A magical kind of God

Chris,
The problem is I really do believe in God.
I really, really do believe that he actually does exist.

Just like the kitchen table is real, God is that real to me. Arguing whether or not God is real or not is like arguing over whether or not wind exists without a microscope. You can't see wind; you can only see what it does to us on the earth.

In the same way I can see what God is doing here on earth, in my life and in the life of others. I see the evidence of his existence through his effect on life. We simply haven't invented a "spirit-scope" yet. Does that mean the spirit realm does not exist? Or does it just mean we have not created an instrument to look at it?
Secular Psychology says a belief in God is magical thinking. Just like torturing a voodoo doll is believed to cause pain in the actual person, prayer can also affect an actual person. There is no REAL connection between the "remedy" and the problem. People who follow these rituals, superstitions and religions are trying to solve problems with "magic". It is a mental illness not an alternate universe with invisible beings running around toying with our world. These "deluded people" read into coincidences and feel their "magic" has worked. They ignore anything that counters this far-reaching belief and try to force their "insanity" on society.

About 3 days after Dacey left one of my friends, Jade pretty much “ordered” me off to counseling. I was still in “Deer in the headlights” mode.

I just wanted to sit in a corner and stare……….. “This can’t be real?!?!?”

Yet she refused to give me peace, she hounded me mercilessly. I mumbled something about “I wouldn’t have clue where to go….” So she did a mountain of research and sent me this email with the names and addresses of local counselors. Her extreme pushiness was killing me. I got that it was motivated out of a sincere concern but her pressure made me freeze not “snap into action”. I wanted to wait on God and see how he led. She was making it impossible for me to hear God.

Once the email was sent I got a phone call with a demand….. “Let me know WHICH counselor you are going to see.” It was pretty clear by her tone there were going to be consequences if I did not pick one of these counselors.

Frankly at the time I was afraid of going into secular counseling. I was afraid I would end up in a push-me-pull-me over being a Christian. Instead of dealing with the things I want to deal with I speculated I would be on the defense trying to prove I am not a crazy person for wanting to be a Christian.

Jade of course was in a complete panic…..
”You won’t get ANY real help in the church! You need to go in for REAL counseling!”

Eventually I succumbed to her pressure and agreed to go in for counseling but I wanted to wait until I was ready which meant to me that God had given me the “go-ahead”. This response infuriated her. She blew her stack and ended our friendship…….

Yup, over that.

I called my other friend Sheila in tears. Sheila theorized the reason Jade had blown this out of proportion was because Jade and her husband were planning on relocating to a different state once her husband finished his degree. This would be happening in a few months. So in reality Jade was making it easier for her to move away by alienating the friends she was leaving behind. I was not the only one she pushed aside.

A few days later Jade called me up and invited me over. She apologized. However she was cold in the way she had done it. I justified her calloused demeanor by believing that she just still needs to cool off.  I figured that she’ll be OK in a few days but she was never really the same, though I kept trying to pretend that she was. It wasn’t until after she left town that I found out that Sheila had called Jade up and basically forced her to reconcile with me in her conversation.
 “BE NICE TO HER UNTIL YOU GUYS MOVE!!”

Here I believed my friendship was basically repaired, talked out and dealt with when in reality it was a sham…….. Just like my marriage was a sham. Just like in my marriage when my husband and I went through the motions of reconciliation after an argument, I pretended like the motions had worked and we were as good as new, whereas in reality the tension never let up………….ever. He was always mad at me. I simply pretended that it had worked.

What else could I do? If you ask them (anyone who does this) “Are you still mad at me?” They simply lie….. “Nope”.  How do you reconcile with a liar? You can't.

I was FURIOUS with Sheila.
 “Why didn’t you tell me it was a FAKE reconciliation!!!!!” I had bared my soul to Jade in those months thinking she was a confidant. I felt like a complete fool. In reality I felt betrayed by both of them. Sheila just set her jaw in resistance. She felt creating a fake reconciliation was the right thing for her to have done: Fighting is wrong….being nice is right. She did the right thing.

It seems to me looking back that Jade had cashed in her Christian values for the ones she says she got during her counseling appointments. She had found a “higher wisdom” that was far more effective then the values of Christianity that we had been raised with.

