Phoenix Rising

A Beginning...

I will warn you, dear reader, that this blog will ramble.  It will wind around and follow rabbit trails and get distracted by the "shiny things" in my life.

It will be my place to pour out what is inside me.  Things that I need to release.  Things I need to confess.  Things I need to let go of.  There will be pain, hurt, anger... but my hope is that there will be a constant thread of hope running throughout.  A hope that will grow and begin to replace those feelings with feelings of joy, peace, love and an ever-deeper forgiveness.

I welcome you on this journey with me.  I crave your friendship, support and prayers.

I know that I am far from the only person walking this road - there are so many hurting people in this world, and we all occasionally need a shoulder to cry on.  We all need someone to listen and tell us it will be ok... because it will!  But sometimes the road that we have to travel to get back to "ok" isn't very comfortable.

If you are traveling this road, please know that I am praying for you.  I am praying that God will give you the strength to get up each day and breathe in and breathe out.  To nourish your body, to feed your soul. 

There will be good days and bad days - I know this.  Hopefully this blog will hold the good days as well as the bad ones! 

So I welcome you...

Confessions

Confessions are funny things.

I can confess to you something that I did, but if I share something that someone else has done to me it's no longer my confession.

or is it?

I just don't know...

I have been struggling with that because I feel that what this blog will be sharing about is truly a confession for someone else.  Yes, I am very much a part of it, but I am not the one whose sin is being shared.

So, instead I will share my part, for now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have been dealing with what seems to be rather sevear depression.  For how long, I'm not exactly sure as it creeps up on you and catches you unaware.  I do know that it has been going on for many years, and getting better and worse from time to time.  but I never recognized it.

I had become a shell of a person.

I sat and merely existed rather than living a life.

I had all the appearances of a life, however.

I was (and am) married to an amazing man.  I have two beautiful daughters.  I had the "american dream" - a house, two cars in the garage, one annoying cat... we have always gone to church, and I have usually been involved in ministry.

But I wasn't happy.

I didn't know who I was.

I went the way of many mommy's and tried to find my self-worth in my kids.  I was like many young wives and tried to find my self-worth in my husband.  I did what many stay-at-home-mom's do and started a business out of my house.

None of it filled that space that was there... empty.

Who was I?

I was merely a shell.  A bit of foam floating on the surface of the ocean of life. 

That's not a very fun person to live with, day in, day out.  That's not someone you want to have raising kids, mentoring them, teaching them how to me a woman, wife and mother.

But that is who I was... for years.

So inwardly focused that I neglected those who are most important to me. 

So inwardly focused that I neglected God.

So inwardly focused that I lost myself...

Discovery

So, I existed within depression for years, but why?

There is the hereditary bit... the part that I declared as a teenager I would never succumb to.  Then there was the life happening bit.  They combined to make life not-so-fun in a lot of ways.

There was the bit about my dad dying in a plane crash.

There was the bit about struggling financially for too long.

There was the bit about recognizing that I wasn't being the best wife & mom that I could be.

Then there were feelings of rejection, feelings of un-lovable-ness, feelings of being unable to fix things aboutmyself that I didn't like.

I gained weight.  I had to buy bigger clothes.  I have a closet full of clothes that I cannot wear with the mindset that "I will get skinny again someday and then I'll have all of my favorite clothes to wear!" but I never had the will to work at it.

I was overwhelmed.  I was immobalized.

and if I'm honest, many days I still feel most of those feelings. 

The difference?

Now I recognize them for what they are... and I am able to move past them.

I get out of bed.

I breathe.

I get my kids out the door for school - food in their bellies, lunch in hand.

There are days that just doing those three things make me tired... but I have added in a new thing. Now when I feel exhausted from just getting up, I force myself to get dressed and leave the house.  I go to the gym.  I go to the store.  I go to bible study. 

I no longer allow myself to relocate my body - my shell - to the chair in the corner of the living room and merely exist.  I now force myself into some form of action.

