When you mess up in marriage

Sometimes I think that God is bound and determined for me to air every mistake I have ever made on this here blog ‘o mine.  Today the topic for Wifey Wednesday is “When you are the one who blew it”. 

I have blown it in my marriage.  Many times.  In many ways. 

I will share with you the BIG one that God laid on my heart when I saw the topic.

I STINK at managing money.  Always have and it is something that God (and my hubby) have taught me a lot about over the years.  I teach on it now (God has a full circle sense of humor). Finances are a major issue for my husband because he grew up in a poor family and has taught himself a lot about biblical stewardship. He helps people in our lives that need assistance in building a budget, etc.

Yet, he married me.

We have had issues in our marriage related to money.  I had credit cards he didn’t know about.  Not once, not twice but three different times over the years.  It is an issue we dealt with in marriage counseling. 

He grew to trust me. Again. 

Then in 2007, I wanted to do something.  It was a good something, but not a God something.  Mike supported me with the stipulation that I was completely honest and transparent with him about finances.

Long story short, I wasn’t.  I was stubborn and determined not to fail and racked up over $100,000 in credit card debt for this good something.  And my husband had no idea.

When he would ask how I paid for something, I would act offended that he would question my honesty.  When he would ask for documentation, I would cry about how he didn’t trust me. 

I had a financial affair.  And I justified it, rationalized it and the problem grew bigger and bigger and bigger.

I sunk into a deep depression because I didn’t know a way out.  This good something had people depending on me.  The credit cards were reaching their limits.  I was in denial about my physical issues.  I was hiding a huge secret from my husband and family and friends.

I was having a financial affair.

When I came clean (which was not because I wanted to but because I didn’t have a choice) our marriage imploded.  It had been several years since I had betrayed him this way and never like THIS. 

The look on his face broke my heart into a million pieces.

He fixed it because he is a good man and that is what he does, he fixes things.  He had to go to family for help, which is something he abhors.  He had to deplete our hard earned savings. 

We are still recovering from this massive act of betrayal.  I didn’t know if he would ever trust me again and trust is something that has returned very slowly. And that healing only came from our relationship with Jesus.

  What have I learned from being the betrayor in my marriage?

• I had to be patient with him and understand that my actions had serious and lasting ramifications.
• God is the only one that can bring healing and restoration to a marriage.
• Time does heal wounds.  And you can’t be the one to set the time limit.
• Learn to speak your spouse’s love language and speak it fluently.
• Pray, pray and pray some more.
• Forgive yourself.  There is no condemnation in Christ and if you are busy beating yourself up, you won’t be able to focus on healing your relationship with your spouse.
• Let them deal with it in their own way.  Don’t force them to talk to you, to reassure you, to make you feel better. 
• Seek professional Christian counseling.  If the issue is too big for the two of you to deal with on your own, seek help from a pastor or Christian counselor that you trust and respect.  There is no shame in asking for help.

Our story has a happy ending.  We will celebrate our 13th anniversary in July.  In many ways, the difficulties we have faced in our marriage have made us stronger, more accepting of one another and deepened our commitment to be in this forever.  It is hard to see that outcome when you are in the midst of a betrayal so please remember this:

There is always hope when God is the head of your union.

Listening to the still, small voice

I have been having some (not so fun) issues with my left leg in the last few weeks.  My doctor(s) attributed it to my MS and put me on a steroid dose pack.  While that reduced the swelling on the MRI, it did not resolve the problem.  What is the problem? Muscle atrophy.

Atrophy (according to Wikipedia) is the partial or complete wasting away of a part of the body (in this case my left leg).

God has a whole post about atrophy in His body (the church) swirling around in my brain.  But, that will come at another time.

This post is about how God speaks to us.  He didn’t just speak to people in Bible times and then stop.  His Holy Spirit lives in us and guides us- if we listen.

Yesterday, returning from the doctor I was not in a happy place.  Trying to digest the fact that my muscle is atrophy-ing (no idea if that is a word) and they don’t know why and they don’t know how to stop it was overwhelming.  Making the appointments for all the tests they want to do to figure out the cause of the problem was overwhelming.  Trying to figure out how to discuss all this with my husband without him panicking was overwhelming.  Letting myself think of how unfair it is to have MS, Lupus and now- something else causing this issue- was overwhelming.

