At times it feels like this day will never end. Like this hour has stretched out into three or four. And then you look up and realize it’s a whole new week. Or month. Or year. (Cue the FRIENDS theme now ) And for the life of you, you can’t put your finger on how it managed to fly by SO quickly.
Life has changed so much since the last time I blogged, yet some things have remained ever so perfectly the same. We’ve had high and lows, laughter and crying, working and playing. We’ve experienced a pandemic, and everything that comes with it. The world all but stopped; we got a crazy amount of quality time with family, even if some of it, ok a lot of it, was spent wanting to strangle each other. There was a national shortage of toilet paper for crying out loud!
I remember the last few weeks of 2019 and how excited I was to leave it behind and start fresh in a whole new year. 2019 was hard for us. We started the year off in the hospital with Matt more seriously ill than I ever like thinking about, and honestly it seemed to set the tone for the rest of the year. Don’t get me wrong, there was more good in it than I ever thought possible – but man, it completely sucked a lot of the time. Or so we thought. Surprise! We found ourselves starting 2020 off in almost the exact same fashion – except this time it was Logan in the hospital. After a bout of appendicitis, surgery and a tough recovery, we finally got him healthy again. Just in time for the coronavirus pandemic to hit. In my wildest dreams I could never have imagined just what all the last 9-10 months would bring. Oh 2020, I was happy to see you come, but man was I ecstatic to see you leave!
But y’all – through it all… God!
As I’m writing this I keep singing in my head, Bethel Music & Jenn Johnson’s “Goodness of God”, “I love You, Lord For Your mercy never fails me All my days, I’ve been held in Your hands From the moment that I wake up Until I lay my head Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
And all my life You have been faithful And all my life You have been so, so good With every breath that I am able Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God
I love Your voice You have led me through the fire In the darkest night You are close like no other I’ve known You as a Father I’ve known You as a Friend And I have lived in the goodness of God”
Whew! That says it 1000x better than I ever could – gosh it’s powerful!
It’s so easy to get bogged down in this past year and how hard and difficult and straight up weird it all was. But every time the negative comes up, this song fills my head… Every. Single. Time. We didn’t just have a pandemic, complete with 2 months of quarantine. God slowed us down. He changed our perspective. Not only did I become a teacher overnight, I got to become a fisherman with Mae Harper. Restaurants and stores shut down, but I got to spend every day in the kitchen with our family in some form or fashion. And something I never thought I’d see, actually happened – the doors to our church building were closed. BUT I got to worship with my family in our living room; I got to stand and read His word with those I love most. And I got to fall on my knees in prayer to Him, at an altar of an ottoman in my living room (which almost seems laughable), with the biggest earthly blessings He’s given me.
He changed my perspective. He changed my expectations. He even changed my comfort level with so many things!
In the fall of 2018, God truly led Matt and me through the fire. It was by far the darkest night either of us had ever experienced, and we have without a doubt lived in the goodness of God. He’s our Comeback Story! As hard and painful as that period was for us, what came from those ashes is immeasurably worth it. Grace and mercy and redemption – that’s our story now. And I feel like God used 2020 and everything that came with it, to make us take a breath and appreciate what He has so graciously given us when we are so undeserving.
Several weeks ago I took a quiz (I know, I know…but trust me it’s not like finding out which fast food item you would be) from DaySpring to find out what my 2021 Word of the Year would be, and I have to say I wasn’t completely sold with my answer! Overcome At first I thought this couldn’t be legit because I’ve overcome so much the past few years, I really felt like I’m mostly past that and I’d be focused more on something like diving deeper into my faith or my walk with Him. And then I read the verse that came with it: “The Lord your God is the One who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you.” Deuteronomy 31:6 Ok Lord, You got me…. And my pride. I have overcome a lot the past few years (cue the violins). But ohhhh the things I’ve still got to overcome! For the past little bit, I’ve felt Him pushing me towards something I’m just not comfortable with – not one bit. So I’ve pushed back, and dug my heels in, and tried to ignore the tug I keep feeling from Him. And honestly, at this point in my life I should know better; His plan, not mine. Every time. If He’s leading me towards something, He promises to be right there with me through it all. Regardless of how big or small.
So here’s to OVERCOMING in 2021!
I let my writing take a back burner for too long. It’s time to change that and follow where He’s leading me. We’ve had some life changes that I can’t wait to tell you about (eeeekkk!!) , yet we’re also still gloriously predictable/boring/unexciting as ever. The Mangold’s are taking 2021 by the horns…. With a little caution, a lot of love and a whole lot of faith! Stay tuned!
“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.