And you know what?  It's working.

I go to the gym 3 days a week, and I suddenly have more energy than I have felt for a long time.

I go to bible study and discover that there are women out there that love me and want to get to know me and seem to genuinely like me for who I am.

I also have rediscovered that man who has been sharing a house with me for many years.  The one that has been ignored and taken for granted.  The one who has been neglected.  The one that I still love so deeply.  I just hope that I'm not too late.

Betrayal

Well, it didn't take me long to move past me.  Oops.

But it is part of my story... part of the cause of my depression, and, ironically, part of pulling me out.

I was married at 19 - yes, it was too young.  Yes, I was naive.  I was in love with the man of my dreams.  We dated for 7 months before becoming engaged, and were engaged for 9 months before being married.

I wish that I could say that it was blissful from the start - and much of it was - but we had... issues... with intimacy.  Birth control and I, we don't get along.  Caused lots of physical problems which translated into intimacy problems.  Yeah - not fun. 

We were blessed that my parents wanted to help get us off to a good financial start.  They helped us build a house that we moved into when we got married.  A house that we sold shortly to build a second one.  One we couldn't afford.

We had to move in with them.

So there we were, newlyweds of a sort (married for 1.5 years) and living with his in-laws.  There's a blow to the male ego.

I was in college when we got married.  I was a performance major, which meant that I spent a LOT of time at school.  In my senior year I had a final performance recital to prep for as well as participating in the staged musicals.  That meant more time spent away from home... in the evenings.  He felt neglected.  He felt that I wasn't spending any time with him.  Blow number 2.

Along comes an attractive woman who decides that she is tired of her marriage and also decides that he's a very attractive man.

And she was very aggressive.  She sunk her claws in deep.  She flirted openly and aggressively.  She commented on his body, his mind, his, well, his everything. 

He was blindsided by her.

He was being virtually ignored at home, and home wasn't really home for him.  It was his wife's parent's house. 

He chose to allow her space in his life.  He spent time with her.  He bought a single rose for all of the ladies at work on Valentine's Day so that he could give her a rose without suspicion. 

My senior recital was on Feb 21... and he confessed to having harbored some feelings for her on Feb 22.  Valentine's Day has been ruined for me since then.

I spent the next 3 months in a living hell.  It was my last year of college, so I had to focus on school so I would finish well.  I was in Guys & Dolls which meant lots of evening rehearsals.  Her apartment was across the street from the theater.

Oh, I forgot to mention that her husband kicked her out over it.  He kept their 2 kids, she walked away.  She moved in with another female co-worker.  Across the street from the college theater.  Where I spent all of my time.

He would show up at rehearsals to make it look like that is where he had been, but he had actually been at her place.

My parents were watching his every move at home, so he started spending time at the local Barnes & Noble.  He spent time at her apartment.  He spent time driving around.  He called her on the cell phone a lot.  I figured out her number and wrote it down so I could track it - he told me he was ending it... but he didn't.

Her roommate was an acquaintance of mine, and she couldn't take the deceipt anymore.  She was also a co-worker of theirs.  She found me on campus one day and told me what he had been doing... and that there had not been any sex that she knew of.

He told me the same thing.  He told me that he couldn't bring himself to fully break that vow... but that he had seen her naked.  She was trying everyting she could, but when the time came, he couldn't do it.

Until they left town together.

You see, he was applying to get into a grad school in another state - something we had been planning for a couple of years.  I would get my BA, then we would move so he could get his master's.  He flew out for a long weekend to go check out the campus, have a couple of interviews, etc, and I wasn't able to go.

But she did.

He got a room in a fancy hotel in the really nice part of town - one of those $200 a night rooms.

Her family (who hated her husband) bought her a plane ticket to join him.

They had dinner at a nice restaurant.

They went back to the hotel and he called me to tell me about his day on campus.

and she was sitting there in the room... patiently waiting for him to get off the phone.  Looking at travel brochures for the city.  Planning her future life with him.