I had brought my Bible along for the ride (cause I can’t drive right now) but couldn’t bring myself to open it.  I did, however, turn on the radio and one of my favorite songs that we sing at church came on.  The song is “I will Rise” by Chris Tomlin.  There are many words that instantly touched my heart but here is the line that grabbed my soul:

There’s a peace I’ve come to know
Though my heart and flesh may fail
There’s an anchor for my soul
I can say “It is well”

Jesus has overcome
And the grave is overwhelmed
The victory is won
He is risen from the dead

Overwhelmed?  How about the fact that Jesus overwhelmed the grave?  That is overwhelming, not my temporary, temporal circumstances.

Feeling still a tad angry, I said to God “help me”.  And three words came to my mind (and I know that I know that I know God put them there)

Check your medications.

Clear as day and something that none of my doctor’s had bothered to do.  As soon as I got home I googled muscle wasting and the names of my medications.  Second med I typed in had a big warning about this problem.  Not trusting myself, I called my pharmacy.  My pharmacist researched it, called me back and said “Call your doctor right now.  You need to have some blood work done”.

Yes, I have called my doctor and yes, they are on top of it.

But, isn’t God awesome?  And, what if I had continued in my overwhelming pity party and not reached out to Him?  Would I have heard that still, small voice?

Hearing God is a finer thing!

Adoption is forever…

I have never wanted to write this post.  It is very personal and private.  Some of it is not my story to tell so pardon me if I am vague in some areas.  But, this event, this ugly thing that has happened that has affected the world’s view of adoption needs to be corrected. 

Today is the day that we (adoptive parents everywhere) are speaking the truth about our adoption experiences (the good, the bad and the ugly) in the hopes that people everywhere understand that while adoption may not be easy it is FOREVER.

Here is my story:

As most of you know my oldest son is adopted (by me, he is my husband’s biological son).  I met Jason when he was about to turn three.  Having been through a lot in my own childhood I immediately recognized that Jason wasn’t growing up in a good environment.  He called me “mom” just because I was his daddy’s girlfriend.

The next time I saw him (a few months later) he was jumpy and afraid of the dark.  He wet the bed.  Lots of red flags.  He lived over 1000 miles away so keeping an eye on the situation proved difficult.

In 1997, when Jason was four we received a phone call in the middle of the night from a neighbor of his bio mom’s.  She had searched information for our number, only knowing my husband’s last name.  I won’t go into the details of that call here but the next day began our quest to get custody of Jason.  After almost two years, thousands of dollars in legal fees, thousands of miles back and forth from Iowa to West Virginia and two more years of abuse and neglect, we succeeded.  We were awarded full custody of Jason in March 1999.  After abuse and neglect continued during visitations between Jason and his bio mom, her parental rights were terminated and I adopted Jason as my own in September 2000.

When a child experiences bonding issues with their bio mom, are exposed to unmentionable abuse and neglect the scars run deep.  And those scars cause them to lash out.  Particularly to the person that represents the person that hurt them.  In this case- me.  Jason was hurt by his bio mom in so many ways and then I became his mom. 

I love Jason because he is part of my husband.  I love him because he is my son.  But I also love him because I understand.  I know what it is to be hurt by the person that is supposed to care for you more than anything.

So I took it.  Punches, kicks, hair pulling, bruises, name calling (so sad to me that he even knew those words).  I excused it, hid it and took it.

Because there were also hugs, kisses, special moments when it seemed he would be okay.  We did everything “right”- therapy, IEP’s and love, lots of love.  We learned how to restrain a child when he was raging, but even when he was eight and nine I wasn’t physically strong enough.  Only my husband could.  And he worked…a lot.

Jason didn’t just have a problem with authority at home.  It translated everywhere…school, church, public places.  We began to not be able to go anywhere as a family.  Mike would have to stay home with Jason and the other boys and I would go or vice versa.  We became isolated, lost friends and our family started to splinter.

He would run away from school, hit his teacher’s and hurt other students.  His anger was palpable and his hurt ran so deep.  The courts intervened in 2004.  Our eleven year old son had a probation officer.  If he messed up at school, hurt me or hurt his brothers he would be taken away.  Kind of setting him up to fail.

And in December 2004, Jason was taken from us.  He was deemed to be a danger to himself and others and placed in a residential facility for troubled children. 

I felt like the life had been sucked out of me.  We just wanted him to be okay.  His placement was 3 hours away from our home.  Our weekends became road trips.  Labels were given: conduct disorder, attachment disorder, PTSD.

