And I took my off-ness and walked headlong into a dangerous place, looking for something I would never find. And twenty plus years later, here I am.
I think there’s a chance that I might not recover from this. I need a whole new me. Not just a restored version of the woman I was at nineteen before all of this happened.
But a healing in my deepest parts, in ways I don’t even know. A reconstruction. Words to paint over other words that cut me til I bled. That left me limping through my life, walking wounded, hurting others along the way.
I am not a liar. The truth is setting me free.
I am not a moron. I know a thing or two and can stand on my own two feet, or so I keep telling myself.
I am not crazy. Much of my behavior, not to make excuses, looking back, was reactionary and protective, not based on an imbalance inside of me.
I am not full of, well, you know. I am a sinner, yes, but I am filled with Christ. Not bad words.
I need to learn to breathe again. To walk through the halls of my home and not be afraid. To stop searching the eyes of each person around me for validation that I am really okay, that I am liked. That I am loved.
Will I always feel this way? This ever-so-slightly-in-need-of-help aching within me? This sense deep down of being sadder and weaker than the next person? Will I always feel like there are huge pieces of me missing that I will never find again?
I’m told healing will come. I’m told I’m being healed even as we speak. But how will I know? Will I wake up one day and feel healed?
I hope so. We’ll see.
If this post helped you, I would encourage you to check out “Surviving in a Difficult Christian Marriage”, found here.
Hello Elizabeth, I just read your “why I am not staying”. I have had a similar journey – only my husband ended up having an affair and is divorcing me. I just went through the train wreck of 10 hours of financial mediation in the wake of fallen property debt. I will have to rebuild my life from scratch at 60 years of age. After living 725 miles away from family for 15 years, I will probably go back to be with them. I will pray for you, as I can identify with your pain. You are my sweet sister in Christ. Let’s look for the joy in the ‘little’ things God sends our way. Jesus will never divorce us, nor abuse us – press in like never before. Anita
I am going to court at 2:30 p Wednesday to hear the judge say I am divorced. It’s scary, it’s leaning on Jesus heavily. It’s adventurous. I’m asking the Lord to see it more as an adventure.
Elizabeth, what you need is inner healing. Find a couple that do inner healing and deliverance. Holy Spirit has done miracles in my life thru being healed of past wounds and delivering me of demons.
Because we are born in sin, with a sin nature, we all have demons in us. They get in thru various ways, many because of things done to us as children, and things we do that are not godly.
I just wanted to say I hear you and know whereof you are coming.
I speak every day breaking curses off myself. You can find prayers to do that on this site: http://www.my-walk-with-God.com
And Anita. I’ll be praying for you. I feel your pain too. I just turned 58. Start looking around you to see the things God has just for you. For me, several of them have been trees, bushes and plants blooming, even in the cold. I just looked out the window and even tho it’s rainy, the sun is out RIGHT on my tree, and no where else.
God has a plan for us, gals. I programmed my iphone to send alerts to me, it JUST popped up with ..’I love you honey, love God’
The Lord Jesus Christ WILL take care of us. Remember that the spiritual world was there first and the world we live in was SPOKEN into existence. So SPEAK what you want, into your life. I love you.
i think the brokenness is cyclical, as you suggested about being a child of divorce. but (as an encouragement to both you and me–since we are both “leaving” our husbands, and giving our own children the legacy of divorce) that I have always felt the same way, yet I am *not* a child of divorce. I am, however, a child of some years of dysfuction, and a child of alcoholism (which my father conquered!) But this is meant as a reassurance because I had to come to realize that although I *never* wanted to give my children a legacy of “coming from a broken home” the truth was they were LIVING in a broken home. The brokenness was all around them. Staying in that place was nothing more than a denial. I felt encouraged when I finally got my hands on statistics that showed that kids were just about equally “hurt” by their parents getting divorced as they were their parents staying in a destructive marriage. And at least by getting out, I have a chance at creating a joyful home for them. As for myself, I do believe I am healing more each day. I was in the nightmare fewer years than you, so it will probably just take more time for you. But I already feel a lightening. I pray you will too.
Be blessed Elisabeth. I have no other words. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. I forget how I heard about your book and then ended up finding your blog but your pain and your hurt has touched me in so many ways that I felt I needed to try to write words of encouragement.
But I don’t have them. Not really, since I haven’t gone through anything like you are going through. But I do recognize the feeling of being off center.
For me it came through the deaths of my parents and my choice of profession and the fact that I married much later than my friends and had my one and only child at the age of 39. I just was – and am different.
But the thing is that even though I ache to be like everyone else I understand that we all are broken in our own unique ways and there is no such thing as being like everyone else since everyone is different. Or on the other hand we are like everyone else because we all are broken.
Wether that is something to strive for is in the first place of course a very good question. Probably not. But for some reason we still ache for it, I guess because that might mean that we felt validated.
At the end of the day, though, I have noticed that a part of me likes being off center. You see things differently from there. And sometimes it can be facinating. So, hang in there, will you? That which is the hardest in our lives has a tendency to bring fourth something so valuable that the pain can start to make sense even if for the lives of us we would rather have been spared from it.
And remember this, you are perfect. Not because you are sinless. You are perfect because you are you. God loves that you. With your scars and every other thing you do not want or like.
I know you know this. And yet I feel compelled to repeat it for you in the hopes that hearing it from someone else – even if that someone else is a complete stranger – will make your day and days to come a little easier.
Awesome Elisabeth! I love the honesty. Most of us Christians would find it hard to open up like this. Been there, done that and now on my way out….God’s love is just amazing. Its been a long road but I can confidently tell you, You’re O.k and soon the sun will shine again, life will become much simpler, answers will have been found and you will be much stronger.I have discovered truths…that marriage should be great and God is loving me like I should have been loved.Its awesome. Check out my blog http://thecolorsoflife-zippy.blogspot.com/