Journey of Healing: Victoria Shares…

I thought I would die.  At any given moment, I expected my heart would simply give up or my sleep would refuse to end.  At times I was so desperately afraid that it would happen by my own hand and at others I prayed fervently that I would simply disappear–erased completely from the world that lay shattered around me.  I never truly contemplated suicide, it was more like I wanted to merely cease existing, I suppose.

My recollection of that day, its moments, the unveiling of my eyes–all a blur, yet somehow so crisp that I fight tears with each revisit.  Once the infidelity and lies began to unravel it didn’t stop for days.  It wouldn’t stop.  It must have been that time slowed so that I could experience each hurt as it came.  I’d swear the days were months if asked back then.  As my husband revealed one affair after another in an effort to come clean, I was crushed beneath the weight of this double world he had created.

After all secrets were out in the open, I shut down.  I can still feel the eerie calm that took over; it was as if I had some sort of survival generator running things in my absence.  It held me together while my husband was at work, at least together enough to keep the kids fed and happy.  Then, like clockwork, the moment he came home everything fell apart again.  I’d pass the baton of parenthood and cry and smoke and write for hours.

From out of the chain smoking and broken-hearted poetry sessions, I emerged with an unsettling realization.  God had allowed each and every betrayal and I wanted to know why.  If I’m being honest, the question was a loaded one–loaded with anger, accusation, and self-entitlement.  It was filled with sadness and longing, too, but mostly I screamed at God to tell me where He was during it all.

Then I laughed at the notion that God cared at all and I cried at the idea that He didn’t.  I was so terribly devoid of hope that I couldn’t find my way back to believing.  In what can only be from the mercy of God, I opened my dust-covered Bible and there was His reply.

“For a brief moment I abandoned you,
but with great compassion I will gather you.
In overflowing wrath for a moment
I hid my face from you,
but with everlasting love I will
have compassion on you,
says the Lord, your Redeemer.

This is like the days of Noah to me;
just as I swore that the waters of Noah
would never again go over the earth,
so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you
and will not rebuke you.

For the mountains may depart
and the hills be removed,
but my steadfast love shall not
depart from you,
and my covenant of peace shall
not be removed,
says the Lord, who has
compassion on you.”
(Isaiah 54:7-10, NRSV)

The following days–weeks–months were spent in the Word or books about It.  Eventually, the crying jags grew fewer and my spirit, stronger.  The countless poems of anguish were replaced with something entirely new to me.  God had tapped into the talents He planted within me, and soon devotionals became my main writing style.  It is still so surreal to see the Lord use for His glory what I had always used for release.

During that time in Scripture, getting to know the God I’d always claimed to love, I was given the second most precious gift–next to salvation.  I was given a new kind of love for my husband that stems from who God says he is rather than resting solely on what he has or hasn’t done.  Being able to love him again was only because I finally saw how my Heavenly Father loves me.  When He gave me that, He gave me back my husband, myself, my children–my life.

God’s deliverance of my family from such unfathomable brokenness is nothing short of a miracle.  Today, I celebrate the fact that I was nearly destroyed.  Had my world not fallen to pieces, I might still think I alone held it all together.

I believe there are times in each of our lives that it becomes necessary for God to allow “our worlds” to come crashing down around us.  Otherwise, like Victoria said, we might all think we are the ones holding it all together. Rather it is God Who holds us in His hands, and He is the One Who provides deliverance, forgiveness, and healing.