2 Corinthians 4:15 (NIV)All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
It’s safe to say, we have started off 2019 with a bang! I’m SO happy to say though that Matt is doing so much better. He got the all clear from his infectious disease doctor a couple weeks ago, and then they removed his PICC line. That’s been such a morale booster in itself! He’s having to do at least one month of oral antibiotics just to be safe, but it seems like he’s finally kicked this awful infection! He’s getting his strength back and is enjoying not being tied down to an IV treatment three times a day.
So, Matt is on the mend and we’ve been looking forward to finally being able to enjoy our normal spring activities! MH is in full swing with t-ball, and she’s loving it! The whole group has improved SO much since last year, it’s finally not constantly herding cats – we’ve been playing baseball! Of all things, Matt was missing cutting grass the most while he was sick. He’s finally been able to cut our grass, and our house no longer looks like a jungle – praises! And we were finally set to go camping Easter weekend like we always do with my family. Life is good again!
And then I break my foot.
“You have got to be kidding me!”, was my first thought when it happened. We were getting the camper ready to move from deer camp to the lake on Good Friday, and a storm rolled in while we were getting everything ready and pushed part of the big, wrought iron gate shut at the entrance. So we get the camper hooked up and start pulling out, and I jump out to open the gate for Matt like I usually do. I went to give it a hard pull to get it moving, and I guess my foot was closer than I thought. I rolled the gate up on my foot, and that was it for me.
Matt can get his own gate next time!
Later that night while I was lying in bed, unable to go to sleep, I kept thinking “Why me?”. Of everything we have been through with Matt’s health, why this? With everything we survived in our marriage and our family, why this? Why can’t we catch a break? It’s been one hurdle after another it seemed like since last fall; weren’t we due for just a little bit of peace and quiet?? I was in MAJOR pity party mode, and questioning everything God had put on us so far. I kept circling around to “God, why me? After everything we have been through, why me?” But then I stopped with my worry over medical bills and my other anxiousness and I finally said, “God, why NOT me?” and I had this total peace come over me.
Y’all. To say 2019 has been hard would be an understatement. Actually, to say this last year has been hard would be an understatement.
But God.
We have been in valleys so deep that I didn’t think there was ever any way we would be able to climb back out. But God. We have fought battles where I was certain it would end in actual blood shed on either mine or Matt’s part. But God. God 1000% put more on us than we could handle – and we finally learned to turn it over to Him, and lean on Him in times of trial. You see, He started preparing us for Matt’s health issues long before they ever started. If I hadn’t learned to trust and lean on God when I was in those deep valleys then I never would have had the faith in God I had when Matt was at his worst in February. When Matt and I were fighting the worst battles of our marriage, and we were both certain it would end in bloodshed on our parts and we wouldn’t survive it – we both learned that those were the exact battles we had to fight on our knees before our Father, and sure enough that’s when things started to turn around for us.
So yeah, why not me! I decided to look at this with an attitude of gratitude instead of the pity party I had started having and everything began changing. I’ll admit, depression definitely set in for me after I got hurt, and it’s been pretty hard to shake that off. But all that is starting to change. God had blessed me beyond measure,and I had nothing to be laying around feeling sorry for myself about! My husband was lying next to me in our bed safe and sound and healthy, and I thank God daily for allowing us to get out of our own way and listen to Him calling us to be obedient rather than doing what we thought was right. Had we done what Matt and Lauren wanted to do back in September, then we would likely be another statistic today – just one more divorced family, miserably splitting time with our kids. Instead, we persevered and obeyed. And glory to God we are two stronger people because of it. Our marriage is stronger than ever. Our faith is stronger than ever. Our parenting is stronger than ever. Our love for each other is stronger than ever.
So bring on a broken foot, or osteomyletis, or whatever the world is gonna throw at us next. The Mangold’s are officially adopting an attitude of gratitude! We’ve taken trial after trial, stared each beast in the eye and won. So bring it! Ok, I don’t exactly mean that – we really would love just a tiny break, but whatever the next battle is for us we’re gonna come at it swinging too! I just hope we get a little bit of a breather in between this one and the next 🙂
At the end of the day though I just hope everything we’ve done and everything we’ve gone through has been for His glory. I hope that through it all we’ve exemplified God’s grace and mercy that has been shown to us. Here’s to a not mopey Lauren who’s going to do better about blogging now, and spend less time feeling sorry herself. Gosh there’s so much good in my life – there’s far less to even be upset about! Good things are in store for the Mangold family.. stay tuned!
” I, Lauren, take you, Matt, to be my wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, as long as we both shall live.”
What. A. Week. What a few weeks.
“God will never give you more than you can handle.” – FALSE. God will often give you more than you can handle! He WANTS us to lean on Him, to trust in Him, and to lean not on our own understanding. And it is only through Him that Matt and I have gotten through this past week. Well, through this past month.
