So, today's untitled darkness is related to marriage, particularly mine. Everyone that I know has stories they could tell about them and/or their spouses. If you haven't had at least one moment when you thought "what the crap was I thinking?!?!?!", then your wedding was obviously fake and you should get your money back! Sometimes, however, the hurts go deeper and you actually walk out of the door - whether figuratively or literally. Today's writing is about the day that I walked out - in both senses of the phrase. It hadn't been long since we moved to a new state, away from all that I'd ever known. We had two "babies" (C was 4, P was about 18 months old), I had just returned to work, Matt had just quit working (to attend school), we were broke (like ramen noodles and mac n cheese kind of broke), and I was so very scared and felt so alone. I walked past the man of my dreams daily, but still felt so abandoned, somehow "duped" into believing in this ridiculous dream of his. I can honestly tell you that I don't know when "it hit" or even what caused it, but one day I was just done. I wanted to go home, wanted out of this insanity that we had made of our lives at the time. I recall very little about the actual "incident", just the pain that went along with it. I headed out the door and made it as far as the first step before falling to my knees. I'd been through this before. A few times, in fact, and I knew that divorce was nasty, dreadful, and destructive. I'd been the child in these instances, but still knew that I'd give anything for this to not be the case. I'm not sure how long I sat there before I just dialed the first number I could find in my phone. Ya'll - it was my mother-in-law. That's right. . . picture this conversation for a while "I know he's your son, but if I don't leave right this second I'm gonna kill him - just thought you should know" (or something like that). Looking back on it, I laugh so hard, but I kid you not - I am still overwhelmed with tears when I think of the pain we were both enduring at that time. I will have you know that she didn't hang up on me or scream profanities, instead she prayed with me. She prayed with me for at least an hour, I swear. . . until I was so overwhelmed by peace and love AND HUMILITY that I was able to walk back through the door armed with the only words I could muster "I'm sorry" and "I love you".
We were so broken at that point. To this day, I know it was nothing but the grace of God that allowed Matt to embrace me at that moment. I'd like to say that it was all peaches and ice cream after that, but we all that's not the case. It was rough in our home for a while, but we refused to walk away. I could go on and on about this as there are 11+ years to talk about, but I feel like I'm simply supposed to tell you why I'm glad I walked back in. . . .
Sometimes its easiest to share in pictures, so here are a few from the millions of reasons I'm thankful that we both had great counsel in our darkest moments. We would've missed out on so much.
And as if this wasn't enough, let's not forget these two beautiful smiles. . .
No one on this earth could love me more patiently, more unselfishly and more completely. If this post was written for you, open the door.
Love you! :)
Laura