This continued for 3 months.  Me clinging to hope that it would work out.  Him telling me that he had ended it.  Over and over... but never really ending it.

He found a couples counselor, and he went to a couple of sessions.  I found out where it was and went in to talk with them.  We went as a couple 2-3 times.

Then we took a choir tour near where his family lived, and he spent the first week with his family.

On that trip, I gave up hope.

On that trip, he found hope.

When he rejoined me, he told me that he would do whatever it took to make it work.  He confessed everything - including the trip away.  He asked my forgiveness, and asked me to take him back.

I was thrilled... but I still lacked hope.  I still lacked trust.  I didn't allow myself to believe that he was being honest to me.

And we never went to another counseling session.

We finished out the year where we were, and moved at New Years for him to start school.  It was my turn to be the school widow... to never see my spouse, to have to look elsewhere for companionship.  I watched tv.  Got myself hooked on Buffy.  I went to work, I came home, I watched tv.

We never really took the time to rebuild our damaged relationship.

Then we found out we were pregnant.  It had been 2 years since the affair.

I still had trust issues.  I still had anger issues.  I still held myself apart from him on many levels.  I thought I had forgiven him - I truly believed I had!  But time would show that it was a longer process than that.  I would have something spark a memory in me, and I would relive the pain of the betrayal... but I hid it.  We rarely talked about it because I was afraid that he would be hurt that I hadn't forgiven him fully.

I learned to put on the happy face.

And I sank into a deep depression without even realizing it.

The Holy Smack-Down, and Rebuilding

He graduated from grad school, and we moved.  I transferred with the company I worked for (to keep those medical benefits) and he got a great job at a dot com.  Life seemed to be improving. 

Our first child was born, I quit and became a stay-at-home-mom.  He got a raise.  We were living the "young yuppie American life" eating out, buying junk that society told us we needed for a baby, spending more money than we made...

Then that dot com became a dot bomb.  He found out that he no longer had a job ONE WEEK before our daughter turned one... and one week before the cmpany closed it's doors.  The people who had quit earlier were given "golden parachutes" to see them through.  Those that stuck it out to the end and tried to help the company get back on it's feet got... nothing.

We were living on unemployment.  I was pregnant again.  Fortunately we had moved to a cheaper apartment, and only had one car payment.  Our milk, cereal and cheese were paid for by the gov't.  My doctor's appt's were paid for by the gov't.  His unemployment checks covered the car pmt. and some of the utilities... and what little bit of savings we had was quickly gone.  What little bit of savings we had put in our daughter's name vanished.  We sold my car to live.

Every time we came to the end of the money, God miraculously provided enough to last us through the next few months.  There were no jobs... none.  He sent out 200 resume's each week.  He met with someone that promised to help him find his strengths and play them up.  His resume was re-worked and improved.  But there were no jobs.

During the 7.5 months that he had no work we experienced personal grief as well.  His grandfather died of cancer.  My dad died in a small plane crash (on the day our 2nd daughter was born).  We experienced 5 deaths in 1 year.  Family and friends that are no longer with us - two from sicknesses, two in plane crashes, 1 from suicide. 

It was a hard year.

BUT...

We experienced a closeness that we hadn't felt since we got married.  There was major healing that happened.  We drew closer to God - both individually and as a couple.  We invested time in each other and in our daughters.  The personal growth and the life lessons that were learned will be carried with us for the rest of our lives.

Then we moved back to live with my mom and he went back to work at the old job... the one he had had the affair at.

I felt homesickness for the first time in my life. 

Here I was "back home" where I grew up, surrounded by family, but I missed the church family that we had bonded with.  I missed the home we had created.  I missed the investment of time that we made in each other.  I missed so much in those first three months!  I would cry out to God "Why are we here?  I don't want to be here!  I want to go back to where things were good!"  and God told me something...

I have put you here for a reason.  I want to use you here.  You will go back, you will be there again, but I need you here now.

