Saturday, September 15, 2012

How do you go on?

It's times like these when I really begin to question what the Lord has in mind, and why He allows certain things to happen in people's lives.

We recently had a situation happen with some friends of ours that involved infidelity, non-repentance, and the person who had the affair is now divorcing the other. We have seen more pain in the last couple of weeks than we have probably ever seen in our lives.

How do you go on from something like that? How do you move forward and not feel like a fool for marrying that person in the first place? How do you learn to trust again?

Our hearts go out to this person every day. We have lost sleep over it, because this person is one of our dearest friends. To think of this situation happening to such a kind and caring person is unbelievable.

For the past couple of weeks I have been trying to process through everything and figure out why someone could do something so horrendous. In the words of the person who had the affair, "I broke the one rule in marriage that you're not supposed to break." And not only that, this person ended up deciding that they did not want to be in the marriage anymore, and has now decided to leave.

As if the innocent person hadn't already been hurt enough... They just took another sucker-punch to the gut. It would have been one thing if there was repentance and a desire to work things out, but that hasn't been the case at all - only finger-pointing and questioning why they got married in the first place.

My heart is breaking. I have always experienced these types of things from a distance, but this is the first time when it hits so close to home, and I feel as though things are just shattering. --- And this didn't even happen to me personally.

In fact, my marriage is getting better and stronger everyday. And right now... I *hate* saying that. Why should I have such a marriage when our friends' is falling apart even as I type this?

Why would you allow this to happen, God? You know that the innocent party loves You and desires to do the right thing and would have loved the other even through all of this. And yet the other person got away with it and is now leaving? How is that even remotely fair?

I'm trying to trust the Lord, but the more crap that happens, the more I begin to question why He's doing this to such an awesome person.

"Vengeance is mine," says the Lord. "I will repay." --- And now I just ask... When? When is this person going to get what they deserve? I know that it needs to be in the hands of the Lord, but right now all I want to do is find that person, give them a piece of my mind, and then punch them in the face for how they have hurt our friend.

How do you reach out to someone who's going through a divorce? This is a situation that is completely foreign to me when it's this close. Listen to them? Talk with them? Help them get their mind off of it? Cry with them? I'm sure it's all of these things.... It's just so hard to know what the right thing to say (or not say) is.

I don't even know how to process all of this. Our friend's life is forever changed because of this. Innocence is shattered, naivete is gone. All that's left is pain and the question... How do you go on? How do you pick up the pieces of a life that has completely fallen apart?

...I don't have answers.