This is my “ground zero”

** So before Matt gives his first glimpse into his testimony I just have to say a couple things.

WOW. I sat at the computer for at least an hour Monday before I could work up the courage to hit send on Facebook, announcing to the world everything we had been going through in private for months now. I wanted to throw up. Then it was like God was behind me saying, “Why aren’t you talking to me right now about this?” You know, after everything we’ve been through, after we’ve started walking closely with Christ, and I crave my relationship with Him to be DEEPER – my first instinct still wasn’t to hit my knees and pray, I chose to sit in misery and anxiousness. So I cried out to Him, I knew I wasn’t trusting Him in that instant, I wasn’t trusting Him that this was His will, I wasn’t trusting that this was His plan, but He is good, and He is faithful. And He gave me peace. So I posted our story. A story I never thought we’d have to battle through, much less share with the world. And then I started shaking. Faith like a mustard seed?? Clearly, I was struggling with that Monday morning. I sat shaking and shaking and shaking. I got up and found Matt and told him, I did it, it’s out there, and I’m going to be sick. And then I walked by my computer again. And saw support. And love. And GRACE. And all these things that Christ calls us to be! Those of you that reached out, and even if you didn’t; those of you that prayed for us and asked us to pray for you; those of you that read it and it made you think; those of you that told someone to read it – thank you. Thank you not for reading our story, but thank you for reading His story. If God can work in us, He can work in you; in any thing you are going through, if you let Him. None of this is about us, we are proud that we saved our marriage because it is better and stronger than we ever imagined it could be, but we want more than anything for you to see God through us, through this. So thank you.

Now, we wanted Matt’s perspective on everything too, but he said he absolutely wasn’t typing. Figures. So here we go, with him dictating and me typing 🙂

When everything came crashing down that Sunday in September, my world just turned upside down. I had no idea what to do. I was headed home from a family reunion, and happened to be with my parents and brother. I’ve always looked up to all three of them for their faithful Christian walk. “How could this happen? I thought we had a good marriage.”, was probably the first thing I kept asking over and over and over. Good people make bad choices my Mom reminded me. Eventually it was just me and Dad, standing on the side of the road. I couldn’t stop asking him, “Why me?” “I can’t tell you that”, he said, “But I know good people do bad things all the time.” I asked him over and over what should I do, with him telling me he couldn’t tell me that. He finally said, “I can’t tell you what you should do, but there are two kids in that vehicle that love their Momma and Daddy so much. This world is hard enough without having to raise kids in two homes. But you have to decide if she’s worth the fight.” I always thought she was, but now I wasn’t sure. I thought she was different, I thought we were different. And I told him that. I told him I just didn’t know, how could you know? My Dad looked me in the eyes and told me,”I think she’s special. I think she’s worth the fight. I think you need to go fight for her.”

They took the kids and told me to take the next couple hours until I got home to Lauren to pray and talk to God about what to do. I got a little praying done, but a lot of anger and yelling towards Lauren too. When I say I had a lot of anger, I mean it; I threw everything I had at her and then some. I said some truly awful things to her, I was as hateful to her as I’ve ever been to anybody in my life. I wanted to hurt her as bad as I could. And by the time I got home and looked at her, I knew I had succeeded, I had broken her as much as I had hoped. Looking back now, in my mind I was testing her to see how hard she was willing to fight for me. She had told me she wasn’t giving up, she had made the biggest mistake of her life and she couldn’t take that back, but she wasn’t losing me without going down fighting. I was sure she didn’t have it in her. But I don’t know of anybody else that would have sat and taken what I dished out that day, and owned everything. But she did. And she did fight, tooth and nail, for us and for our family. I’m not proud of anything I said that day, and if I could take back everything I said to her I would in a heartbeat. I would have to get her forgiveness for this later.

When I got home, I can’t even describe it, tension like never before, so much hurt and anger and awful things said. Lauren said she was here to fight for us, I told her all I can say is I’m here. I had asked God on my way home for a sign, should I stay and fight or is this over? I thought he had left me with nothing, but little did I know He was fixing to send us the thing we needed most in that moment – Bro. Terry.