So, I gave that longing to God and chose to be used where I was.  There were some amazing times, and there were some major frustrations.  We had an income again, but we didn't have our own house.  We lived with my mom.  again.

After a year he had had enough.  He flew back up and got his resume in with a temporary services agency and was placed with a major corporation.  We moved from my mom's house... to his mom's house.

He commuted 2-3 hours each way to work because we couldn't afford to rent something near the job - a very high rent district.  We commuted an hour to church - getting there early becuase I was on the worship team.  On Wednesday's the girls & I got up early and drove him to work so we could go to bible study and I could go to worship rehearsal.  We spent the day driving around, hanging out with friends, etc before we picked him up from work & he dropped me off at rehearsal.  Then he and the girls went out to dinner.

We found ourselves deeper in debt.  Too deep.  We filed for bankruptcy.

Then he got a new job... further north.

We moved.

We were 10 minutes from church, 15 minutes from work, and 3 minutes from the school that the girls would start going to.

But the company is very high-pressure.

They chew you up and spit you out over and over again, and then wonder why you end up quitting and going to grow corn.

He excelled at work.  They put him on a fast-track program.  Everything he touched at work went well. 

Then our landlord sold our house and we had to move... again.

We bought a house even further north - giving him a 30-45 minute commute.  It's in a great town with good schools.  We eventually found a new church with people who are now very close friends.  I got involved with church right away, while he continued to fill a seat each week.

He travelled... a lot.

He worked... a lot.

His work-related stress kept going up.  He got promotions adding more stress. He got promotions where he got to create a new position... which required more travel, but he enjoyed what he was doing more. 

Things seemed to be going well...

Repeating Past Mistakes

We had moved, found a new church and seemed to have a new life. 

The girls were in a good school, had good friends.

We were part of a very relational church.

We owned a house again after almost 10 years of renting.

He had gotten a good raise, and we bought a car to replace the one that kept dying on us.

Then the economy tanked.

Our house was sudenly worth 100,000 less than we owed.  His paycheck was cut by 6% (as was everyone else's).  Our church split.

We found ourselves struggling financially... again.

I had been out of the work-force for almost 9 years, although I had started a business making bags and seling them online.  It had been growing before the economy tanked.

With the church split, I found myself arguing with God.  He was calling me to step out of my comfort zone.  He was calling me to be a leader instead of a supporter. I genuinely like being in the background... but I really don't like having the focus on me.

As usual, however, God won and I became the worship leader at the new church that we were starting.

I had no idea how much time that would take!

I found that I no longer had the time to build my business - I no longer had the time even to maintain it!  I began the process of closing it down, and began learning what my new job entailed.  I learned what it was to have a full-time job on a stipend.  I was able to make enough to almost cover his pay cut, but we had gotten behind... and couldn't seem to get fully caught up.

His home life was suddenly not the most nurturing environment.  I was busy, the girls were busy, and work was asking him to pull some insane hours.

He worked very closely with two other people.  One of them was a woman.  A young, attractive, smart, capable, married woman.  A woman around 4 years younger than me.

I started seeing some red flags, but I assumed that it was me.

I was trying to figure out why I was suddenly feeling trust issues when I hadn't for years.  I was looking at myself and trying to see where these feelings were coming from.

I realized one day just how easy it would be to fall into an affair... I was working very closely with a man that I admired and respected.  Someone who was very similar to me in many ways.  Someone who was very attractive.

It was a moment of looking into his eyes while talking about work... and I realized in a moment the danger.

I put up a wall.  I refused to go there.  But given the fact that I had seen the weakness, I felt guilt.  I assumed that the red flags I was seeing came from that... that it was all me.

I justified it.

Sure, he was trading music with her.  Sure he would bring home recipes that she had given him, and not let me help him make them.  Sure, he took food to work for her to try and comment on.  Sure her opinion of things suddenly seemed more important thian mine...

We went out for coffee & I brought it up.  I wanted to make sure that the hedges were still being tended, that he was still mindful of guarding his heart.  His response?  "There's nothing to worry about, she would never do that."