Before I knew Jade, she had gone on the mission field for a year working as a “nurse”. She was not a real nurse just a young girl full of ambition and a love for Jesus.  Working overseas you see a lot of ugliness, pain and suffering. She did not have proper medical supplies or training but simply did what she could to help with what she had.

Coming back from Southeast Asia was extremely difficult and she was hit with the culture shock.
Her friends back at church just expected her to be her normal “I love Jesus” self.
Instead she became confused and spiritually disoriented for a season.
Her childlike innocence was gone.

She didn't get the support she needed from friends so she turned to professional counselling. This in turn seemed to create a hard shell towards a world she once loved. She remained a Christian but a disconnected one. She was not going to get involved again. “Don’t take it too seriously.”

I had seen this before……..
The year before Dacey’s little brother spent a year in Central America. He worked with Nicaraguan war orphans and did manual labor for the local churches in neighboring countries. Upon his return he was also empty lost and haggard. He hung his head “I don’t know if I even believe in God anymore……….”

Instead of supporting him people were annoyed with him.
I encouraged my husband to spend time with him and told his brother to ignore them. “You will feel better, this happens to everyone. It is culture shock. He responded that he knew, they told him this would happen. I prayed for him and continued to encourage Dacey to hang out with his brother.

Dacy's brother was doing fine until he saw a car accident on the freeway. A car veered off and hit the guardrail. Dacy's brother pulled off to help. Instead he ran into a horrible situation.

The driver was slumped over his steering wheel and the woman on the passenger side pulled a gun out of the glovebox. He screamed and jumped back. She put the gun to her own head and pulled the trigger. Dacy's brother was covered with splatter.

Once we got into contact with him and I heard his story I was exasperated by the calloused things people were saying to him. “Get over it!” “Move on!” “Quit whining!” “Man up would’cha!” “Ya gotta be strong!” It was either that or treat him like he had leprosy……”Oh my gosh…that is so horrid! You will be completely screwed up now! Then just stare at him like he was a freak of nature and slowly back away.

I was furious.
Why are people being so mean? This just does not make sense to me. Thor started having panic attacks. He was just as outgoing as Dacey yet he was becoming fearful of crowds. Mr. SUPER SUPER extrovert was going into hiding. Not good.

I sat him down…..Listen what you are experiencing is NORMAL!
Tell them to screw off!
You just watched a woman blow her head up. You will be freaked out for awhile…… not forever just awhile. You will get over this.”

I relayed the story of how my house burned down when I was 22yrs old and how it affected me afterwords. We had PTSD for months but it went away. Luckily for me I had my roommate to talk through it with.  

She smoked cigarettes. She lit a match and we both screamed and she threw the match in a panic. She was flipping her hands around like a girl who thinks a spider just landed on her.

We were in a restaurant.

 I whisper-screamed “OH #%&@ grab it grab it!” She jumped on to the floor crawling around trying to find the match. We both just started laughing. We looked like complete morons! I teased her “What are you freaking out about you’re the one who lit the match!” She laughed “I had no idea I would panic like that!”  Yes I let out a scream of terror in public because someone lit a match…….
how embarrassing.

Another time we were driving down the road and there was mud smeared on a road sign that had the same pattern as the walls inside the house. The walls were black from soot. The water from the fire hoses had created streaks down the walls.
When we saw the sign we both screamed and tried to crawl into the back seat of the car…..
she was driving.
Again I gave her grief “Stop it! Only I can panic you are driving!”  
We both just busted up laughing.
It gave me a sense of comfort seeing her panic in the exact same instant that I had. It also gave me comfort that we could laugh it off together, neither of us judging each other.

I had hoped this story would help Thor see this is just life…..get through it and you’ll be as good as new maybe better.
Do like the cop told you: Keep talking and cry if you feel like it.
Wash that pain out. It will feel better eventually.
I heard once “talk until you are bored.” If you are bored with your own story then you are healed.  

With the fire I had the freedom love and support to do that.
With my divorce the world had changed.
People had very different ideas on how to deal with difficulty now.

