wounds, scabs and scars

“Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” ~ Psalms 103:2-4

When I started this blog I vowed to have total transparency about our journey and our life, and good, bad or ugly that’s what I’m going to do. So, fair warning…

Ugly honest post right here.

I wouldn’t trade where I’m at in life for anything. Matt and mine’s relationship has never been stronger, I have never loved him more in all of my life. I’m a better mother to my kids after all of this. And none of those relationships would be possible without the One who saved it all. I’ve grown so much in my walk with Christ, and for that I’m immeasurably thankful. My faith has grown deeper than I ever thought it would go, and has sustained me through both dark days and light. Some may disagree, but I am so thankful for the Lauren I’ve changed into, the Lauren I am now – after ground zero. I’ve had many relationships change since then, some have grown stronger and some weren’t at all what I thought they were, and that’s okay too – it was a hard situation for everybody involved. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right! (they say it does, I say the verdict is still out sometimes) But it’s all made me who I am today – the good, bad and ugly.

And while Matt and I have come SO far in the healing of our marriage, it isn’t all good days all the time. It’s good days far more often the bad days now for sure, but the bad days are still there. And we still hurt on those days like we did early on. So often on social media we as a society only paint a picture of the “best parts of our lives”. That was especially obvious to me with Easter and Mother’s Day so recent. I couldn’t help but think how many pictures we took to get that one decent picture that I would want to post to Facebook, to say “look how absolutely beautiful my family is and how proud I am of them”. And I am proud! But the thing is, I’m proud of them in the 27 not Facebook worthy pictures too, yet we don’t show that side. I don’t want to do that here either. Our life is good, but it’s still hard sometimes. I don’t want anyone reading this that is going through the same thing to think that they are failing because they still struggle with something – we struggle too!

Let me get ugly honest with you for a minute.

There were some deep wounds created by my betrayal. Matt and I have gone through months of counseling, we’ve joined a church that has loved on us from the minute we’ve walked through the doors and has accepted us without an ounce of judgement, we’ve gotten in the Word and developed a prayer life that we’re intentional about. Our marriage is completely centered around Christ, and not Lauren and Matt, like it should have been from the day we got married. We haven’t just slapped a Band-Aid on our wounds and waited for them to heal over the best they can, we have worked endlessly to heal the only way that would ever work. And He has sustained us. Still, it’s true that time heals all wounds. And ours aren’t completely healed.

Because some days it hits like a ton of bricks – and the wounds don’t feel healed at all. It feels like what we thought are scars now, were really just scabbed over and they just got ripped wide open again. The pain is real and it is deep. It rarely brings a fight anymore, usually just long talks. It ALWAYS brings tears and fresh agony. It changes the atmosphere between us for a while to one we both hate. And it always brings several realizations rushing back to the surface, for me especially: no matter what we do, or how we heal, this will always be a part of us now. I’ve apologized, and begged for forgiveness thousands of times to Matt and God, but it’ll never feel like enough to me. This is something I’ve struggled with from the beginning, I can’t let it go and forgive myself. I have prayed and sought counsel and prayed tons more, and tried to turn it all over to Him. But I can’t. Matt’s forgiven me, God has forgiven me, but I can’t even begin to forgive myself. At all. This horrible thing I did has changed the landscape of my marriage forever, and that’s something we’ll have to live with the rest of our lives. And that is almost more than I can bear sometimes. I can work up a good panic attack now like no body’s business – ha! I can’t help but wonder if Matt would be happier without me, and not have to deal with this all the time and constantly have reminders. I can’t think about our future and see us being normal again. I think about what every day must be like for Matt, and what he has to go through. I think about how “sorry” can never be enough, that there will never be words adequate enough to tell Matt how much I wish I could go back and how sorry I truly am. I think about everything that has changed in our life, I think about relationships I’ve lost and I wish I could just have a little bit of something that was familiar to me. And I can’t breathe from all the thoughts.

But then I catch my breath. Yes, it would probably be easier on Matt if he had left in September. But he was obedient in what God was telling him, and he stayed. We both listened when we didn’t want to, and we fought. We’ve fought hard – for each other, for our kids, for our future. Matt chose to stay and love me, good days and bad days, for better or worse. I still pray daily about turning over my guilt to God and being able to forgive myself. That is still my constant struggle. I know that so much will change once I learn to forgive myself and move forward, I just haven’t gotten there. And while I can’t always imagine the future of our family, I don’t worry. I trust in Him – He didn’t bring us this far without a plan, and me worrying about it is not putting my faith in Him. His timing is perfect. My life today is different from my life a year ago. I would be lying if I said that my heart didn’t hurt sometimes for things that have changed, but my life now is exactly where I want it to be. God has sent me the most amazing people that I couldn’t live without, and we are slowly making our new normal.

I desperately want these wounds to be scars. To be able to say we fought this horrific battle and won. But I’m slowly learning that it’s ok that they’re not yet, that we’re still healing and will be healing for some time to come. God’s grace and mercy continue to work in us and through us. We’re going to have bad days still, and they’re going to be as awful and painful as you can imagine. But they’re also getting fewer and farther in between each one. And they don’t break us; it may knock us down, but we get back up. And that’s ok too. Scabs come off wounds while they’re healing sometimes, and it’s ok. Ugly honest. We’re healing, our marriage is healing, but it’s not rainbows and sunshine everyday – far from it. We just celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary and I think it meant more to both of us than probably the day we got married even. It was certainly a date I wasn’t sure we would be celebrating several months ago. I am so thankful to be married to Matt, and that God chose him for me.

If you’re going through something in your marriage, it’s ok to have bad days. It doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re not Facebook perfect. Don’t give up. Some days are hard – really, really hard – but it’s going to be worth it. I would choose this a thousand times over to have the marriage I have today, to love Matt like I love him now – like God had always intended us to love each other. Scars will come in time, and until then we will turn to Him when things get hard and love each other through it.

In Christ, Lauren