Between the momentary spark of interest that I had felt and that conversation, I began looking at myself.  I began to re-evaluate myself and where I was.

I began to realize that I was suffering from depression.  And I began to fight against it.

I didn't fully realize just how deep I had fallen into depression yet... that would come later.  But I began to claw my way back to the surface.  I reached out to those around me.  I made friends, I let people into some of those dark recesses that I had kept hidden for so long.  I poured myself into work, into ministry.  I took on more and more things at church, at the girls school...

And I got very busy.

Once again I was not giving him attention, but then, he had stopped expecting it already.  He was getting attention from someone else anyway.

Confession... Again

I hate Valentine's Day.

No, I really do.

12 years ago, Valentine's Day brought with it pain and it was tainted from that moment on.

This year on Valentine's Day I found myself remembering that day so long ago... and wondering why.  I found myself remembering how he had taken roses to all the women in the office... and wondering why.

I didn't get anything for Valentine's Day this year.  Nothing.

4 days after Valentine's Day I asked him what was going on... he was moody and depressed.  He had checked out.  I was feeling all of those painful feelings again...

I was feeling unwanted... again.

And he confessed to feeling like he was in love with her.  That it had been something that had built slowly over time and he never realized it was there.

When I brought up the coffee shop talk a year ago, he said that he was starting to notice something then, but he thought he could handle it. 

He thought he had it under control.

But he didn't.

The irony of the dates on the calendar were not lost on me.  February 22, 1998 had been the worst day of my life.  Now February 18, 2010 would join it.

My husband confessed to having an affair.

This time though, it was different.

This time it was 100% emotional.  Ther had been nothing physical at all.

No, this time instead of giving his body to someone else, he had given his heart to her.

In his trying to justify what he was doing, he started questioning everything.

He told me he thought I was a rebound...

He told me that he wasn't sure he had ever really loved me.

...

But he cared deeply for me.  He wanted to make sure that I was taken care of.  He wanted to make sure that I was happy.  He wanted to make sure I would be OK.  He didn't want to hurt me.

WTF?!?!?!?!?

I was stunned.

But, I realized that I had seen the signs.  I had seen it coming and hadn't said anything because I was too busy dealing with my stuff.

I told him what I had felt.. and how I had delt with it.

I told him that there were times that I would cry out to God asking Him to take away these possible feelings for someone other than my husband.

I confessed as well.

I also told him about the depression.

I told him that I realized that I had not been too fun to live with.  That I had been a shell of a person.  That I realized that I wasn't engaged in our family the way I needed to be.

And I told him that we needed to work this out.

I told him that I had faith that God could fix this... if we wanted Him to.

He was scared.

He was scared that the girls would hate him for what he had done.  For what he was thinking about doing.  For breaking our family.

He didn't know what he wanted to do... did he want to stay?  Or did he want to go?

I told him that I would give him some time to work through these thoughts, to figure out what he wanted. 

I didn't kick him out.

And I still haven't.

I processed things for a while, talked it over with my pastor and a friend.

I told him he had to find a counselor.  That he had to go to a counselor.

And I told him that he had until April 10 to make a decision.

Yes, I gave him 7 weeks... but March is full of birthdays.  I told him that his timing was really lousy, but I refused to kick him out just in time for his daughter's birthday.

He still has 10 days to make that decision...

He has to choose between what he wants and what is the right thing to do.

He expects that his heart will be broken either way... and with either choice someone else has their heart broken.

Yes, they have talked about it.

If he walks away, she will too.  If he walks away, one of them will start to look for a different job to make sure that their "love" will still be there when they aren't spending 8-10 hours a day together.

But he's not willing to look for a different job for a few more months, and doesn't think she should either.

They just had a product that they have spent the past 2 years working on & developing finally go to market, and they need to have numbers to put next to it when they look for a new job... at least that's the excuse.