For some reason people now feel “you power that person down”
Force them into compliance,
Order them around,
or declare them a lost cause and walk away.
Call them negative
If you show them any compassion you are enabling them. They will never get over it if you cottle them. It may seem mean but it is really good for people if you are tough with them through a difficult and painful time.

There is this assumption that if a person is in a bad place
 it is because they are a bad person;
 God is punishing them……so I will too.
At least it seemed that way.

Then I heard that “magical” voice of God say in my heart:

 “Call this lady.”
In my mind I heard this unfamiliar voice answer the phone and say
 “Hello?”

 

There is a Fungus among us

Chris,
My ex-husband Dacey used to call himself a fungi. He would say this and then pause with a playful smirk on his face…..
"Do you get it? Do you get the joke?"
FUN GUY......fungi
People would smile and laugh. If I said the exact same thing people would groan and roll their eyes. He had the "art of delivery". He could say pretty much anything and have people laughing. People either loved him…… following him everywhere,
Or he completely annoyed them thus they avoided him.
He of course never even noticed the people who ignored him. His entire focus was on monitoring his groupies for reactions. What will get that next laugh? He loved to bring a smile to your face. His entire life was centered on that one goal:
make people happy................... and people do want to be happy.

I did though. I noticed the looks of irritation that were tossed his way. At restaurants when he would blurt out a loud comment or throw something across the room to surprise the friend he just noticed sitting over there.
I was of course the spoil sport. In the car on the way home I would lecture him on
 "It is OK to be funny but not rude to strangers. Once was funny, but you kept throwing stuff!That is so disrespectful to the other people in the restaurant! Believe it or not they don't want to watch you. They want to eat their dinner." 

He would just tune me out.

BLa BLAAA……. BLA bla bla!   BLABLAaaaa….. BLa bla….

I was negative and boring in his mind. EVERYONE was laughing what was my problem? 

I was embarrassed. I saw the dirty looks. He had gone to far.....again. If he could just learn the line between funny and interrupting.

The only thing he noticed was the smiles, the giggles and his friend's exaggerated wave
 "Hey dude! Good to see you!" 
Everything is play. Everything was just an explosion of fun everywhere he went.

I learned pretty quickly "the lecture" got me nowhere. I just ended up looking like a grumpy nag. So instead when his antic's became public or disrespectful to people I would simply vanish. I can't control him. This is his handpicked crowd. So when he started yodeling on the second floor of a mall from the balcony…..

I vanished.

I had the car keys. He WILL FIND ME eventually.
When we had met a new couple with a very formal wife…….. He felt this gathering was a bit stiff…..so he thought he would break the ice. He jumped up on to the coffee table and started to dance.
Everyone burst out laughing except the woman who owned the coffee table. She ran off into the kitchen with a look of horror. I thought she was going to throw up. I chased after her…."I'm sooooo sorry!!! I am so sorry!"

I thought she was going to lose her mind. I tried so hard to calm her down. She  was standing with her back to me grasping the door handle to the oven. She was hunched over the stove shaking.

Eventually she got a grip. She clamped down on herself and faked a smile and whirled around "That's ok…..I understand. You can't control him." She forced herself to grab the next plate of hor dourves and went back out into the living room.

I was sure we would NEVER see them again. However her husband loved my husband, thought he was a total kick, so we were once again invited over……This time the coffee table was nowhere to be found and all the furniture was covered in blankets….
ARG.
She had this smug little satisfied look on her face…. "I'm ready for you!"

Did he notice any of that? Nope.

He just figured I was blowing it all out of proportion. She invited us back! Everyone was happy. His "fix" to the boring party had worked perfectly. I was just not getting it. 

Do you see?
It seemed like we both wanted the same thing. We both wanted to make people happy. We just had radically different approaches and were worried about a very different group of people.

 I wanted to solve the problems that made people grumpy and he wanted to use shock value and humor to "snap people out if it". He felt if he could get people to laugh then they were truly happy. The laughter created this stamp of approval on everything unconventional he did. That is the way fun-guys work.

I didn't take that kind of happiness seriously. It is nice to have a break from reality but there are also times where we suck it up, and just go along with the crowd because we are struggling right now. "This is not the place for doom and gloom." We reason.