In June of 2007 our lives were turned completely upside down. Jason was about to come home from residential treatment and the judge that had originally ordered him there had requested an evaluation by several different types of therapists before he would sign the final order.  One of those therapists was a juvenile sex offender treatment therapist. {Jason had displayed sexual acting out behaviors since he was very little}

The findings of her evaluation changed our lives forever.  Jason disclosed things that not only made the judge rule that Jason could not return home but that he could also have no contact with his brothers, our other children.

The judge ordered Jason to a sex offender treatment program (three hours from our home).  Jason was there for over a year.  It was like a prison.  All the kids wore the same clothes, same shoes, bars on the windows.  We could only visit him once a month and it had to be in a room with all the other kids visiting their loved ones and we could only hug him when we left.  It was the worst year of my life (and that is saying a lot considering the things I have been through)

Jason is not allowed to have any contact with Jared and Matthew  by court order.  It is heartbreaking to try to be a mom to brothers who are forbidden to see each other.  When Mike and I visit Jason on the weekends (he is closer now so we get to see him weekly) we have to leave Jared and Matt behind. When we talk to him on the phone we have to go in another room. Family holidays, birthdays- it has just thrown our whole family a curveball we could have never expected. 

We get through, by the grace of God.  We are defining what family looks like when we can’t all be under the same roof.  Jason is doing well at his boarding school and is even getting his permit and a job this summer.  But, his life has not been easy.  He struggles under the constant weight of his early childhood.

If you have stuck with this post so far, you should know that I would never abandon Jason. And it is not because he is related to my husband by blood.

 No matter what happened, he is my son. I made that choice from the day we began the custody process and stood before a judge and agreed to be his mama as if I had given birth to him myself.

And, although our road has been far from what I envisioned it to be eleven years ago, I consider it a privilege to be his mama.

Every placement that Jason has had, every counselor, every social worker has commented on my commitment to him.  How many people have walked away (from children they gave birth to) over much less.  When you know what it means to be abandoned it strengthens your resolve to never let a child you know feel that way again.

Adoption is God’s plan. Period. End of story.  What if God decided that we were too much?  Too sinful?  Too violent?  Made too many mistakes?  How many of us would be worthy of salvation?  Of Him being our Heavenly Father?

Not.one.of.us. 

Thank God adoption is forever!

(I am sorry for the length of this post but I had to share my heart on this.  While I have been as vague as possible I would ask that if you know my family in person you not discuss the details in this post with my children.  It is obviously a very sensitive and difficult situation for our family.)

Every Other Sunday

Every other Sunday I see….his deep dark eyes, so much like his daddy.  His curly hair that he has obviously put tremendous effort {and hair gel} into staying in position.  I look up to him now.  This mama’s head coming to his chin, the chin that he leaves stray hairs grow on so that people will know he has the ability to grow hair on his chin.  I see a young man, leaving behind the remembrances of boyhood, much like a snake shedding it’s skin.  I see his face frown and his forehead wrinkle when he realizes our time together is over.  I see that same face beam when his dad mentions his upcoming driving lesson.

Every other Sunday I hear…his sometimes deep, sometimes crackling voice tell me about what he has been doing.  I hear animation and excitement when he talks about photography and the future.  His words are articulate and mature, his topics not as much.  I hear regret and resignation when he speaks of the past.  I hear his need to be more independent tempered by his need for structure.  I hear the little boy of yesterday, tugging on my pant legs as this not so little boy says “Mama, did I tell you about xyz?”.  I hear his need for attention and reassurance that he is loved, NO MATTER WHAT.  I hear his tentativeness when he asks how his brothers are doing.

Every other Sunday I smell…that mix of sweat, hair gel, deodorant and toothpaste that only comes from adolescent boys.  It is an odor barely veiled by the extravagant use of cheap cologne.  I smell a boy, trying to be a man…figuring out what attracts others to him and what is offensive.  I smell fabric softener, different from the scent I use at home and it serves as just another reminder that home is where he does not reside.

Every other Sunday I touch…his soft hands, not worn by work or affected by weather.  The hands of an artist.  I touch his sticky hair and put my hand on the small of his back.  I allow myself to squeeze him in, as if I wish I could just envelope him inside me, away from the cares and hurts of the world, during a brief hug.  Sometimes I find my hand cupping his cheek, wanting to count the freckles {or angel kisses} like we used to do when he was little.

Every other Sunday I feel…a compulsion to pretend like the last five years haven’t happened. I feel the desire to take him and run away so that we can be all together as a family again, even though I know that cannot {and should not} be. I feel angry that he did not come to live with us sooner.  I feel protective like a mother bear for her cubs. I feel frustrated that this is how our life has to be.  I feel helpless and sometimes hopeless.

And, then I remember that at least I have every other Sunday to see, to hear, to smell, to touch and to feel what it is to be Jason’s mama.  And I thank God for every other Sunday.

Kate + 8 Keep the Faith

I feel like America is rubbernecking at the scene of a a very bad accident.

You want to turn your head (or turn off the TV) but you find yourself drawn to the gruesome sight before you.

Why can I not turn my eyes from this travesty that no one should witness but a family?

Because it hits so close to home!

When my kids and I started watching Jon and Kate +8 years ago, one of the reasons I was drawn to the show was because the parents shared a deep devotion to their faith, my faith.  While we did not have multiple kids in common, we shared a belief system.  Wholesome TV.

Fast forward a few years and it is so obvious that the enemy has had his way with this marriage.  Not that he needed much of a foothold.  Can you imagine the stress of raising eight kids, six of which are sextuplets?  Can you imagine the stress of Dad not having a job when they were born?  Can you imagine the stress of adding cameras and millions of Americans watching your family change? (I am not saying that the Gosselin’s did not have choices in this situation, just attempting to not pass judgement)

Our pastor shared the top ten reasons marriages end this past week.  Which, by the way, over half of marriages end in divorce, even within the church.  Do these sound familiar?

• exhaustion from busyness and over commitment
• selfishness and self centeredness (immaturity)
• spiritual disobedience and rebellion (not listening to God)
• unhealthy conflict resolution
• unrealistic expectations
• addictive behaviors (any behavior can become addictive)
• finances
• physical intimacy issues
• external third party (influences and interferences)
• lack of commitment

Wow, when you put it down on paper like that I am surprised they stayed married as long as they did.

Let this public travesty be a lesson to us all- when you take your eyes off of the Author and Finisher of our faith and He loses His place as first in our lives and first in our marriages, all will not be well.

Let us pray for this family and especially for the children, that the hearts of the parents will be softened and turned back  to relying on God for their provision and strength.

Let us look at our own marriages and if we are going to dole out judgement, let it be on our own situation.  Ask God where the weak spots are in your own relationship and ask Him to strengthen those as only He can.

Thankful Thursday- Looking Back

Please visit Grace Alone for more Thankful Thursday posts.
Happy, Happy New Year! Today’s theme for Thankful Thursday is “Looking Back”. I believe this is a crucial step to take at the end of a year (or any other transition for that matter).
Evaluating, culling through what worked and what didn’t, asking God to bring to your mind any lessons that you may have already forgotten- there are many benefits to looking back. And, then you can be done. After looking back and gleaning the wisdom from the past year that God has brought to your life, we can move ahead into 2009. Phillipians 3:12-14 says it well:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

That gives me goose bumps!

Looking back on ‘08-
Let me first say that although I would not trade any experience this past year due to all that I have learned and how my relationship with God has been strengthened, I have asked Him (quite often and with a lot of intensity) if 2009 can be just a tad bit easier. We’ll see what He thinks I can handle LOL.

~I am thankful for my illness. I know that sounds strange but my diagnosis of multiple sclerosis came one week into 2008 (and on my 29th birthday). That diagnosis and the subsequent physical limitations I have experienced have been ordained by God to get my attention. I have no doubt that had He not rendered me on my bottom for most of the year, I would not be in the place spiritually that I am.

~I am thankful for the lessons He has taught me through this year, too many to mention but a few really important ones are- I don’t have to do anything alone. He is always there and He has surrounded me by family, friends and virtual sisters to hold me accountable, love me, encourage me and provide me with His love in many different ways. My worth is not based on what I am contributing or what I can accomplish. When all you can do some days is get out of bed and get dressed, the devil is right there whispering to you that you are nothing, that you are just taking up space. But my God was there patiently waiting and revealing to me (as I was willing to see) that my worth has nothing to do with me and everything to do with His love for me. If I never “accomplish” another good deed, I am still loved and accepted by Him in exactly the same measure.

~ I am thankful that through my illness and the whole near death experience in the fall, God has removed a lot of fear and strongholds from my life. This has freed me to restore broken relationships with family members, forgive those I didn’t think I could and re-prioritize my outlook on life in general.

Ladies, it is a privilege to walk through suffering and trials for the glory of the Lord. And though it may be painful and at times you may feel like you just can’t keep going; joy comes in the morning. Every morning that I surrender my day to His will I am able to find joy in my circumstances. Thank God for the lessons of 2008 and I look forward to the lessons in store fo 2009.