They have talked about the fact that she wants kids... but doesn't mind adopting.  She's just not sure where kids fit in with the career.  But then she's sill young... still in her 20's.

He just turned 40 two weeks ago.

Is it a mid-life crisis thing?

Is it a product of not investing time in your family?

Is it a product of not ever having taken the time to fix the problems last time around?

It is all of these... and so much more.

And it sucks.

The Truth... it hurts

The first battle was won weeks ago - he confessed.  He stopped hiding and lying... sort of.

He was never truly honest though.  I was told that it was just a truly very close friendship.  That she was his best friend.  That she was the kind of person that would drop everything to help him on a moment's notice - and he would do the same for her.  That she was intentional and encouraging and filled the needs that he felt weren't being met at home.

but that is enough to walk away from 15 years for?

There are dots between those things and "I am in love with her and am thinking about destroying my family, my wife and throwing away 15 years for" - not that he ever put it into those words.

My mind has tried to fill in those dots.  It's not pretty when I fill in those dots - even when I try not to.

He keeps saying that he doesn't want to tell me what he is feeling while he processes through this decision because "it will only hurt you.  I am just leaving death & destruction in my path."

... because you haven't hurt me already.  really...

I told him two nights ago that by not telling me, he was hurting me far more.  I cann't comprehend why this is such a hard choice, because for all I've been told, she is just a nice person to be around.  She is just a good friend.

I hadn't been told that the room was brighter when she was there, and it seemed a little more dim when she walked out of it.  I hadn't been told that he hated leaving the office because it meant leaving her until the next day.  I hadn't been told that a simple, accidental brushing of arms or hands while working sent a shock of electricity through his body.  I hadn't been told if they had ever kissed - or had merely come close to it in one of those ackward moments.  Had they ever held hands?  When had they had time to have these conversations about their feelings?  When had they had time to have conversations about what they would do if he walked away?  WHAT was the true status of their relationship?

Apparently they have never kissed or even held hands.  Possibly come close... but it hasn't happened.

Apparently they have done lunch runs together from time to time (not all the time though! was the response).

Apparently they have found moments to be alone and have serious, life-changing descussions.

She has become his confidant.

She is the other half of his work persona... they are "The Dynamic Duo" and they get things done.

They have a secret language that doesn't require words.  They know what the other is thinking with a mere glance.

Yes, the world is a little more dim when she isn't around.  Yes, he dreads leaving work... because she isn't waiting for him at home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are questions that I don't want answered too, of course.  I just have to reign in my imagination and not let it go to those places.  I told him that I have thought about them, but I really, really don't want to know the answer.  I don't want to know if he has thought about sex with her while having sex with me.  I don't want to know that he has fanticised about her... about kissing her.. about making love to her.  I pray not, but if he has, I REALLY don't want to know that.  If the answer to these questions is that he has, that just might destroy me.  It may be more than I can endure.

I may not recover from those answers.

I Should Be Happy

If you've read this far, you wonder why on earth I would say that I should be happy.  I wonder that myself.

But apparently I should.

Battle number two has been won... my husband has chosen to stay my husband.

No, that's not it... that wasn't the choice he made...

He chose to "do the right thing"

those were his words.  Rather than to choose what his heart was crying out for him to do, he chose to "do the right thing."

Followed by "I thought that would make you happy" when I didn't leap for joy.

... ... ...

How is sitting here across from you and watching the torture that you are feeling supposed make me happy?

How can knowing that you are in pain make me happy?  Especially when I somehow feel like I am part of the cause of that pain?

I know... I'm not the cause of it.  I know that he caused it by the choices that he made and that this is one of his consequences... but then why do I feel like I'm to blame?

Because I love him, and I weap when he weaps.  I feel pain when he feels pain.  My heart breaks because his heart is breaking.

I want so desperately to take the pain away!  I want to make him happy... but I don't know if I can.

If every we have needed prayer for our marriage, it is now.  The real work and pain and agony and suffering begins now.