However when you are alone again……………….how do you feel? Getting a break now and again is wonderful but a real resolve seems better to me.

After my divorce I was DONE with the "fake it, till you make it" motto. I wanted a real fix not a fake it one. I'd been a Christian since I was 10yrs old and he was raised in a Christian home. "We had the answer" yet our world had just blown up. This led me to the question………….

Is Jesus for real?

Or is this really just a dumb game we all just play?

In Christ always,
T

Preconceived Ideas

Chris,
I was not the only person who was hurt by his choice to have an affair. If we love people, and they love us, what we do with our life affects them not just us.
He hurt alot of people. They believed in him and what he said so when they watched him fall it tore a piece of their heart out as well.

Quite often we hear people say "It is MY LIFE! I will do what I want! Leave me alone!"
The reality is our choices have impact on others and when those choices are destructive to those around us………..
"People start trying to control you." That is just the way it is.

If no one responsible is willing to take leadership then the lynch mop tends to take over.

There is this ongoing battle here on earth between chaos and control
 (life or growth & death or deterioration).
If life seems too chaotic people will start to enforce their will on others trying to regain control and re-establish some sanity. If we gain too much control it starts to suffocate and results in the opposite of its intention, it recreates chaos.
Here's how:

When we have stacked too many expectations on others they will learn they must fly under the radar in order to function in life. Slowly flying under the radar becomes the norm.
"This is the way it is done."
This eventually discredits the spoken instructions. No one takes what is said publicly seriously since no one follows it anyway. Nature starts to take its course which is of course: chaos. Be careful not to create an expectation without a corresponding back-up plan to walk it out or people will stop taking you seriously. I have learned this.

On the way to work they are doing road construction. There is some "structure" amidst the chaos. During the day they have flaggers directing traffic but at night chaos reigns, as it does in life.

My traffic light is set wrong.
So when I sit at the light waiting to turn left my side won't turn green. I hit the trigger……
The main street turns yellow…then red…… and then green again.
My light never turns green allowing me to go. It will only turn green if the car opposing me hits their trigger.
I will lose my job if I sit there waiting patiently until someone shows up to hit that trigger!!
 It is before 4am.
I lost my respect for the authority of that traffic light. I took matters into my own hands. I looked both ways and made my left turn. I ran that red light intentionally. I took the lesser of two evils the way I see it.

In life if people only tells us what is wrong without giving us a practical "green light" we will learn to just tell them what they want to hear and do what we think needs to be done when they are not looking or simply blow them off altogether. Matthew 23:1-5.

This was the outlook on life my ex-husband seemed to have. Growing up as a latch key child of a single mom with 4 kids, chaos reigned when mom was at work. Control was appeased when she walked thru the door. He grew up learning how to chameleon the rules and the rule makers. Be completely compliant in her presence. Be patient…… she will be gone again in a few hours.

As an adult he played the church just like he played his mom. I do not believe he was even aware of what he was doing. To him this is just normal. You are expected to act one way around one crowd, another around the other crowd. He simply lived up to all of their expectations. He was not bothered by the fact that these various worlds had apposing expectations. He was a good boy. He did as he was told………always.

I was also raised by a single mom who had 2 kids. I was also left unattended for long stretches of time without any supervision. This was the norm at the time. However that is where the similarities ended.
Our mom's had very different parenting styles.
His mom was command and control. She worked all day. When she got home she picked her battles, then stood her ground on those few issues with all her might. Reining in 3 energetic boys and one wildly independent adolescent girl was overwhelming to do alone. She had to be strong.

My mom had worked towards a degree in sociology when she was in College. She valued truth more than control.
She pursued being my confidant and enticed me into confession more than gaining the upper hand. She wanted to know what was really going on and talk me through those choices. I had a different sense of chaos growing up than my ex-husband did.
My mother was in the middle of all the chaos.
His mom was shielded from it.

We both had absent fathers.
 His Dad lived in another state, Las Vegas to be precise.
My Dad lived in other countries. My Dad worked for the state dept as an economist. He was sent abroad to among other things assist developing countries on how to set up a market economy. I would joke "My dad teaches baby Democracy school!"

