Family/Marriage

January 4, 2022

It was so many years ago. Two entire children ago to be specific. Why am I still having these nightmares? Why am I still so triggered by certain words? When he is three minutes late? When he doesn’t pick up the phone? When will this all end? When will I get out of this place? Why in the world am I still feeling what I am feeling?

If you have never been privy to my testimony, let me sum it up for you: my husband had an affair. That seems to be the crude and rough summary, but there it is. Though our story has brought massive beauty from ashes, filled and overflowing with God’s mercy on us, the reality is it still happened. The truth of the situation is I am still affected. The truth is I sometimes find myself in this broken space of the past. I can still hear the words. I can still feel the literal and physical pain of finding out. I find myself still living there in my mind from time to time.

Has this ever been your story? Maybe not of infidelity but of breath taking pain that replays itself over and over again in the most random of moments? Have you ever fallen so deep down the rabbit hole of your yesterdays that it honestly shocks you? You went to counseling, you took it to Jesus, and you have truly moved forward but….? I too, friend, have found myself in this unyielding game of “Let’s drown ourselves in the past for no particular reason”. 

Did you know that the creation story is not just a super cute story we tell to our nursery children? It is not just a way to tie in cute animals and a naked man and woman in your homeschool curriculum. God, your God, decided one day that He wanted to create, form, and design the heavens and the earth. He masterminded an entire universe. He made the day, He made the night, He literally separated the waters (paraphrased Genesis 1: 1-9). Can you take a moment to really meditate on that? This is the exact same God who chose you, before He ever did any of this, to be Holy and to be His (paraphrased Ephesians 1: 4-5). However, I can hear it through these pages: “But Victoria, this still hurts. Like in real time. In my real world.”. Trust me on this, I know it does.

So what are we meant to do when we are still feeling what we are feeling? The most glorious, faith-filled, and drastically chaotic thing we can do- trust the God who made everything anyways. Trust Him. When those dark moments begin to cloud your mind, take five deep breaths (in through the nose, slowly out through your mouth), and declare that we will trust Him today. When your spouse is 5 minutes late from when they said they would get home, breathe and trust. Can we do it? Absolutely not. But the God who created every single living thing in an ocean can (paraphrased Genesis 1: 20-21). But what about when we start having those images pop into our minds? Take it and hand it over to the One who made man and woman, the one who created people from the beginning. Share with your Father, “Hello sir, here is an image I have from the man/woman You created (insert shoulder shrug emoji). Have fun with that”. 

The reality my friend is that you were never designed to carry this weight alone. If I might be so bold, you were never meant to carry this load at all. Christ declared that we are to come to Him when we are weary and burdened to find true rest (paraphrased Matthew 11:28). He never said to come to our own selves and find rest within our inner beings or within our own strength. This, my love, belongs to the King. It’s His Kingdom, it’s His people, and to be frank, it’s His problem. The caveat is that we have an enormous part to play to get to this point of peace. Faith without an action is dead (James 2:17 NIV). One step is to talk to someone about these feelings you are having. Confess them to someone you can trust, be it a very close friend or a neutral party like a counselor. Do not let these feelings stay contained within a broken bottle. That bottle will eventually explode in unpredictable ways. Another step on this journey is staying as close to the feet of Jesus as you possibly can. How can you give your pain to a God you barely know? Yes, He knows you through and through, but there is something powerful and almost magical about leaning into the character and love of our Father. Get into a bible study, read your Bible, complete a devotion with some friends on specific hurts, and pray. Pray like your life depends on it. The pain you have is absolutely real. When those questions start popping up, those long buried images resurface, or when you have this aching feeling in your heart. All of this can truly drag you back to the hurt you may have already dealt with. That’s okay. It’s okay to be in that space, but please, don’t linger there. Make it an incredibly short trip that we cut off by handing it right over to God. When you are still feeling those feelings after doing everything in your power that you can do, know that you serve and worship the one true living God who made you, who made them, and who is in control of it all.