Am I thankful that he chose to keep our family together?  Absolutely!  But I can't honestly believe at this moment that he chose me.  I will be happy when he tells me that he has chosen to spend his life with me again.  When I'm no longer just "the right thing"

I never expected to feel this pain again.

    I never expected that I would be the runner up. 

         The one that was no longer wanted. 

              The one that was no longer loved... again.

Yes, damage has been done.  Real, true, deep and painful damage has been done.  And honestly, I didn't expect that I would feel this pain if he made the choice to stay!  I fully expected it if he chose to leave... but to stay?  It seems so... backwards.

I am crying out to God moment by moment just to get through the day.  Just to get through this day while my kids are home on Spring Break... while they are watching me process through this with no idea what has been going on for the past 7 weeks... or for the past 2 years.

I pray that he is also crying out to God to get through his first day working near her, but no longer alongside her.  I pray that he is seeking God's strength to help him.  I pray that he doesn't have second thoughts about the decision he made last night.  I pray that he stays true to the commitment that he made last night.  I pray that he can fully commit to us.

I want to be his confidant.

I want to be the person that brightens up his life.

I want to have our own secret language again.

I want to be his best friend again... because even in the midst of this, he still is my best friend.

I want to be the person that fills his thoughts.

I want him to look forward to coming home... because I am here.

I want him to be my husband again...

A New Kind of Betrayal

Wow, and the hits just keep coming.

...

The back story:

On Friday, April 9th his car was broken into.  They took the laptop bag - contents included his work laptop, iPod, reading glasses, HP calculator, some books, a credit card statement and reimbursement request, among other things.  Oh, and did I mention that we were starting our "prescribed by the marriage counselor" date night?  Dinner was over and we should have been heading to a Starfield concert.  We never made it to the concert.

Funny thing was, both of us are so close to numb that we just took it in stride.  No freaking out, no nervs, just very matter-of-fact "my car was broken into" and dealing with insurance, police, credit card company, etc.

Then Saturday came.

I received an email via facebook from a "friend" - you know, one of those "In Real Life" kind.  It was not a very nice email.  It started out with her telling me how she wasn't sorry that my car was broken into.  That the thieves left the bible because God knew I needed it more.

What?!?!?

It got worse from there.  Much worse.

Every aspect of my life was put under the flame.  My marriage, my love for my husband, my love for my kids.  My ministries... everything.  Apparently I was "pursuing sin" with no regard to the consequences.

I was being accused of trying to initiate an extra-marital affair with my pastor.  And there was no denying it - "It's been confirmed."

I was speachless... unable to respond with actual words that didn't involve lots of @#$%^&* intermingled in them.

I was blindsided, taken aback, furiously pissed and truly unable to come up with any response beyond "This needs to be discussed face to face... and know that you are wrong."

Let me step back a moment and assure you that NOTHING OF THE SORT IS HAPPENING.

My husband walked in as I was trying to process what I had just skimmed and said "you look like you are about ready to kill someone."  I simply handed him the laptop.

His response?  "Wow - she is attacking the wrong person.  Where is she getting this from I wonder?"

She also sent an email to our pastor, followed up by a phone call where she tore him apart. 

Sunday...

I had to lead worship - the thing that she said I shouldn't be trying to do because "you can't be actively pursuing sin and worship God"  He had to preach. 

I avoided her because I didn't want her to cause a scene.

We met with an elder on Monday morning, where I gracefully informed her that she was so. very. wrong.  The elder had read the email, and was equally in shock.  He informed her that it had been handled badly, and that if anything was going on, they would be dealing with it.

She apologized for how she handled it.  SHe confessed that she was so terrified of another church split that when she saw "us flirting incessantly" (not happening) and me "following him around everywhere" (in the middle of a conversation) she became terrified that we were doing something that we ought not to do.  So, in her fear of a church split, she set about trying to create one?

