Be Still And Know That I Am GOD

(Please note that the passages that are hi-lited are links to the appropriate sites or Scripture)

When I first found out everything that was going on with FP, which was basically like a whole parallel universe that I had no idea existed, I honestly did not think I could function. I remember one morning just standing at the kitchen counter in my home and literally pouring my coffee into my kids' cereal bowls and pouring their cereal in my coffee mug. It wasn't until I tried to drink their cereal that I realized what I had done. They were running around my feet oblivious of course to anything. I didn't understand how the world could just continue to go on when my life was "over". I was in a complete daze. My family members would be talking to me and would literally have to snap their fingers in front of my face to get me to focus. I lost 10 pounds in one week. My jeans were falling off of me. My hair started falling out. I cried more than I breathed. I had panic attacks, I felt shaky and disoriented -I was a wreck. I'm sure anyone who has been through this can relate. I thankfully stumbled across research pointing to the fact that women who discover unknown sexual addiction in their partners experience the same "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" that other victims of abuse suffer (Steffans, Milrad, AAMFT). This is fascinating to me as it is so validating and because I had a counselor early-on tell me that she believed that much of what I was going through mimicked PTSD. So you can know that you are NOT going "crazy" if you, too, feel completely shaken to your core. You have been through a huge trauma and you MUST give yourself grace to heal.

At the beginning of my journey, I couldn't even pray. I didn't want to pray. I was angry with God. How could God do this to me? I had done A, B, and C and I was supposed to get D. My relationship was supposed to get the "happily ever after" that all of our friends thought we had, that I thought I'd had. What went wrong? Who was this person that God had allowed me to enter into a relationship with and what was he doing in my house? I remember that when I first began to think about entering into a relationship with FP that I prayed, "Lord, I love him...But I love you more. If this is not from you, shut the door. Don't let me marry him Lord." After everything fell apart, I replayed this prayer over and over in my head and said "How could you do this to me God? I prayed about him and you let this happen!" "What did I do wrong?" "Are you punishing me for something?" And all along God said "Be still and know that I am God," "Be still and know that I AM GOD." Over and over this is how God patiently, lovingly answered my angry accusations. He is GOD - He could have put me in my place, sent a lightning bolt, shouted "I AM the potter and YOU are the clay...now be silent!" But he didn't. It was a gentle, peaceful reminder in my head "Be still and know that I am God." He had to remind me of this daily, hourly, minute by minute, but He was ever-patient and ever-loving through it all.
Then, when I was ready to listen, God reminded me of a night a few years before when I had held my firstborn and I was rocking him to sleep. I was home alone, like most nights, and thought FP was "at work". I remember that even then, before I even had an inkling that anything was going on with FP, I felt a darkness in my home that I can only now explain as the warfare going on for my family. I started praying for my family and, very unlike me at the time, I got pretty worked up. I was praying like I had never prayed before, and I was just sobbing. I don't remember a lot of what I prayed that night, but I DO know, from journaling, that I said "Lord, I know there is darkness in this home. Blow your refining fire through this house and this family and burn away the chaff...Burn away whatever is not of you in this home. I give my family to you Lord. Cleanse our home of what is not of you so that we can serve you."
Now, years after that prayer when I stand in the ashes with my former home that really was "burned away," I realize that my anger with God made no sense. He had known the darkness in my home. God knew all along of FP's secrets, the sexual addiction, the lies, the stealing, the adultery- God knew all of it when I was so blind to any of it. That prayer that I had prayed years before was mercifully answered as God "burned away the chaff" and truly did refine my children and me through His fire - He would NOT allow the sexual sin to stay in our home. Thank YOU GOD! Thank you that you forgive me for my doubt and my "little faith."
This realization did NOT happen right away - it took me at least a year and 1/2 to see it this way. At first I was angry with God but now, with it all behind me, with a peaceful home full of love and light and with the darkness gone, I see that He IS God and He had a plan all along. Let me clarify - I do not believe that it was ever His desire for me to be divorced, for my home to be torn apart. I do fully believe that God hates divorce, because He knows the pain and suffering it brings to His children. It grieves Him. It was never His desire for FP to give in so fully to sexual sin and all the other temptations. But we are not robots; we have a will and we all make choices. And the choices FP made affected his whole family. Just like in the original Garden, God had a beautiful, Eden-like, peace-filled plan for my family. We could have received that Eden as a whole family, but in our family, as in the Garden, sin entered in through one and then corrupted and destroyed all. But, just like with the Garden, the story is NOT over! And your story is not "over" either, no matter how bleak things look right now. In my family, in your family, in all the world, God takes the sin of the one man and He brings redemption through His Son. Through His grace, I have been lifted up out of the ruins and you will be too (Romans 5)!
I am still a single mother, not a "whole" family, but I trust that one day, in His timing and in His own way (and not my way!), God will rebuild that as well. He IS the restorer and rebuilder of ancient ruins (IS 61:4, Ezek 36:33) and He will restore what was "lost" in my youth, "as a young wife...rejected" to me and what was taken from me by someone else's sin (IS 54). I believe this with all my heart. He has already begun the process...I am more of a whole person now than I have ever been in my life - And you will be too. I pray for you too - I am praying for you right now, as I write this, that you will know that through Christ you CAN be whole and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:3-4). You are made new again through the power that raised Christ from the dead, the same power that is now within YOU through His Spirit! (Eph 1:18-20, Rom 8:11) - isn't that amazing to think you have such life-giving power residing within you? Know that you are NOT weak, but you are "more than a conqueror"(Rom 8:37), able to have victory through HIS power! You are "the head and not the tail...above and not beneath..."(Deut 28:13). You are "precious" to God the Father (Is 43:4) and you are His "beloved" (Ps 60:5, 108:6; Rom 11:28; Col 3:12). You are crowned with glory and honor from the Father (Psalm 8:5). He has clothed you with garments of salvation and arrayed you in a robe of righteousness! (Isaiah 61:10) These are all spiritual blessings that are yours through Christ (Eph 1:3). God, your Father, is the creator who spoke the universe into place from nothing (Heb 11:3). He will take this emptiness, this "nothing" that is now your life and He will make it beautiful and new - He WILL rebuild it and restore it. That is just who He is so STAND ON IT AND BELIEVE IT!!! If you feel like you are not "worthy" of His restoration, then you need to know that He says you ARE worthy through the blood of His Son - you are righteous through Christ if you believe in Him, "your" life is now hidden with Him, and that makes you worthy of all that God has to offer!(Rom 3:22, 5:17, 8:10, 10:4; 1 Cor 1:30; Phil 1:11, 3:9).
Still not sure God will restore you because you just don't "see" how He can turn your mess around? Trust me, I have been there. But His Word says: "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see" (Heb 11:1). You cannot see restoration right now, but you can believe it because it is who He is and you are worthy through His Son. Amen, Amen, Amen!!!
(Translations used: NIV, NASB, KJV)