Since our crisis began 9 months ago I have been battling fiercely in my mind, and so in my heart and spirit. I see that now. But, I was frequently getting in a place where my emotions spiral and I get out of control. Those spirals have gotten steadily worse. I go to a dark place and have a severe personality change. I remember very little of what I say and do during these spirals.
I recently had my worse and darkest spiral. I did what I sometimes do during one of these meltdowns and went to my support group app, GroupMe, and unloaded every ugly thing I was thinking and feeling. I have been very inconsistent until lately with reaching out to Suzanne and the other ladies in my support group. They have been constant and faithful throughout the past 9 months of my crisis...me, not so much. I have been waiting to reach out to them until I was spiraling and in a place where I could not hear what they were really saying or understand what they meant. I did that again during this most recent spiral. They were there, as always, and responded with the same faithful and consistent encouragement, pointing me and my thoughts to God’s truth. I did what I was consistently doing and I kept telling them the same things over and over. Because of my muddled thinking, I believed they could not see and understand what I was saying and feeling.
I decided to go back and reread all the GroupMe messages from the past 9 months between the ladies and I. Reading through all those messages was very unsettling. I was finally able to see the depth of the desperation and hopelessness I was speaking and feeling. And I began to hear what the ladies were saying and understand what they meant. God began revealing so much to me through their words. He also began bringing back to my memory things that Paul and Suzanne had said to me during our meetings. I can see how unloving and unforgiving I have been and I recognize that as sin. I have treated my husband as my enemy and I was behaving like his. I have let the real enemy use me as a tool to tear my husband down and make him suffer for things God has forgiven him for. I was doing the same to myself. And that has caused us both shame and even more hurt. Every meltdown I have hinders what God is doing in both of our hearts. I can now see that my husband is not the same person he was 9 months ago or even last month. He was deeply affected and changed by the men’s workshop, as I was the ladies. He is reading God’s word and seeking God’s way like he hasn’t in years. He is being intentional in choosing me and loving me. And I have been shaming him with his past mistakes and keeping us both from being able to heal from our hurts and move forward. I am also beginning to recognize more fully how old hurts from all throughout my life have affected my perception and understanding of things, as have my husband’s old hurts affected his.
While I was reading back over the GroupMe messages I was also able to finally hear when the ladies said that they understood and felt the same ways or did the same things...and they had to learn to do things differently...the way they were encouraging me to. I have no doubt that I would have stayed forever in the pit of darkness and pain I was in and neither my husband or I would ever get healing. I’m now learning how to choose to do things differently. I am choosing to see things through the filter of God’s love and His truth and not my pain.
I have always believed that the enemy is out to seek and devour us and control us. It’s in the Bible. I believe it. But I have never felt attacked before now. I have now felt strongly attacked and it is a dark and scary feeling. Satan was trying to control my mind and my will and I was allowing him to. That was an extremely frightening revelation. He knows my thoughts are an area of struggle for me and has been attacking me there. God has greatly used the faithfulness and constant input of God’s truth from the Talleys and the ladies in my support group to help me take the hurtful and destructive thoughts captive and replace those with God’s truth.
I told Paul and Suzanne I haven’t felt this “settled” in 10 years. I have given that more thought and I realized the “settled” feeling I have is peace. And I have never felt so at peace. Never been so aware of God’s love and care. I now KNOW that in any circumstance God will take care of me and I will be ok as long as my focus is on Him and my trust is in Him. As long as He is in His rightful place in my life. I am choosing to focus on what the truth is right now and what God says is the truth.