Read­ing @JonAcuff ‘s book Start got me start­ed in research­ing about blog­ging, but not actu­al­ly doing. This divorce process has pushed me to take steps I’ve long put aside, wait­ing for the “per­fect” idea, the “per­fect” lay­out, the “per­fect” every­thing. Now all I’m wait­ing on, is the per­fect time to hit publish.

I had to return to our mar­i­tal home­town for medi­a­tion re: cus­tody of the chil­dren. On the morn­ing of 10/30, after yet anoth­er rest­less night, I gave up at 5 AM and start­ed writ­ing … and yes, cry­ing. Those big, fat tears that silent­ly roll down your cheeks, com­mu­ni­cat­ing your pain more than words ever could. And that’s when the idea for I Bleed Love was born. I real­ized that with every wound he gives me, love pours out. He tells me about his infi­deli­ty from the time we were engaged on, and that night, what do I do? I ask him to come to our bed once more, where I laid my hands on him and prayed a prayer of bless­ing and heal­ing, pro­claim­ing God’s Word over him. I couldn’t not do it. It’s what’s in me. 

You see, God is such a good God. None of this is a sur­prise to Him. His promis­es for me are not depen­dent on any per­son oth­er than Him­self, and my will­ing­ness to sub­mit, obey, and fol­low wher­ev­er He leads, even if it is through the val­ley of the shad­ow of the death of my mar­riage. Find­ing out about my husband’s unfaith­ful­ness didn’t change Who God is, or the long list of God’s faith­ful­ness to me over the course of my life and that of my pre­de­ces­sors. He is TOO good. TOO good for me to do any­thing oth­er than what He would do. 

At that point, the anoint­ing was so pro­tec­tive on me, that when­ev­er I looked at my hus­band, all I saw was bro­ken­ness. I didn’t feel the per­son­al betray­al yet. I only saw what he had done against God (Ps. 51:4). I saw who God designed him to be, who God called him to be, who God desired him to be, and who God was still will­ing and able to trans­form him to be. That’s for whom I had fall­en to begin with. That’s to whom I had com­mit­ted myself for life, over whom I had wres­tled with both God and the ene­my for 15 years, and that’s for whom my heart inter­ced­ed at that moment. And too many moments since.

The two incit­ing cat­a­lysts now? The dis­cov­ery I endured last night, and know­ing that today I have to tell my kids their dad doesn’t want to be mar­ried to their mom anymore. 

There’s noth­ing like pain to push you to a deep­er lev­el of prayer, wor­ship, and com­plete depen­dence on God, His tim­ing, and His sov­er­eign­ty. After yet anoth­er fit­ful night of sleep and dreams about him, I woke up at 1 AM, with so many songs play­ing through my head, lyrics like “Holy, there is no one like You,” “What a beau­ti­ful name it is,” and “I see You move, You move the moun­tain.” And Scrip­tures like, “I will lift up my eyes to the hills from whence cometh my help,” and “I know the plans I have for you.” I final­ly called it quits around 545A and start­ed get­ting ready for the day. In the mean­time, I watched a T.D. Jakes’ video that was com­plete con­fir­ma­tion of what God had shown me last week when I was in our mar­i­tal home­town, prep­ping our for­ev­er home for sale 5 months after purchase. 

So this morn­ing, I prayed, full of the Spir­it, and then began. I thought about what to tell the kids. I cre­at­ed their YouTube chan­nel and my own (no link for theirs, ha!). And I start­ed this blog. 

My blog won’t look per­fect­ly pro­fes­sion­al; my entries won’t be per­fect­ly con­struct­ed. But they’ll be hon­est and trans­par­ent. My whole life, I’ve been guard­ed. And I’ve spent the last 13 years in iso­la­tion. The truth is set­ting me free, and I don’t want to wor­ry about being per­fect­ed in pri­vate before shar­ing in pub­lic anymore. 

And my hope is that as I process the pain and roller coast­er of emo­tions of this unex­pect­ed, dev­as­tat­ing, pul­ver­iz­ing jour­ney, some­thing will res­onate with you, Read­er, and some­one out there will know they too can expe­ri­ence the love, pro­tec­tion, and promis­es of the God Who holds me so close right now.

Today’s Playlist: