Over the course of the next few weeks we began to see things in his personality that were far different then who he had been before this accident. Things that have significantly transformed our marriage and our relationship and not in a positive way. Throughout the last year we have watched the effects of the injuries suffered that day create significant issues within our marriage. The man I once knew is no longer there and the marriage we once shared is gone.
Last week, while sitting in the office of our counselor, she spoke words that I had come to realize several months ago but wasn't prepared to hear from someone else. She looked at me and said that I needed to grieve the man I was once married to and grieve the marriage that I have now lost. It was a gut wrenching moment. For the last four months I had held on to hope that things would get better. That our life would improve. But in an instant, everything changed as she looked me in the eye and told me that I needed to let go of what was and accept my new reality.
This past year has been one of the hardest I've ever experienced. I've been through a lot over my 42 years of life. I've known a lot of heartache and experienced a lot of devastation but this current state of life is by far the most difficult I've ever had to endure. My heart is completely crushed and I've been left doubting God more than once. But I know He's there as He often makes His presence known. And if it weren't for those small moments of reassurance in my life, I don't know how I would continue to take one step in front of the other. But He continually provides little snippets of hope and truth, goodness and faithfulness, as a way to assure me that I will get through this moment as I have each of those other storms in my life.
Through the midst of this storm, we have experienced those who have been less than supportive, but because of God's gracious goodness, we have also experienced amazing love and support from so many. Those who have stepped up to walk with us through each hard moment and who have been the hands and feet of Jesus. Those who have surrounded us with encouragement, prayers, patience and a lot of love. So many moments of feeling totally alone, He has provided people to be His hands and feet as a way to make His goodness and His faithfulness present in our lives as a way to remind us that we are never truly alone. Through this He is teaching me that He won't leave my side and that He will fight beside me for my marriage, fight for me for my marriage and fight with me as I choose to battle through this season of life.
We never know what life is going to bring. We never know what we're going to wake up to one morning and how differently our world will change. I never thought that morning when my phone rang that in one single moment my whole world would be turned upside down. Each day I now have to figure out how to move forward in a reality that I didn't ask for but instead choose to fight for and to love no matter how difficult or painful.
Right now, I'm rediscovering the way to finding my identity, my security and my hope in the one thing that I have lost sight of...my relationship with Jesus. So unfortunately, the lesson I'm learning is that when we take our eyes off of Jesus, He sometimes allow for heartache in order to recapture our hearts and to recapture our attention.
This is definitely a ginormous testing of our faith. It has become my prayer that at the end of it all, even though I may never have the husband I once knew back or my marriage back to what it once was that I will have a phenomenal faith explosion in my life that will allow me to see my marriage and my walk with Jesus in a way that I have never known before. At the end of the day, my prayer is that my marriage will truly be a reflection of God's grace, God's love, God's goodness and God's faithfulness. That in the end, He will work all things for the glory of those who love Him once again in my life (Romans 8:28).
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