Lord, this day has been dif­fi­cult for me. Of all the exchanges to date, this has been the hard­est. Is it because it’s for 9 days? In part. But main­ly because I know his sin con­tin­ues. There’s been no Dam­as­cus road/Peniel expe­ri­ence so far. He Face­Timed the kids on Christ­mas from a hotel room, and based on his MIA sta­tus yes­ter­day (and his com­ment of “haven’t used the car, been trav­el­ing a lot”), it seems he flew in late last night, per usu­al, after being with her for the holidays. 

It hurts. To know of his ongo­ing sin. 

Can’t he just dis­ap­pear into the night and live his immoral life unbe­knownst to me and the kids? Do I real­ly have to go through all these finan­cial doc­u­ments and see where and with whom his trea­sure has tru­ly been all this time? Once I go through this cross/crucible, do I get a reprieve, Lord? Kill as much of me as pos­si­ble between now and 1/29, and then let me heal? Or will I keep dying with each Face­Time and handoff?

Emi­ly sent me yet anoth­er time­ly video. This one is by @_jaystringer and speaks about some­thing I nev­er would imag­ine was a “thing.” Appar­ent­ly, 70% of church men have watched porn at some point in their life. And appar­ent­ly, their search terms reveal the root cause of their pathol­o­gy, the expe­ri­ence that set them on this course.

I watched it while on a run around a lake in the Heart­land on 12/22, and it chilled me more than the snow and brisk wind did. This exists, Lord? Peo­ple real­ly search out this type of stuff? The seem­ing­ly put-togeth­er exec­u­tive next to me is real­ly hid­ing this in his heart? And the friend­ly neighbor? 

Oh, God. How do they func­tion with such dys­func­tion? WHO DID THIS TO THEM? Who put them on this path, and how can I stop it? Can’t You inter­vene? Can’t You defend them and keep them from spi­ral­ing away from who You made them to be?

Just got a mes­sage from him. He decid­ed to stay at our friends’ place instead of deal­ing with traf­fic today. (My God, this man’s aver­sion to traf­fic!) We’ve spent more than one New Year’s Eve with these friends. In fact, we made steaks there last NYE, for a full house. Who knew then that this is what the year held for us? I guess he did. He’s been want­i­ng a divorce for three years now, right?

I came across a video on YouTube today. It was called “Our Divorce Did Not Work Out.” How could I not watch that? I fol­lowed it to their web­site and read their sto­ry there.

There’s my sliv­er right there. Could it real­ly be pos­si­ble, Lord? I sent the link to Emi­ly, ful­ly expect­ing her to crush the sliv­er for me, since I keep res­ur­rect­ing it.

And then I came across two oth­er help­ful messages. 

This Joyce Mey­er one address­es ignor­ing our con­science, being in bondage to sin, the pow­er of repen­tance, and how God can still work all things for good. It’s packed with so much good stuff. 

Can I tell ya some­thing I’ve learned about God? And it’s a mar­velous thing. You might say, “Well, I messed up the plan of God for my life”. Well, let’s just say that there was a plan‑a and you messed it up roy­al­ly. Can’t go back and get that one. That’s too late. But here’s what I found out about God, because God is God, he can take plan‑b and make it bet­ter than plan‑a ever would have been even if plan‑a would have worked out. So here’s the mes­sage, plan‑b is bet­ter. But when we give up, when we sink into this stuff, slide into it, “Well, if only I would have and if only I would­n’t have. If I could have gone to col­lege. If I would have been born in a dif­fer­ent fam­i­ly. If I had more mon­ey. If I would have been born with one of those sil­ver spoons in my mouth”. This is why I think God picks the most unusu­al, unlike­ly peo­ple and rais­es them up and does unbe­liev­ably amaz­ing things through them because he wants you to know that with God all things are pos­si­ble. Amen?

This link has both the video and a transcript.

The sec­ond one is link from my broth­er to today’s Life Today broad­cast. It fea­tured an inter­view with @marshawnevans. What an amaz­ing woman, and with a sim­i­lar upbring­ing, sim­i­lar choic­es while grow­ing up, and sim­i­lar heart­break as cat­a­lyst. I’d love to meet her one day. I think I could be used in a sim­i­lar way. I hope.

I end­ed the night giv­ing to Samaritan’s Purse on behalf of my son. This year for Christ­mas, I had him pick a gift for his sis­ter, and said instead of pay­ing me back, he could donate that mon­ey to char­i­ty. He chose which gifts he want­ed to give from the Samar­i­tan’s Purse Cat­a­log, and they are so rep­re­sen­ta­tive of his heart. He picked a cud­dly lamb that plays Jesus Loves the Lit­tle Chil­dren, and a kid’s book that shares the gospel mes­sage. That’s my boy. 🙂 

I also donat­ed to Mar­riage Today. I sub­scribed to their emails for years. I still sub­scribe, even though I feel a pang of hurt with each new deliv­ery to my inbox now. It doesn’t apply to me any­more, and I can’t even con­sid­er it apply­ing to me in the future. But I can’t get myself to unsub­scribe, because I tru­ly believe in mar­riage done God’s way. And I know the root cause of all the dys­func­tion and dev­as­ta­tion I’m learn­ing about, stems from bro­ken fam­i­lies. So I do this to sow into my kids’ future. They are now the chil­dren of divorce, and I don’t want their lega­cy to be brokenness. 

I felt com­pelled to sow, after see­ing this video:

I also wished I could meet Jim­my Evans. If only to ask him to agree with me in prayer, for an “only God” mir­a­cle for my hus­band… and yes, our mar­riage. Still. Sigh.

And I had to sow into Life Today. What made me want to donate was more than the lure of Mar­shawn’s book. It was once again see­ing those hun­gry lit­tle faces. Footage like that had me sob­bing as a mid­dle-school­er, and gave me visions of fly­ing in my own plane with my kids, to feed hun­gry chil­dren in oth­er coun­tries. And I saw the same thing tonight, as I watched their end-of-year plea. So I sow for that past and future dream. I wish I could work for them.

Matthew 6:21 (NIV) — For where your trea­sure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 12:34 (NIV) — For where your trea­sure is, there your heart will be also.