I had talked about looking for a sign from God, but as I sat in the living room talking with Lauren and Bro. Terry, I realized signs were all around me – pictures of our kids, pictures of our wedding day, pictures of our family. Mom and Dad had stopped by a little earlier in the night to get stuff for Mae Harper to stay with them that night so she wouldn’t be around and hear anything. As soon as they walked through the door my Mom gathered Lauren up in her arms and held her while they both cried; Mom just held her and kept telling her how much she loved her and it was going to be ok. Dad took her in his arms too, hugging her and reminding her that he loves her and even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, God would see us through this. He reminded us that we have two beautiful children that love their Momma and Daddy more than anything, and that they were counting on us. I sat there and realized that Mom and Dad showed Lauren the love they’ve always had for her and that showed me they believed exactly what advice they had given me earlier. And now Bro. Terry, a man I had only met one other time in my life, was here. He came and talked for hours with us – praying, refereeing, getting into the scripture with us; and then we’d do it all over again. He asked Lauren if she was in it, and she said absolutely yes. Then he asked me – I’m here now. That’s the best I could commit to. I told him I felt like I would be weak if I stayed, and he assured me a weak man wouldn’t stay, not after the bombs you were hit with today, he was proud I was there now. Later, as he was starting to wrap up with us for the night, I asked him what now? How do we function right now? Lauren offered to leave and give me space, so should she go? Should she stay? In my mind I already knew the answer, but I needed him to say it out loud. Stay together unless you’re worried about your safety, don’t give the enemy any more room to get further in between y’all. I mean, it was bad but not that bad! He prayed over us, and then said he had one more thing he wanted to ask us to do. It would be tough, but to just trust him on it.

He wanted us to sleep in the same bed together. THAT MAN HAD LOST HIS MIND!!

But we did. We slept as far away as two people possibly could in a king size bed, but before we went to sleep that night we did something we had never done before. EVER. We prayed together.

Monday morning. Needless to say, I don’t think either of us got much sleep that night. When I woke up, a flood of emotions hit me, I didn’t want to face the day, and probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t have to take Logan to school. I just sat there and cried not knowing how to start my day. And like she has numerous times before, Lauren reached out to comfort me. I can’t put into words how it made me feel but the last thing I wanted was her touch. I jerked away, I got up and tried to keep to myself until it was time to leave for school.

Then it happened for the first time.

I had been asking God for a sign, but He did one better – we had our first conversation. I want y’all to know it wasn’t just a feeling, and I’ve heard my whole life people say they “talked with God”. Honestly I never put much thought in it, I’ve always chalked it up to just one of those things people say. But this was as real as any conversation I’ve had with anybody in my life. And it turned out to be probably one of the MOST important conversations I’ve ever had as well.

God started telling me that she needs something from me, and I was like I don’t care what she needs. And He said,”you need to do something for Me this morning.” And again I told him I don’t care. He told me, “You need to kiss her like you’ve always kissed her when you leave this house.” And I said there is no way, I’m not going to do that. He said, “You’re going to do it because I’m telling you to do it.” I told Him I’m not, I’m just not. After all this, she doesn’t deserve it! And He answered me back, “And you don’t deserve my forgiveness. But I give it to you.” So I walked back in our bedroom, with tears streaming down my face, and kissed her on her forehead and told her I loved her. Just like I had every day for the past 5 1/2 years.

Later that morning, we spent hours on the couch talking. Every so often I’d get up to get a breath and dry my eyes and give Lauren a minute to get herself together, but what Lauren didn’t realize was that I was still having a conversation with God. Ok, maybe I was mainly arguing with Him still. But this is 24 hours after my world came crashing down around me and He tells me, “She needs something else from you today. She needs you to touch her. And she needs you to forgive her. And you’re going to do it.” And I kept saying I obeyed this morning, but this is too much. She doesn’t deserve forgiveness for what she’s done after 24 hours of me finding out. No way, that isn’t happening today. “You don’t deserve my forgiveness either. But I give it to you because I love you. And I’m telling you that you’re going to give her this because it’s what she needs, not what you need.”

