Where are they now?

If you have a while...you can catch up with my train of thought here, here, and here.  The following is one of my favorite inspirational quotes.

 

"The most beautiful stones

have been tossed by the wind

and washed by the waters

and polished to brilliance

by life's strongest storms."

 

 

Today's song:

 

 

 

You know all the cliches...whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger...trials build character...etc.  As annoying as they can be sometimes...they can be true.  But you have to make the choice to see the positive out of the negative, you have to let go of bitterness.  I thought I was done writing on yesterday's subject of infidelity, but some comments and emails have touched me in a way that I felt like I had to share a little more before going on.

 

I do not want you to get the impression that "fixing" our marriage was or is an easy thing.  It is a war...one that we still fight..it's just now we do it together.  We protect our marriage from the enemy and God guides us on our journey. 

It took a year of therapy to move past the big hurdle and being able to move forward instead of standing still.  It took a few years after that to really be able to heal completely.  I imagine it is like grieving...I had to mourn what I thought our marriage should have been and accept what it was...not that it is bad...in contrast, it is better than before.

 

But mourning takes time.

We are so much closer now than we were before going through all of that.  Our relationship was so much better and I had no idea that it could be even better than that, but that is what has happened as I have learned to surrender.  I was still controlling after the infidelity...I still didn't see it as that...I truly thought I was helping.  But since I started this most recent journey we have grown even closer...I didn't even think that that was possible.  We have a long way to go...I still have issues giving up control and he is still learning to be the leader that I need him to be.  And God is still guiding us.

 

I am always looking for ways to make our marriage better...I'm handing him back the pants, being less of a cactus and I got stuck.  I couldn't move past something and I still don't know exactly what it is.  So thanks for riding along with me this week as I got my zipper unstuck and went back a little to try to move forward again.  I was going to write about something completely different today and this is what came out.  Tomorrow I will share with you the revelations I have had this week. 

 

I think it is amazing to read each other's stories and see the similarities in the struggle of life and marriage.  I had a couple of miscarriages in between kiddos and felt very alone.  I shared my pain in a mom's group I was in and was amazed when almost half the women in the room had had one and knew what it felt like and made me feel better just by knowing that I wasn't alone and by seeing that someone else had been through it and made it to the "other side". 

 

Isn't that what we do for each other...my story is not really all that special, is it?  We can be real here in blogland and maybe learn something from each other.  We don't live in a vacuum, do we? We have an effect on people whether we want to or not.  I hope that I am honest, real, and leave a positive effect here.  I hope that I learn to open myself up more in the real world too.

 

 

 

There are other people out there whose stones are more polished than mine, but isn't that what makes them beautiful...they aren't the same, but they sit in the same riverbed together.  They are all different colors and shapes. Some have dents or cracks. Some are still very rough around the edges and still more show the scars of their experience; but they all endure the constant flow of life and circumstance around them...together.  They are not alone. 

 

Tomorrow's post: What Have I Learned?