Developing the voice of "the little guy" was at his very foundation.
It was his life's work to weave "listen to the people" in and out of what he did with corrupt bully governments. He would try and teach them how to respond to the requests of the poor and the average with diligent and effective leadership. His life's mission was to train the Heads of state how to govern using a servant leadership model…..or at least try. Narcissists who are on top are not easily influenced. However power will listen to more power……….. but of course for all the wrong reasons.

He treated his kids the same way. He was emotionally distant but functionally responsive to our requests, always allowing us to speak our mind. In other words we always had the right to lobby for our position. We didn't always get it, but we could always build, present and argue our case…..respectfully.
If done correctly we did have a chance of winning.
If my parent saw a flaw in our logic we were required to accept and learn from their counter arguments. I won or lost fair and square. Even if my dad was losing the argument in flames he would always compliment my effective strategies. He did not take it personal other than
"Ooh I have a smart kid!"
For him it was win/win.

My Father-in-law was a manager and had a much more practical down to earth style. He was in the trenches with day to day employee squabbles. My dad preferred all these very highfalutin concepts. His Dad had practical solutions that worked. My Dad was more concerned about the big picture. His Dad managed workplace drama.

They both had their strengths and values.
They both had their blind spots.
They were both humans who have their sinful imperfections. I loved the insights I received from both of these men.
I loved trying to weave their life wisdom together inside my head. They had very different leadership styles yet both effective. I found both men fascinating but was left with insecurities due to their human weaknesses.
Eventually I learned the only perfect Father is my heavenly Father.
I can rest in that, allowing my earthly fathers and mentors to sort out their humanness.

His parents were Christians.
My parents were not.

As an adult my ex-husband did not feel he had a voice in life.
Expressing himself was something that was only done in secret. "You don't talk about that….."

In his world;
when you are with people you conform to their expectations. He would constantly ask permission to do the simplest things in life.
 I would respond with  "I don't care....what do you want to do?"
Instead of grasping that this truly did not matter to me he would hound me and hound me to say specifically,
"yes or no".

Every aspect of life had its own set of rules to live by:
The school was one set while the playground had another, 
His mom had a set of rules for home but his big brother enforced a set of his own.
The church had their set of rules but the kids in Youth group lived by a different code.

He loved to obey..............and he loved to find the loopholes.
Right and wrong was determined by who is in control........
if no specific authority was giving specific instructions then "mayhem" must ok!

Consequently when I would try to have a conversation with him it sounded like he was picking pat answers out of a mental file box and tossing them at me.
It was plastic cliché after plastic cliché.
He didn't know how to answer a question with the actual answer.
"I don't know what you want me to say!"
"The truth! Why can't you just tell me the truth!?!" 

He would respond with what he thought might be the socially accepted expected response
Never mind that these polite answers are never the truth.
They aren't his actual opinions.
They aren't what actually happened.
They aren't what he feels, what he thinks about, what he wants.

They are the answers he was trained to regurgitate in each of life's arenas.
In a superficial setting it is fine to talk like this but in a marriage,
I want to know you.......

We were both extremely frustrated in our conversations to say the least.

I saw him as being completely walled off from every serious thing that happened in his life. I was determined to crack his shell…..

Then his shell cracked.

In Christ always,
T

I'm in Shock! He left me!

Chris,

At first everyone was fine.

My husband left me for another woman. That is pretty cut and dry. The bible is against adultery and divorce so I initially I felt supported.

In hindsight what I realized had actually happened is that the crowd pretty much split down the middle. One group sided with me……

“It is NEVER the fault of the victim if a spouse has an affair!”
"You didn't do anything different than every other wife out there! You were just a normal wife!"

Another group sided with him.

“You need to forgive! "

"We should not pass judgment on him! He was married to a horrible person and true, it wasn’t perfect the way he dealt with it, but aren’t we supposed to love people?”

Never mind that  this group had not even met me. It did shock me that given what he was doing......... why on earth would anyone even listen to him? They just assumed what he said was somewhat accurate. I suppose.This crowd looked at me with suspicion and an aloof contempt. No one wanted to verify his stories or “get involved” so they remained distant and cool towards me keeping their opinion quiet which included any kind words as well. I didn't really pay to much attention to it at the time because I did feel I had people who were pulling for me.

