2/15

Oh, the ups and downs after a mar­riage is torn apart.

His fam­i­ly is the one spilling the secrets, not me. I don’t want to be a part of any gos­sip. If you didn’t care enough to be a part of our lives the last 13 years, you don’t need to know. And if it’s not bring­ing life, I’m not say­ing it. That’s not what God would have me do.

2/13 prayer

Father, I thank You for reminders that You always have a grand Mas­ter plan, even if we don’t see what You’re up to, God. That You’re inter­est­ed in even the most minute details and in how to max­i­mize the glo­ry that comes to Your name, Father. So I thank You for the video about Tim Tebow, Lord, that he did the Philip­pi­ans 4:13 and then switched it to John 3:16 for that last game, and how three years lat­er, Lord, all the stats reflect­ed some vari­a­tion of 3:16, Lord. And how once more Your name was glo­ri­fied, Lord, and how peo­ple sought you out. He was a city on a hill, a light that was shin­ing so bright in the dark­ness at that point, God.

And that’s been my prayer for our fam­i­ly for years. Father, I thank You, Lord, for meet­ing me yes­ter­day at Bible study and for speak­ing to me about how You are our light and how we are sup­posed to reflect, trans­mit, absorb, and refract Your light in so many dif­fer­ent ways, God. Lord, You know that all I want is for my life and my kids’ lives to be used for Your glo­ry, God, and even X’s, God. To be used for Your glo­ry and to bring acclaim to Your name.

This morn­ing when I got his cousin’s text mes­sage, God, for an hour, my heart was pen­ning a love let­ter of sorts, adjur­ing her to not aban­don him but to love him as You love him. That the sins that we just dis­cov­ered that have tak­en us unaware – You were the Eye­wit­ness to every moment, every action, every thought, every deed. Noth­ing escaped Your notice, Lord. You were right there with him. You were that qui­et Voice that he stilled, that he tried to drown out with every­thing else, God.

And You love him. You’re wait­ing for him, as he’s wal­low­ing in this mud, to come to his sens­es, to turn around, and to run back into the arms of his Heav­en­ly Father Who’s wait­ing for him, with out­stretched arms. God, You are not will­ing that any should per­ish but that all should come to eter­nal life. And it’s Your kind­ness, Lord, that leads us to repen­tance. I’m no longer in a posi­tion, God, to be an agent of that kind­ness or love in his life, God.

After talk­ing to the Gen­er­al last night, to real­ize that the hope I feel resurg­ing every time I’m in Your pres­ence, in the pres­ence of oth­er believ­ers, to not pin that hope or define that hope rather, even though it’s the image that I see. That instead, I would place that hope in You. It’s like she said, that in Job, he lived a blame­less life and even when sur­round­ed by all the naysay­ers, he still put his trust in You, and You gave him dou­ble the reward in the end. How much greater was the end of Job than the begin­ning. I rec­og­nize that, God. Son and I just read through the book of Job, and it res­onates with me.

But I also think of Steven Furtick’s mes­sage today about not being a hostage. When he was speak­ing about Paul being sent to Philip­pi and how the Mace­don­ian vision You gave was of a man ask­ing for him to come. But when he got there, he didn’t find that man, there was no syn­a­gogue for him to go to to find such a per­son. And so he went to the riv­er where there were women gath­ered, and he met Lydia. Lydia was not the per­son he saw in the vision, but Lydia had a need, he had a need, and togeth­er You start­ed the church in the West through her mon­ey and his mis­sion. Pas­tor Furtick was remind­ing every­one that God may show you some­thing to get you start­ed, but what He uses may not look like what He showed you ini­tial­ly. The point is to be obe­di­ent to the best of your abil­i­ty in what you know at that moment.

So God, I sur­ren­der. You told me to sur­ren­der him, to trust You, and to focus just on today. Not to think about tomor­row and tomorrow’s expec­ta­tions or wor­ries or demands. So even with this resur­gent hope, I sur­ren­der it to You. Ulti­mate­ly I know, God, that You have great plans for me. That You are such a good God. That what­ev­er the future holds will be bet­ter than Plan A. Whether he’s absent or present, what­ev­er it may be. So I choose to do the same thing with that resur­gent hope, Father, and I pray it’s pleas­ing in Your sight. That when I feel it and expe­ri­ence it, that I sur­ren­der it, too, as well. That I trust You and that I focus on what’s in front of me at that moment.

I envi­sion these dif­fer­ent sce­nar­ios in my head, God, of how You’re going to come through for me. It’s not about vengeance. It’s not about vin­di­ca­tion or jus­tice even. It’s just – it’s not all about him. It’s just about show­ing Your­self strong in my life and in show­ing that You are faith­ful to Your promise of those that fol­low You and obey Your com­mands live blessed lives.

