This Is My Story

I’ve been writing a lot about things that happen behind our closed doors primarily because I felt God nudging me to tell the truth. The last year has been an enlightening one as I opened up to more and more people about the state of this marriage, and as God began to open my eyes to the truth. Some days, I still want to believe that I am – as my husband says – exaggerating. Or being dramatic. Or perhaps this is how everyone lives and I’m just ultra-sensitive. Often, I want to pull back on all this sharing and go back to pretending. I can’t, though. God has changed me.

I don’t want my story to be one of emotional, verbal and spiritual abuse. I want it to be the story of what God can do, how he met me in a deep, dark time and oh, so, slowly opened my eyes and began to reveal himself to me. Looking back to December 2017 and the original job loss (number 8, for the record…but the first in several years), I can honestly say I wasn’t ready to think and feel the things God has me thinking and feeling now. God has placed teachers and friends in my life. He’s given me small commands that seemed big and proven Himself faithful. He’s revealed Himself in scripture again and again, even though the heavens never opened up and angels never sang. The unfolding was so slow I missed it happening, but standing here today, it has surely happened. It's an unfolding I thought was impossible.

We’re a week out from another job loss. My husband has nothing lined up. He had an interview today that he was sure he’d nail and now he doesn’t think he did. He’s been home nearly all week (bless my patience), and yet hasn’t put out any other feelers. This is par for the course with him, and usually I’d be in full-blown panic mode, trying not to spend a cent while taking any and every gig that I could get to cover us.

This time, my heart has shifted from a posture of hoping desperately that my husband will provide to expecting that God will. I know my marriage is broken – that it really never was a marriage in the sense that God intended marriage to be. I don’t know if God plans to work miracles and heal it or work miracles and set us free. I do know that he sees what has happened. He hears what is said. He does not turn a blind eye to what the kids and I have endured. And God promises to both avenge and provide.

Faced with the likelihood of yet more disappointment from my husband, I’m choosing to put my faith in God. He is working, even if my husband isn’t.

I also know that time and time again, I’ve picked up my husband’s burden of provision when he refused to carry it…and I don’t have to do that anymore. I’m doing what God places in front of me, but I won’t be the man and the woman in this marriage anymore. If James steps out, God will step in.

I listened to the post-interview play-by-play tonight and didn’t work myself into a panic. I just let the words pass in one ear and out the other. What God wants, will be. I don’t even know what to ask for or what I want, so I can honestly say, I just want His will. In years past, I spent interviews anxiously playing out all scenarios in my mind. I coached and coaxed and begged. This time, I did nothing. I worked on things I had to work on. I played with the kids at the pool. I hope this is what it means to come to God with open hands. Open to let the unnecessary pass out and open to let the good pour in.

If I had to guess, I’d say my husband is feeling pretty rattled. This is not the Laura he is used to, and he can't figure out how to get me to step in and handle things.

This is not my burden, though. It is not my kids’ burden. We will NOT pick it up ever again. He can either work with God to carry it, or God will take it away.

Several times since that December job loss, I’ve stumbled across Psalm 90:15, where the writer begs God to “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.” When it popped up again a few days ago, just after our 14-year anniversary, it became my new prayer. It’s been 14 years, God. Please restore my joy. Teach me how to feel it. Let me live 14 years of peace and joy instead of fear and worry. Whether that’s with my husband or as a single woman is entirely up to God. The other burden I’ve put down is the burden to figure out it. That…belongs to God.

I don’t want my story – my life - to be a story of abuse. I want my story to show what God can do in the darkest of places because he’s done it in mine. I want to show how he can change a mind and a heart without changing circumstances. I want to show that he sets us free in this world and the next, and that His plan is bigger than mine could ever be.