I walked straight to Lauren, knelt in front of her, grabbed her hands and told her I love you and I forgive you, and whatever it takes to get through this we’re going to do. She fell into my arms and we held on to each other like never before, crying with each other, crying out to God to help us save our marriage. Lauren cried out to Him like I had never heard her do before – to forgive her for what she had done, and for the pain she had caused; she said she wasn’t worthy of God’s forgiveness or my forgiveness, and she still struggles with that. And we prayed as a couple again, for the second time in less than 24 hours, we prayed to our God to guide us, to lead us, to comfort us. We stayed that way forever it seemed. I finally told her let’s go get some fresh air. So we rode to one of our happy places, our deer camp. And just rode around for a while. There was a peace that had come over us. I had my wife with me, and for that afternoon at least everything was ok in our world. We went to sleep that night, not as far away as we could possibly get in the bed, but holding hands and knowing it wouldn’t be an easy battle, but we could handle it and we would survive it and we would have our marriage whole again.

And like Lauren had said when we went for counseling with Bro. Terry that next day, he was amazed. Shoot! We were amazed. We both figured if we even made it there, Bro. Terry would probably just be playing referee. But we started the first step in our marriage counseling that day (all three of us thought it would be weeks down the road at best!), and never looked back. It was hard to get out of my own way, but I am forever grateful that I did. But I want y’all to understand about my forgiveness. It was all about being obedient to what God was telling me to do at that point. If it had been up to me, as a human or in the flesh, I don’t know if I ever could have gotten to the point to where I could have forgiven Lauren for everything that had happened especially in that time frame. But it came down to me being obedient to Him, and the only way that could have happened was through that true conversation between me and Him, with Him telling me that I was going to forgive Lauren, not because it was what I wanted to do but because it was what she needed.

I didn’t tell Lauren about my conversations/arguments with God initially, but I told her within the first couple days of ground zero. I wasn’t trying to keep it from her, it was just overwhelming what all was going on, and we were together so that’s what seemed important at the time. But I remember when I told her she burst into tears. You never know with a woman – I had no idea what I had just said wrong… happy tears? sad tears? mad tears? It took her a minute to help me out here! Turns out they were tears of awe. You see, she also hadn’t told me about her struggling with feeling like she should leave. Every time it would start feeling more and more hopeless to her, something big would happen. She was already struggling after a lot of the things that were said Sunday night, so Monday morning when I was crying and she reached out to comfort me and I jerked away from her touch, I had no idea how bad that broke her inside and pretty much made up her mind that I would rather her be gone. But God knew. And He told me she needed something from me before I left. And He knew she wouldn’t be there when I got back if I didn’t put my faith in what He was telling me to do. I am SO thankful I got out of my own way and listened!! And that gave her the hope she needed, that kept her there. But the rest of the morning wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pretty, and she took some big blows. And it seemed like every time it would start feeling a little more hopeless to her, she took a bigger blow, or whatever the case was. She was overwhelmed and felt like she was drowning and the only way to breathe was to get away from constantly being like we were being, so in her mind she had to leave. And God knew. So He commanded me to trust Him again and be faithful. And it was even harder than the first time. But I finally did.

From the very first moment, God has had His hand all over us. To look back and know that during those two times our story could be so drastically different had I not stepped out in faith and done something not for me but for God, and had Lauren not clung to what God sent her when I kissed her and told her I loved her that morning. Yes, God told me I was going to kiss her goodbye and tell her I loved her even though I didn’t think I was feeling any of that. Yes, God told me I was going to touch her and forgive her even though I thought she was undeserving. But the truth is, I’ve never stopped loving her, God just had to tear down my hurt and anger a little for me to be able to see that. And it’s the same for Lauren, she never stopped loving me, He had to push through her hurt and anger to see that we needed each other – together.

Matt

** We both have struggled throughout our journey on getting out of our own way in order for God to do His thing. It’s hard. But the deeper we have grown in our faith, the easier it has become. Typing all this while Matt is telling me, and reliving it again brings back so much. I’m sitting here thinking about how hard we fought God about everything at first, and it seems so obvious to me now. Our faith was so shallow, we trusted Matt and Lauren to know the right decisions for Matt and Lauren. Deeper faith calls for submitting to God. I’m SO thankful Matt submitted. I don’t know what our story would be today if he hadn’t.

We can make such a mess of things, but He makes all things good again if we allow Him. It’s easy to be ashamed of what happened. My BIGGEST struggle is still with guilt and shame. I feel like I’ve done so much in my life, and now this life event is what will define me forever. And then I heard “Scars” by I Am They, and realized I’m letting the wrong part of this story define me. So Jesus, let them see You in me.

In Christ, Lauren