And so, in my head, I’m just count­ing down the days and telling myself to have patience until cer­tain incre­ments pass. Like Feb­ru­ary 18th, the sweep­stakes is over. Feb­ru­ary 28th, they’ll draw the name. By the end of March, they’ll be announc­ing who the win­ner is, and there will be a win­ners’ week­end. So much of me believes, God, the HGTV Dream Home is for me, because of what was tak­en from me, God – the dream home that he and I designed, curat­ed, and where Son and I spent hours and I spent days writ­ing Scrip­ture on the foun­da­tion, spe­cif­ic des­ig­na­tions for each room. I only got to be there for 4 months before our fam­i­ly was torn apart.

So win­ning a Dream Home seems like jus­tice. Know­ing that I earned and con­tributed $1.5 mil­lion to pro­vide for our fam­i­ly through Your grace and Your pro­vi­sion real­ly. And that he used it, basi­cal­ly he just used me for the lifestyle and the perks that the job pro­vid­ed, the income pro­vid­ed, to fund both his pub­lic and pri­vate lifestyles.

So it seems appro­pri­ate that the cash option of tak­ing every­thing is about $1 mil­lion. And it seems appro­pri­ate that I who nev­er got a new car dur­ing the 13 years we were mar­ried and how he got 2 lux­u­ry vehi­cles and nev­er cared enough about me to put me first or to put the kids’ safe­ty first. So to win a car seems appro­pri­ate as well.

And You know, God, that I have my heart hop­ing for a phar­ma­cy direc­tor posi­tion. It’s the only way I know where I can work from home, and there’s min­i­mal trav­el, and it’s a com­pa­ra­ble salary to what I was mak­ing before. And it’s some­thing that gave me a spark on the inside. And You know, Lord, that part of me is wait­ing because my for­mer boss said in the begin­ning of this year they would cre­ate anoth­er posi­tion. So, Lord, You know what I’m hold­ing out my hope for.

But I under­stand, God, that Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and Your ways are not my ways. I may not see a house and a car and the mon­ey and a job come in the way that I’m envi­sion­ing. But like You did with Paul and Lydia, ulti­mate­ly as I con­tin­ue in my obe­di­ence, You will be faith­ful, and You will make the right pieces fall into place at the right time, and in a way that not only ful­fills the peo­ple involved, but also gives You the great­est glo­ry and does the great­est good for Your king­dom on this earth.

And I tell You, Lord, I would glad­ly, glad­ly and eas­i­ly walk away from all of it, from some grand ges­ture of jus­tice, in exchange for his soul. That he would turn to You, and that he would be the man of God that You have called him and cre­at­ed him and fash­ioned him and formed him and breathed him into exis­tence, to be. I know You’re able to do all of the above, but if I have to choose, I choose his soul.

2/14 prayer

Father, I come before You, Lord, and I thank You for this day, God. I thank You, God, just for a beau­ti­ful day, on this Valentine’s Day. It nev­er real­ly had a lot of mean­ing to me before, so I guess I don’t miss the absence of it as much as I could poten­tial­ly. I mean, if any­thing, I feel – I don’t know what I feel. Just remem­ber­ing that he was at a hotel with her this time last year! Know­ing that he has a new head­shot that he’s tak­ing today from 4–630, and she’s a por­trait pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and so I won­der who’s going to be tak­ing that shot of him?!

You know, it’s stuff like that, God, that’s also anoth­er war with­in me. I, You know, I have days like yes­ter­day where I wake up in the morn­ing and see his cousin’s text, and every­thing in me cries out, “No! Some­one, please be there for him! Some­one, please love him! Some­one, please be God’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive, God’s hands and feet to him!” And when I think of the redeem­ing qual­i­ties, when I think of the good times, when I think of the things in him that I loved so much, Father, and the per­son­al­i­ty traits and the glimpses of gold – that’s when my heart wish­es for the fairy tale.

But then there’s the times when I remem­ber the decep­tion. I remem­ber the out­right lies. I remem­ber the tone of his voice when he’s talk­ing about me, and how he sends me a mes­sage of “God can do any­thing” while he’s seat­ed right next to her! I think of the two of them togeth­er and what they did and what they’re con­tin­u­ing to do.

And then that’s when I don’t want to hear from him. I don’t want to think of him. I want to feel noth­ing for him real­ly, least of all this over­whelm­ing love and con­cern for his soul.

But I’m com­mit­ted, Lord, to feel­ing every­thing that I feel, and for see­ing it through to com­ple­tion, what­ev­er that looks like. I don’t want to find dis­trac­tions. I don’t want to sub­sti­tute work­outs to for­get what’s going on in life. No, no, I want to ful­ly embrace what’s going on in life, because I don’t want there to be any wounds. I want com­plete heal­ing. I don’t want there to be any scars. I want there to be strength. I don’t want there to be even a patched-up wound that may at some point burst at the seam and spill out all over.

No, no. I want to be made whole, I want to be made com­plete, and I know that I find that in You.

I had it. I had that in You before I got mar­ried, because I didn’t want to get mar­ried until I knew my iden­ti­ty was in You, and that I was already a whole and com­plete per­son with a call­ing and a des­tiny. And that I wasn’t look­ing for anoth­er per­son to com­plete me. I wasn’t look­ing for anoth­er per­son to fill in any gaps, because I didn’t have any gaps. I was look­ing for some­one to be an equal part­ner with me who was already whole in You as well.

