When I sat down at my keyboard nearly 3 years ago and resolved to make my 30th year all about the Lord and my service to him, I never in my worst nightmares would have dreamt I would be where I am today. Absolute service to the Lord doesn't not come without a price. I could say I have lost everything. I want to say that, but I can't. I have a roof over my head still, and my precious children. I have food to eat and a warm, albeit highly uncomfortable bed to sleep in at night. But one thing that I've lost that I never realized I had was security.
When you live with and are in love with someone who lies chronically, you would think there is no security, but there is- a weird sense of it anyway. You begin to learn patterns and those patterns are predictable and in turn make you feel a sick sense of security. In my case it went: get caught in a lie, eek out a partial truth , call him on it a few days later, eek out more truth; all in all discovering the full truth to any of his lies took about a week to 2 weeks. Then there's the constant checking of history buttons and cell phones, checking pants and coat pockets and always trying to catch up or stay a step ahead. I'm not gonna lie, it was exhausting...but predictable and in between his lies and my hurt or anger were some of the best times I could have asked for.
As is human (read:idiot) nature, we are never truly content with what we have. There's always gotta be something more or better. I swore that me and these children deserved better than what the lies and mistrust were doing to us. I believed I deserved better than what the full truth finally revealed one night. Maybe I was. Maybe I wasn't. All I know is that in this line of thinking I traded all the beautiful times in addition to the head games for what I thought and was convinced was the better plan God had for me. I mean I was so sure my compensation for years of this crap and finally discovering he had been unfaithful years ago (and never said a word) was standing right in front of me gift wrapped in every prayer I had ever cried....and here I sit now at 4:24am- alone in my room.
ALONE.
Let me tell you, when the devil does it, he does it all the way. I am ashamed and broken that I didn't know or see it. All I saw was happiness and freedom and trust and this life I had always wanted right there. For a brief time I got to taste it and experience everything I had missed out on in life. Now I realize too late that it wasn't a hand wrapped gift from God but an exchange for my security and peace of mind from the top of a pinnacle (Matthew 4:8-10).
I don't know what God has planned for me now. My heart knows He still loves me, though He's sad and disappointed in me. I've always known and done better- but that's because I've never been shaken and blindsided like this before. It's not an excuse, I should have been prepared & on my game, but I wasn't. My best friend destroyed me and in turn I destroyed myself some more. My head isn't too sure God wants anything more to do with me. There are days it feels like things are getting better and His forgiveness of me is there...but most days my greatest achievement is deciding to get out of bed and doing so. Everyday is a struggle, a fear a fight...a replay of guilt and shame and anger and hopelessness. I desperately need a sign that He's still there and does still want me even though no one else does. To know that I'm still His...a small victory in my life...anything that steers me from believing my life was just a huge waste and a set up for failure.
Today is May 26th, 2014. In 8 days I will be 33 years old. 33 is very important to me for a few reasons.
- First off, it's the age when everything Jesus had been learning and preparing for culminated in the death of his physical self and the gateway to God opened for us.
- The divine name Elohim appears 33 times in the story of creation in the opening chapters of Genesis.
- Jesus performed 33 recorded miracles.
- When Jesus was 8 days old he was circumcised- a Jewish practice that set him apart as one of God's people. 33 is the number of days following the circumcision of the foreskin of the child where the mother had to purify her blood, according to the law of Moses. (Lev 12,4-8)
- The number 33 is connected to a promise or the promises of God. The 33rd time Noah’s name is used in Scripture is when God makes a special covenant or promise with him. The Eternal promises to not destroy the entire world again with a flood and seals His pledge with the sign of the rainbow (Genesis 9:12 - 16).
I am vowing today, now at 5:04am to live this moment and throughout my 33rd year wholly for the Lord. I will put His desires before my own, His will to be done before my own. I know there's going to be trials and most likely I am going to weaken and fear again, but I pray that in his strength I won't break. All I ask of Him is that He surround my 4 beautiful children with a wall of protection and fiery Guardian angels on every side- that they will not be harmed,hurt or touched in anyway and if He sees fit- that they always be with me where I can hold and love and protect them. My life is yours Lord. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse and for richer or poorer, til death do I part and finally rest safe and secure in your arms.
