The prayer that changed my perspective…

One year ago this week the world, as I knew it, began to crumble around me.  The night I actually looked at the Verizon bill and found the incredible number of texts to one phone number over two months I realized that nothing would ever be the same.  That same night I learned that he had reconnected with his first love and had fallen in love with her again.  My breath left me as the full weight of his words hit … that he was having an emotional affair.  I cannot explain the depth of emotions that I battled daily.

I spent hours, no, days riding waves of extreme sadness and unrelenting rage.  I ran on my treadmill with such force during these rage episodes that I blistered the bottom of both feet.  Shame began to take over my every thought … “I wasn’t enough for him” … “I wasn’t a good wife” … Sprinkled in there was a question about his girlfriend … “why does she hate me, she’s never even met me?”  I prayed relentlessly for God to save my marriage.  I asked God why He allowed me to have a child if He knew my marriage was going to crumble… ‘God,’ I would scream as I ran, ‘don’t allow this to happen!!  I will be a better Christian…’  The more pleading with God I did the worse I felt …

I obsessed over the Verizon bills.  Between 2:00 and 3:00 every morning I would wake up and check Verizon only to find that the text count was even higher, by 100s of texts, than the last time I had checked.  I was losing countless nights of sleep over this.  I never told my ex what I was obsessing over, but I did finally ask him for help in battling this particular demon … his advice was simple “get it fixed firmly in your mind, stare it down & scream at it “You cannot control me” … “ I shouldn’t have been surprised that it worked, but it did.  I soon stopped obsessing over the texts.

That helped, but it didn’t stop the incredible sadness I felt.  One day I was sitting at my desk, sobbing.  I was telling God how utterly alone I felt in that moment and the calmest voice I have ever witnessed whispered “hush, child, I am here” … and a peace fell over me, one that I can scarcely explain.  In that moment I knew that I had been praying the wrong prayer.  It occurred to me that I had not control over this, so I started incorporating “God, if it is Your will” and “Thy will be done in my marriage, in our lives” into my prayers.  While I was still sad when I learned that he was moving out and that she was moving in with him, the peace that I had found never left me.

I knew that he had made his decision and for the sake of our son, my only choice was to accept the decision and to let go with dignity.  During the weeks between his decision to move out and her moving in I became friends with her on Facebook and began to get to know her better.  She was going to be a part of my son’s life, it was another fact I needed to accept.  When the time came to meet her face to face, I thought I was ready … but I wasn’t. 

I met her on a Friday morning when I dropped Mr. Man off at his dad’s … I made it through the day, still filled with peace.  I was on my way home after work when I was hit by the extremely sad thought “why wasn’t I good enough”.  I had to pull over on the road because the tears were flowing so hard.  I couldn’t face her every morning without that thought slamming me to the floor.  I appreciate that my ex allowed me more time to adjust to the new situation, but I knew that I would have to face all of this eventually.

The world told me that I was within my rights to harbor hard feelings toward this woman, that it was ok for me to be angry, even that it would be understood if I hated her ...  But, my heart wasn’t built like that … I didn’t know how to get past everything that had happened, I just knew I had to.  A thought occurred to me and persisted for several days … I needed to begin to ask God to soften my heart, to allow me to see both my ex and his girlfriend as God sees them. 

I want to share a verse I came across tonight that seems very timely and appropriate for this installment:

Matthew 5:43-45New Living Translation (NLT)

⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’^[a] and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies!^[b] Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

Over the past year I have lost sight of this request a couple of times … but the bottom line is that once I began to see these two people as God’s reflections of love, regardless of how they may see themselves, I find greater peace in my life than I thought possible.  Anytime I begin to experience feelings of resentment or animosity I am reminded that I am just as human as either of them and if I deserve understanding and love, then so do they.  It’s pretty simple, really.