Are there any peo­ple like that, Lord? Are there any peo­ple like that out there? I can’t be the only anom­aly, right? I don’t know.

I can say, Lord, I am very thank­ful for one thing that’s dif­fer­ent on this Valentine’s Day, and that’s the num­ber of mes­sages I got this morn­ing! I’ve nev­er had to bal­ance three text con­ver­sa­tions at the same time before! I’ve nev­er had that many friends reach­ing out to me. And it wasn’t them check­ing up on me. It was Michelle com­mu­ni­cat­ing about com­ing in this week­end, so the boys could be togeth­er. And Emi­ly talk­ing about an event she wish­es I could be at and check­ing up on me. And it was Dar­by, know­ing she can’t meet tomor­row but doing every­thing pos­si­ble to try to meet me today.

Lord, the lone­li­ness I had dur­ing my mar­riage, the lack of friends, the com­plete iso­la­tion – how strange it is, Father, that now You’re sur­round­ing me with sup­port, with a fam­i­ly I can com­plete­ly depend on, when before I had to depend on myself, depend on You rather. I couldn’t depend on him. He didn’t take care of me, he didn’t care about me.

And so much of me want­ed to be plugged into a small group of strong, god­ly women I could fel­low­ship with. Here I have to trav­el 1.5 hours one-way for it, but I have it, and I have it in spades. And it’s full of women who are filled with the Spir­it, who seek You with their whole heart, and who also have their own bat­tles and issues that they are so trans­par­ent about shar­ing and inter­ced­ing, God, and going to war and oper­at­ing in the gifts of the Spir­it. I couldn’t imag­ine a bet­ter group of women to be around, and that’s what makes the 1.5 hour long dri­ve one-way worth it.

And I have the free­dom to go on this day to have lunch with my son in the mid­dle of a school day, to love on him. We got to make treats last night that I get to bring and share with his bud­dies because I’m their coach for his aca­d­e­m­ic meet, and I couldn’t have done that before either! I get to pick up my beau­ti­ful lit­tle girl and my son and spend the evening with them. I get to go have lunch with a MENTOR. Oh my gosh, God, how long have I want­ed a mentor!

So, Lord, though I lost a hus­band, though I lost a house, and I lost the “what could be’s”, Lord, already I’ve gained sup­port, fam­i­ly, a god­ly group of women, a men­tor. And I’ve seen who I can go to, who are friends that I can real­ly go to.

Most of all, there’s You. My, how’s there’s You! And oh, how You shout in my pain! How I hear You! Every sin­gle time I turn on the tele­vi­sion, I know You have a word for me. And You know, God, part of me doesn’t want win­ter to end sim­ply because of how loud I hear Your voice in this sea­son. Know­ing that maybe Your voice won’t be so loud or so con­stant when I get to spring. I kin­da want to stay in the win­ter sea­son of my soul, if only to hear Your voice as often and as loud as I do right now.


So today, as usu­al, God showed me mes­sages tai­lored for me when I flipped on the TV. It was on Daystar, and the XO Con­fer­ence was being rebroad­cast. I heard Pas­tor Michael Todd from Tul­sa, OK, deliv­er a crazy-amaz­ing word. I’d seen some of his videos on Face­book before, but I nev­er knew his sto­ry. And the fact that he and his wife were fight­ing at an XO con­fer­ence 4 years pri­or to him speak­ing on that stage. Seri­ous­ly, go watch it now. Right now. Don’t read anoth­er word until you’ve watched it.

https://www.daystar.tv/xo-conference/season:1/videos/what-if-it-s-messy-michael-todd-xo-conference-2019

This word was just crazy amaz­ing. It was yet anoth­er one of those resur­gent hope/light in the darkness/My end­ing is going to blow your mind mes­sages that keep me in a state of ten­sion. To hope, or not to hope? To believe, or not to believe? It did what Pas­tor Mike intend­ed – it built my faith. Could this MESS become a MESSAGE, the crazy amaz­ing mir­a­cle I’ve always envi­sioned? I don’t know. The blind man had to make the choice to obey Jesus, in order to receive his mir­a­cle. And that choice rests sole­ly in my husband’s hands. I guess the hope is that Jesus sees him and reach­es out him, because he sho nuf isn’t the one run­ning to God.

My dad LOVED the mes­sage. But where­as I was inspired to pray and believe and hope and expect mir­a­cles from the mess, his con­clu­sion was that my hus­band is demon-pos­sessed and so far gone that this mes­sage couldn’t pos­si­bly apply to him. Sigh. Figures.

I’m sit­ting here, deal­ing with the details of the fall­out, hav­ing to take a 4‑hour par­ent­ing course before the court will grant the divorce. What­ev­er the hap­py end­ing, how many of these will I have to live out on this jour­ney before I see God’s plan become a reality?

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