The problem with his story of a HORRIBLE wife is that it was a complete panic stricken fabrication created just to get out of the "dog house". When faced with judgment over what he was doing, he just spued the worst trash about me he could think of as an excuse and a distraction from his pornography, adultery, smoking cigarettes and bar hopping. The reason for the conflict in our marriage was because he had checked out. The conflict was the response to his behavior not the cause. His entire life had become a lie to get him to this point, spitting out a few more was business as usual. Wanting to be a good Christian the people listening would eventually “forgive” him or as he saw it “take his side”.

Eventually the soldiers lined up: The women on one side, the men on the other. The only guys who sided with me were in HIS family and mine: His father and one of his brothers and our Pastor at the time, Pastor Bo. One brother sided with him. This brother was also involved in an adulterous relationship as well, as the future would someday expose.

However our Pastor added one little caveat to his support: He said “Well I have decided to support you because you are still attending church here and tithe, whereas he does not”. Pastor Bo did not support me based on scripture but instead he followed the money. He then said “The way I handle these things is I ask you what you want me to do?”

This is not what expected to hear. My Pastor growing up "Tom" had a very clear cut discipline policy that I had assumed was a denomination standard.

“This is how you handle..... X.” This is what we do with situation...........Y"

I actually don’t know if it was a bylaw or if it was just Tom’s procedure. The policy was: "Follow Matthew 18". Work with the person as long as you can but in the end put them out of the church if they do not repent. This man was known for his grace and compassion and as a result many felt he cut people way to much slack.

A person who was acting out in some way would get "grace grace grace" and it seemed like FOREVER before the Pastor ever dropped the ax on them, so to speak. This would annoy people. After going through this whole nightmare of my own I now understand why he chose to kept his reserve.

I had assumed someone in a professional capacity would reach out to my husband and walk through this process with him. "What are you thinking Sir? Do you really want to do this to your life?"

I wanted to get a run down on how my current Pastor sees scripture in light of this and the specifics of how he carries this out.  Instead he put the ball completely in my court. From my vantage point it looked as if he chose the wisdom of psychology over the wisdom of God. Instead of using the studies in psychology to help map out how to walk out scripture....What works, what does not work. IT seemed as if he just defaulted to a "higher wisdom": psychology.

It is true that it is my life and I do want control over that but I also needed some structure that I can hang on to in the storm. At the time I just couldn't articulate the things going thru my mind and heart. All I wanted to say was:

“Be a leader! "

Make some sense out of this craziness! "

"Be the stable strong spiritual brick wall I need right now! "

Instead I simply stuttered. I think I might have mentioned Matthew 18 and I Corinthians 5 but my Pastor's response was that he didn't really believe in Church discipline.  I mumbled that I was terrified of running into them. I could not handle that. He did do as I requested.

Later he relayed to me the conversation they had. The reason he gave was not church discipline but instead "Your estranged wife needs a safe place to attend. So as long as she is going to this church I ask you to respect her space and attend elsewhere."

I was confused. I was glad that he supported my need for a safe place but why don't you want to do what the bible says? This is just weird to me. 

Tom's policy was based purely on the bible mixed with his own personality and background. He had been a Christian his entire life. He was raised in a healthy loving home.

My new Pastor was not raised as a Christian. He was a recovering alcoholic without even a drip of Christian cultural influence. He lived a wild and crazy flesh centered life until it almost killed him. Dangling upside down from his seat belt he finally gave up. He asked God to "get him out of here" which God did get a hold of his life. He had gone on a drunken joy ride with his jeep in the sand dunes and flew off of a cliff flipping the vehicle. This moment was his bottom and he surrendered his life to his higher power.

His nature is large risky and blunt in a constant state of trying to figure out this "Christian love" thing. He is like an elephant trying not to damage the tulips. Thus he overcompensates by not getting involved at all. He tends to over control or walk off. He did not manage his own difficult situations. He acted out. Nor does he have any idea how to walk someone else thru a storm. This guy had such a strong and forceful personality that when he was working out of his own craziness, people were ruthless with him. Since this is all he had ever seen of "church discipline" he abdicated from it completely. "I will not do that to him."  He refused to deal with any difficult issues but instead just let them all play out. This tended to create chaos.