She told me that she never meant to hurt me... because she genuinely likes me and has enjoyed getting to know me.

uh... mmmmmmmkay.  So next time you think I'm sinning on such a grand scale, you'll just calmly come and talk to me AND ONLY ME to work through it?  In the future you'll learn to deal with diesgreements BIBLICALY?

So it seemed to be resolved... Monday.

Tuesday.

I lead a women's bible study (again, I seemed so insightful, but turned out to be so sinful!) that she is in.

She walked in and started to sit right next to me.  Realized that might not be the best idea... and instead sat directly across from me.

The woman has some cahones, I must give her credit.

I had to act as if nothing was wrong... as if nothing was simmering under the surface.

Oh, and we were talking about fears and obsessions... the kind that take over your life.  Make you do crazy things.

...

Then I get a phone call from my pastor.

She cornered his wife on Sunday.  She told her evil things.  Untrue things.  Things that make a woman call into question the vows her husband made to her.  Things that plant a seed of doubt in a woman's mind about her husband's promise to love and honor HER above all else.

Things that drive a wedge in a marriage.

Things that I have lived with far too intimately for too long.

Yep, more explitives.  More fury.  In fact, much more fury than attacking me.

Why?

Because NO ONE should be forced to live with those doubts and fears - ESPECIALLY when they are unfounded and without reason to exist in the first place.

And now she has to live with those questions... because of a LIE.  Because of someone's obsession.  Because of someone's fears.

...

I'm still trying to figure out how to get past that part of it.  My heart aches for her.  It is causing my heart to ache all over again for the pain that I have tried to ignore.  It is opening up wounds that have barely begun the healing process and dumping gallons of salt into them.

At times I feel near-blinding anger that someone is so vindictive that she would inflict that kind of pain on someone because she doesn't like that a man and a woman can laugh together.  Can have fun working together.  Can get along well together to facilitate an environment where others can also laugh together and have fun together.

Other times I am so broken that a woman is feeling the pain of sudden mistrust of her husband.  Mistrust of me.  Thinking that I am trying to lure him away from her.

It has been 10 days since I received the email, and I am not over it.  Well, I'm over the email... but I can't seem to get over the feeling of betrayal of a friendship, the attempt to destroy a marriage.

I have told his wife that there is nothing going on.  I have told her that I would NOT do that... because I have lived on that side of it.

She thinks that there has been lots of flirting... and that it could have potential to lead somewhere.

And she looked at me like I was the other woman.

The other woman.

That causes pain.  Seeing that look in her eyes just about killed me.  Even though I KNOW that nothing has ever or will ever happen there, she is afraid that it might.  She is afraid that I am trying to steal her husband's affections away from her.  She is afraid of me.

How do I continue to do my job?  How do I move forward - working side by side with a man that I call friend and mentor and pastor and "boss" and co-leader - without causing her more pain?  Pain that I DIDN'T CAUSE!  But pain that seeing me near him will cause to spike.

How do I lead my team?  How do I lead our women?  How do I lead anyone when I am so... broken.

Yes, today I am feeling very broken.

Today I am feeling very scared and sad and hollow and ready to crawl back down into the pit that I have been trying to claw my way out of.

Depression is beckoning as a safe place to go and curl up and hide away from it all.

I cry for almost no apparent reason.  I snap at people over nothing.  I have to apologize constantly for harsh words, harsh actions.  I have to apologize to my kids entirely too much.

I search my mind to try to come up with a solution to help her.  To ease the pain and fear and doubt... and I can't come up with one.

And I know that it isn't up to me to find one... but it hurts so much to see someone else being forced down the path that I have been forced to walk.  A path that she should never have had to come to.

Dear God!  How Can I endure?

I am nearing the breaking point.  The point beyond which I simply can't do it.  The point at which I no longer have the strength to keep holding on to God's strength in this.

How much emotional turmoil can one person endure?

As the song by Plumb cries out... "I can't do this... Oh God, I need Your help!"

That has been the cry of my heart for over 2 months now.  I simply can't do this by myself.

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