The following is excerpted from LDS Living. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
“But you love me”
My husband’s affair didn’t come out all at once. Instead, I discovered heartbreaking truths and deceptive lies about the situation over the course of about a year. His continuing affair and the dishonesty, stress, and depression that accompanied it were the hardest things I have ever had to go through. And yet, as I turned to the Lord and waited on Him, it became a sanctifying experience that brought me closer to my Savior than I had ever been before.
No one knows how they will handle this type of news until they are faced with it. Previously, I remember thinking that if I was ever in this situation, I would head straight to a divorce attorney, having no tolerance for that kind of treatment. But when it is real life, there is just so much at stake. I was surprised when faced with this heart-wrenching reality that instead of giving up, I found a newfound fierceness to fight for my family and even for my husband, who I could see was tangled and trapped in Satan’s snares.
For three years, I fought with everything I had. It was longer than I ever thought I could or would fight. But as I look back, I am amazed at how the Lord led me through it all and sustained me day by day as I waited on Him. He literally moved mountains of sin, pain, and trauma to bring me to where I am today.
I remember one moment of intense pain at the beginning of this journey when I felt completely unlovable. I cried out in a silent, pleading prayer to Heavenly Father: “But you love me, right?” Then I curled up on my bed and opened the scriptures that were sitting next to me. The page I saw was in John, and my eyes went straight to 15:9 which says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”
I felt the Savior right there, as though He were saying those words directly to me, and my tears of pain turned into tears of gratitude. I held on to that scripture and that experience over the next few years as I desperately tried to continue in His love.
“He’s not seeing you right”
From the very beginning, I wanted to know exactly what I was facing, what the truth was in the midst of lies, and what I needed to do: divorce, separate for a time, or stay. I wanted it under control, clearly laid out, and quickly resolved. However, the Lord in His wisdom led me along, line upon line, day by day. I could never see how it would all work out—or even see very many steps ahead—but I felt an assurance that eventually, somehow, it would.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