None of this of course was in the front of my mind. What I saw was a man who gave off this aura of strength and endless "tough talk". My naive assumption was that he would surely deal with my ex-husband and knock some sense into his head. I was not in the least prepared for the lesson that was coming......The guy with the reputation of being soft and easily walked on has a stronger backbone then the guy who rages and spouts.

 However the Pastor of my X’s mistress had called my Pastor and was trying to coordinate a “response” to this situation. She was also married. Both adulterers were kicked out of their respective churches.

My hope was that this other Pastor would be the one to lead these two people towards repentance. As hard as it was for people to comprehend I was concerned about his salvation. I had serious doubts about his salvation because there was nothing Christian about any of his logic or decision making during our separation or the months preceding it. The question that started to nag at me was this "Isn't his salvation more important then our marriage? At what point do people switch gears and drop the "reconciliation to your wife" topic and zero in on "reconciliation with God"? The "reconciliation to his wife" topic will take care of itself IF he is truly reconciled with God. Don't you think?

I decided to “check out” of his life at this point and let “the experts”handle them.
I was truly on overload.

Now to work on my own survival. If anything good happened on his side I am sure I would hear about it. I was just relieved that I wasn’t going to accidentally run into him at church with her now that he was asked to "give me space".

I attended a class at church based on a book called "Changes that Heal" with a friend. I figured that would be a good place to start. Eventually I found a good Christian counselor and went to him for a season. My Dad talked me into taking St John's wort to help with depression. It did take the edge off. I assumed it would take away the despair but I found another side benefit, I was much more tolerant of irritating people. In fact nothing really bothered me anymore. I reached out to the singles in the church and tried to establish a new circle of friends in addition to the ones I already had. I pursued a better paying position at work so I could afford the house payment on my own. In the meantime I pursued getting roommates to make up for the income loss.

A break up is never easy but at least I was moving towards healing. It is what happened after this what started to screw with my head.........................

In Christ always,
T 

Why? What started all of this?

Chris,

I didn’t have a problem with church because of what happened in my childhood. The disillusionment happened during my divorce. It was the way people responded to me, treated me and dealt with that tragedy in my life.  It was their advice, their rants and their arguments that caused me to draw the conclusion…….
”This….this system does not work!”  

I always say that it is like the old woman/young woman optical illusion picture. All my life I saw the young woman…..”This is beautiful! I love being a Christian!” When I heard people complain about the church like it was the ugly old woman I dismissed them. I ridiculed them in my heart. I ganged up on them with everyone else and said “Oh come on! You just need to forgive!”

I knew it was wrong to respond to a hurting person in a calloused way like that but I didn’t really know this person complaining to me that well…. I didn’t know the people they were talking about and I frankly because of my lack of attachment to them I didn’t care about their situation. In reality I guess I didn’t want to know either.

 Their story made me uncomfortable. Maybe I did know who they were talking about, and liked them. I didn’t want that nice picture destroyed. Or maybe what they said scared me. I didn’t have any clue how to respond to big ugly messy situations so I followed the crowd and leaned on passing judgment:

“Ah you must have done something to deserve this!”  

Or “I don’t believe you.”

Standing your ground using the “ignore button,” works really well. It doesn't take long for that negative grumpy person to disappear.  Now I didn’t have to think about it anymore. Slowly that nagging guilt in my gut would fade away. Now I could go on with my pursuit of a happy fun loving Christian life.  I was able to replace the background anxiety with the crowd’s trite solutions……

”Whatever! It is not my problem! They need to sort it out with God!”  

As time when on, and all of my attempts to repair my life was systematically undermined by my “Christian” friends I started seeing the old woman. I started to sound like those whiners I had dismissed. I started to rethink and rehash the past from a different perspective.  It was a déjà vu moment except now I was on the outside of the fence instead of one of the crowd on the inside of the fence........... 

In Christ always,

T