#forgivnessheals

[mariapapapetros]

#forgiveness #forgivnesssetsyoufree #forgivnessheals #generocityofspirit #begenerous #giveyourselfasecondchance (at Sugar Land, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/B5Mz-xPH0o4/?igshid=msx3b719xoo5

[oneclickfromchaos]

Married

(This is an extremely vulnerable post for me. I had not really felt how deeply the effects of my husband's sin could hurt me until a year in. This is about that day.) I was now facing down the paths of my life. Toe to toe with each. Would I listen to the oppressive defeating cry of my insecurity or the gentle freeing call of God? One was familiar like an old sweatshirt...it felt like me. I knew it. We were too good of friends. The other was fresh and crisp, so much more distant in feeling but like the beginning of spring rain in its hope. At that time our oneness was so unknown to me. All of one year in the books as a married pair. The practical thinking of being one with him in the reality of our marriage hadn't had the richness of time to seed into my mind. I still lived solo. I wasn't fighting for him, arm and arm, with the same scrap and grit as I did for myself. Our oneness was breaking into my life in ways I was unprepared for. When I had my first child my body hadn't done this hard work of birth before and the only way it could be a body that had birthed life was to do it in all the painful, bloody, ripping and stretching ways. This moment felt like that. As if in my battle, through my pain and ripping apart of my solitude, I could birth life into that oneness. Unlike childbirth which comes even to the woman refusing to acknowledge it, the life of a marriage could be dammed up and brought to a stillness...the beginnings of its death...by my choice in forgiving or not. The floor of the bathroom was cold and the walls beige color felt a million times more neutral to me. The door lock was turned solid but I felt him waiting for me on the other side. Waiting for whatever his hurting me would return to him. My heart hurt. My mind was trying to fight the reality I was seeing. I wanted to fold into my familiar sweatshirt of insecurity and be hidden. But that easy comfort was wrapped in a darkness that pressed in hard. Getting up off that floor felt heavier and heavier as I saw the strand of connection to my husband as the anchor taking me down past where I could grab at air. It could sink me. If I believe this oneness is true and I let go of myself, he could drown me. The tension of our strand was tight and I thought I could hear the snap faintly like a future echo that hadn't been spoken yet. My eyes fell closed and I breathed. Hope can sometimes have the texture of a con job on this side of things. Could I believe it? Could I trust the hope of this? Could I trust God beyond the smudged up edge of my insecurity? If I let go...really truly take off my sweatshirt and stand bare, stark and hollowed out in my desire to be enveloped in something, someone who could swallow up my lacking...would he be the God who envelopes me? To be seen fully and still taken in whole reached out grasping at me. I couldn't stop myself from moving towards God, to choose belief at the end of sight. My mind screamed FOOL but the rest of me stood. And in my steps, those shaky braveless steps toward God. I found my feet standing toe to toe with Dave's feet. And we physically bore out the reality of the slow break from two into one and I held onto him. Like a wave finally cresting the pull of the tide and crashing over the dry sands my body, mind, and soul released itself and the heaviness relinquished. I felt my God crash over the dry sand in my soul and soak it full. The once screaming cry of FOOL drown out by My Fathers words... I love you. I am for you. I do not give as this world gives, like a shadowy con man, but I give as only as I can...fully, truthfully, ever faithfully. In letting go of your life you are finding it. I see you and I know you and I love you. Keep stepping towards me. Keep fighting...I am. Dave crumpled to the floor his eyes redder than I've ever seen. A weary gave out red. Watery and weak. And I saw him. My pain and hurt had distorted seeing him as he was. A man in need, waiting at the same edge I was, wondering if he could know that I could drown him, take him out, and still trust God instead of the fear. His fight is mine and his failures are mine. We are not apart, even in this. We were at the edge side by side at that moment, not standing across a canyon from one another. I felt that strand pull us together. In that way we both stood quiet and still, breathing the air in the space between us and we took step after step after step until we are here a decade later. What the torn man within me tried to sever, the good God mended and kept whole. Our seams were slowly fading out. One. Dave stood up strong and I lifted my head up and we walked.