t fix, I still searched for areas inside the situation that I could. And the area that I knew was completely in my control was how I responded to this situation.

Still crying on my living room floor, I decided I had two options. I could allow this situation to leave me feeling worthless, broken, and nothing but a throw-away person. Or, I could use this pain to make myself stronger and better. I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay on the floor a bit longer and feel sorry for myself and allow all those negative thoughts consume my mind until I was numb. Until I hated myself and every part of my life. But I knew what I should do.

So I got up off the floor and decided I wasn’t going to live that way. I wasn’t going to let any ounce of pain be wasted and I was going to find a way to turn this bitter situation into one that would be a beautiful story full of hope, restoration, and faith. I wanted God to be the Victor in this story and have proof that in amongst the ashes of a broken life, He made something more beautiful rise up. And everyone who witnessed what happened and saw how I pulled through would know that God had to have been there.

I kept repeating to myself, “I can be bitter or better. I choose better. I choose better. I choose better.”

– – –

That could be your story too. You may be in the middle of a dark season and it might feel like it’ll never get better, things will never feel okay again, and you have no clue how to even move forward. I’ve been there. I’ve felt that emotion so many times.

But darkness doesn’t mean there isn’t light ahead.

 

You just have to keep moving and keep persevering. It’s a hard mental battle to fight your way out of that darkness and strip that pain, but thankfully you don’t have to do it alone.

Lean into God, trust Him to supply your need. I’m sure you’ve heard that so often and maybe you’re even frustrated with it because it seems to be the typical Christian thing to say. “Trust God!” and then they walk away pretending like that is always so easy to do. I’ll be honest, it wasn’t always easy. I had no idea where He was taking me or why He was walking me through this season. I still don’t. And there’s so many things I question.

If you like to be in control, which if you’re a woman reading this then I’m assuming you do. Let’s be honest, lady, we all like to control situations a little too much at times. Then it might feel even more challenging to always give up that control and trust God. Especially when you have no vision of what is ahead. You’re not sure where you’re supposed to go or what move to make next. You’re just in the backseat of a car with a blindfold on. That stresses me out just to type that scenario. No thank you. I want to see and maybe give you advice on the best route to take.

And the hardest thing is when God tells us to tread water and wait. Umm, what? Me? A woman. Tread water and wait? No, no, we’re doers and fixers. We can’t wait around. But if we must, then can we at least make a snack to enjoy or have some sort of activity or chore to work on? Do You need me to organize anything while You have me wait here? Or can I make some suggestions on a faster more efficient plan?

Have you had similar conversations with God? I feel like I’m constantly giving God suggestions on my preferred outcome and asking for Him to use me in some way while I wait for Him to move. It’s called being impatient and having trust issues. And I struggle with both of those a lot!

But ultimately, we do have to find a way to trust God. We may not know what He’s doing or how He’s going to pull us out. But in order to survive, we have to find a way to remain hopeful that He will show us eventually. Restoration will come and life will be good again.

I know at times it can be so challenging to keep moving forward. Things feel so lost and hard. You feel like you’ve been stripped of so many things in your life. Your joy has been weakened. You feel like giving up. Some days are just too hard.

I’ve been there and it’s something I wish none of us would have to walk through.

But you don’t have to walk through it alone. God is there.

 

You might have to search for Him, but He will reveal Himself to you.

Some days it feels like it would be easier to succumb to the Enemy’s lies and allow bitterness to win and take over the situation. Sometimes it’s easier to wallow in self-pity and bitterness. It can be so tempting to sit back and let it all consume you instead of constantly fighting it off. But you can’t let the Enemy stay inside your head. It’s a slippery slope that’s hard to get out of.

So how do we do it? How do we keep moving and pushing through when it feels impossible to do? I’m hoping I can help you by sharing my story, my struggles and insecurities, what I learned through this process, and how God walked me through it.

This season in my life felt so hard and overwhelming. But I knew in order to survive it I had to fall into the arms of Jesus. I ran as fast as I could to Him.

I needed to feel loved. I needed to feel wanted and worthy of keeping this life. I needed to feel chosen, accepted, and prized. I needed hope and comfort. I needed God.

 

Tragedy happens in this life. Fair or not. And we can either choose to let it overtake us or we can find a way to persevere, fight, and come out winning.

As I write this, I’m still not fully healed. Honestly, I’m not sure you ever fully recover from something like this. Not completely. It changes you. In good ways and damaging ways. I still feel like I’m in the middle of my battle and I have to wake up every day and fight to get through. But I can sit here and tell you that God is so good. He gives me new strength every day. I have so much hope that God will restore my life and bring me joy again. I cling to that hope. Even though I can’t see it, I trust my God because He has been so faithful during this whole season. So why wouldn’t He continue to be faithful?

Keep your focus on God. Allow Him to use this situation for good. He has a restoration plan for you. We need to walk through with faith, trusting God, knowing He will work all things out for good in His time.

Stay strong. Persevere. You can be bitter or better. Choose better.

 

 

 

Thank you for sharing!