I've been slacking with my attendance at church, some Sunday mornings I'm just so exhausted, an extra hour of sleep is needed. Other times I don't feel like battling my DS through out the entire sermon and missing it. And some days, being around all the families and hearing my kids cry on the way home about how different their family is, is simply too much for my heart to handle.
But this weekend the ex had the kids all the way to Sunday which was a rarity and so I went to church myself this morning. I tossed and turned until 2:30 am and so was completely wiped out, but still got up and got ready as I only had myself to handle. The sermon was about Ecclesiastes and the point that I heard in the sermon was how God will cause tribulations to teach us lessons and to fix the ego and pride that interfere so commonly with our lives and keep the meaning out of our life. At one point a verse struck me and I flipped open my bible to Romans 3:3-5 which reads, "3 Not only so, but we[a] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."
Ok God, thanks for smacking me upside the head today and forcing me to hear something I desperately needed to hear. Of course it struck me to the core, to the point that at the end I had to walk out and escape to the bathroom stall where I sat and silently sobbed those huge heaving sobs that you cannot bite back for the life of you. I mentally called myself an idiot for losing it in a public setting and then realized I had to still go back to my parents who I was sitting with, gather my purse and somehow make it out of the building among a few hundred members who all would see my bloodshot red rimmed eyes and clearly know i'd had a mini breakdown. And so I somehow escaped, my mother could clearly see I needed to get home asap and as they had picked me up we headed home in silence. I made it up my stairs, unlocked my door, walked into my apartment and just sobbed again.
How had I gone all these years and never realized that God was trying to get through to me? I was proud and I had a huge ego that needed to be completely cracked through. I never even thought twice about, that's how second nature it was. And it was all in regards to my family, my lifestyle and the things we had thanks to my 'great husband'. I had a great looking husband, we made a beautiful family. One so beautiful in fact, everywhere we went we got compliments on either our beautiful children or our gorgeous looking family unit. People envied us, it was no secret to me and while I had crap self esteem from hiding in an abusive marriage, I still held on to that pride and ego letting it carry me through. If i could just be that beautiful family, then really it couldn't be that bad behind closed doors could it? I had the 'hands on dad' that every wife and friend envied. The pride I felt in that was huge, here was a man I had trained to be such a hands on dad and we made it look so effortless that people actually bought and believed that he came that way. They had no clue till the divorce and he started disappearing out of the kids' lives so easily that it was all an act, one that was forced because it was what I demanded of my husband so that I would over look his indiscretions. Every time we would get a fancy new car or move to a beautiful new house, my friends knew about it. I felt pride in the fact that my children were gifted and rock stars in school, I probably bragged a bit too much about how perfect our community and schools are, I never bit my tongue about how well my husband was doing in his new Army career. According to me, I had a great family life and every last bit of effort, pride and joy was invested into my family and it was something that clearly I was far from humble about.
I let me head get too big and God took me down to my knees, there is no denying it and he took what mattered to me most; my family, my husband and my little pretend life. I just never realized it until today. I never ever questioned God for what happened. I thought for sure it was because I had made poor choices and chosen the wrong man. Then I thought it was because he was possibly in the closet and so miserable from being unable to come out. Then I realized he was most likely a BPD Narc and everything clicked. And yet the ex consistently and constantly egged at me that I thought I was perfect and had zero fault in the downfall of our marriage. I would admit that I had a temper that wouldn't put up with abuse and would fire off zingers to shut him up. I admitted that I was a wild child and had always been one my entire life. I admitted that I had forsaken God and that this was my fault because i'd chosen him. But none of that was really the root of the part of the problem that I'm suppose to learn and grow from. And it's been frustrating me to pieces because i go diligently into therapy and seek answers and ways to better myself, make sure not to repeat the past, to learn from this and to heal. And yet I've felt stagnant, stuck in this place of never getting further. And today I think I realized why. My pride was too big to even be willing to admit to any of this up until today. I was in denial.
And while this is not a punishment from God, He didn't make my husband abuse me and cheat on me to teach me a lesson, I realize that this is a tribulation that I have been forced to endure because I needed some lessons in humility, love, compassion and humbleness. I also needed to learn and adopt perseverance, character and hope. I thought I possessed those three characteristics most of my life, but now looking back I'm realizing I just strove to own them. I never truly have ever had a single bit of perseverance, character and hope aside from being a parent. But the last three years of my life have been filled with nonstop tribulations and suffering it seems, and I can truly look at myself in the mirror and say, "Wow i'm learning what those three characteristics feel and look like". I have not mastered them and never will (hello humility, no more ego for me), and it will be a life long process, just as my therapist reminded me last week. I can't get there all at once like i want to, it's a process. A slow and sometimes painful process, but from the most painful of moments in my life come the most beautiful gifts and lessons I've ever been blessed with. And so the downfall of my ego plays into the downfall of my marriage and my beautiful little family, a real reality check.
God is good. Even in the midst of the worst year of my life and I am seeing the beauty and HOPE that is out there. He has a plan for me, I just have to learn to bide my time and surrender. I need to focus on the process of learning perseverance, character and hope and remember that this is building a better mother, sister, friend, daughter and future wife for when the time is right for me to find the love that God always wanted me to have. But first i had to let go of my ego, my pride and my inability to stick to the very first commitment i ever made in my life which is being a christian.
It's a process, I'm pretty sure those versus in Roman will be finding there way into my next tattoo, a much needed reminder that from pain comes beauty.
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