I’m sitting at home writing this blog, watching my husband nap on and off. Two weeks in the hospital. Two weeks of my life that I worried without ending and prayed without ceasing. Two weeks that we didn’t get to be home with our children. Two weeks where Matt was so much sicker than we ever could have imagined. I’ve never been through anything so exhausting – mentally, physically and emotionally.
Yet, I am so thankful.
I feel like everything Matt and I have gone through over these last several months, has led us here. God has been preparing us emotionally and spiritually for months. Matt got so sick, so fast. And from such a simple injury! Life threw us a curve ball that we weren’t expecting, but if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the past few months it’s to just go with the flow. It’s been so hard these past few weeks to see my husband in so much pain, and to not be able to fix it. It was especially hard seeing him laid up in the hospital, and knowing there was nothing I could do to make it go away.
Except pray.
God is so good. I have prayed, and cried out to Him, and prayed some more. I know I wouldn’t have been able to hold up this long without Him walking every step with us. He has put so many people in place throughout this, it’s truly amazing to step back and watch Him work. We’ve formed lasting relationships with so many in the hospital since we’ve been here – it really is like a big, crazy family now!
I can’t help but think back over the past few months, and how God has been showing out in our lives. The day we said our vows to each other, and became husband and wife was one of the best days of my life. I feel like our wedding vows have really been put through the ringer the last several months. “For better or for worse” – check. “For richer or for poorer” – also check. And now, “in sickness and in health”. Standing with Matt through his sickness, and being able to serve him as his wife while he has been down – that’s been one of the greatest honors of my life. I remember joking with him after we had Mae Harper – I had a c-section and those of you that have had one know the recovery isn’t pretty. He had to do stuff for me that I would have rather never had to ask. But he did it so graciously, and lovingly; he went above and beyond taking care of me, and loving me through my recovery. And now I get to pay it forward with him. It’s been hard on him being so dependent on me, and not being able to do so much for himself. But we’re a team – we’re one person, and we’ll get through this together. God knew this was coming and has been preparing us for a while now.
Matt’s had so many praying for him and checking on him. I can never say thank you enough to everyone for that. Those of you that prayed with us, and visited and called. We couldn’t make it without y’all, and we are so thankful for everyone in our lives. I had to put the blog on hold, for longer than I preferred, to take care of Matt and make sure our kids were taken care of. But now we’re back home and getting back in the swing of things. Matt will be on IV antibiotics for another 6-8 weeks, so he’s still got a long road to go in his recovery.
We’ve both had a lot of time to think over the past few weeks. And if anything, I love and appreciate my husband even more now. I’m so thankful to God for giving us a second chance. I’m so grateful that I’ve been able to be with Matt through every step of his illness. We are incredibly blessed to have our family together during this. We’ve both said time and again, how different this could have gone if we hadn’t stepped back and been obedient to God like He was calling us to do. We’ve walked hand in hand with Him through such a trying time in our marriage, and we’ve come out stronger than ever. In our love for Him, and our love for each other. I can’t imagine doing life without Matt by my side. And now I don’t have to. God brought us through the affair and made us stronger, and now He’s bringing us through this injury and illness of Matt’s. And we’re only getting stronger. We both have had to dig deep and find strength we didn’t know we had. But God.
I came across two verses in a bible study while we were in the hospital, and have clung to them like the lifeline that they are.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Bro. Tim preached Sunday night on grace – “When grace goes deep.” God’s grace is unending, and if we only seek Him we will find it. And Bro. Terry made mention of it in one his sermons recently – “Grace is not grace unless it’s undeserved.” WOW. That’s something we all should think about. There is nothing about us that deserves God’s grace, yet he so freely shows it to us if we only seek and follow Him. And His grace is sufficient! Without grace, we would be lost and alone. Without grace, we would have no hope. And I for one am so thankful for His grace. It’s given me another chance with my husband, a way to keep our family together. Because of grace, God’s great grace, I get to experience restoration daily. And I will give Him praises all of my days for all of the grace He has shown me. And in turn, allowed me to show grace to others. Grace makes us strong.
We have so much to be thankful for. And as Matt grows stronger from being so sick, we also get the chance to grow stronger together. God is good all the time!
No place I’d rather beMy best girl! The only place I would let him wear his Hawaiian shirts, if we’re not in Hawaii.Busting out!
*So our goal with this is to try to tell part of our story at least once a week. And I’m already behind 😦 PLEASE FORGIVE ME!! Matt hurt his back several weeks ago, and he’s been on pretty much bed rest for about 3 weeks now. And then Mae Harper got sick this week. So there’s that. It’s been a longggggg week. Mae Harper is finally better, and Matt is getting there slowly but surely. *
Y’all. I am constantly humbled and in awe. Y’all continue to bless our hearts in ways you can’t even imagine. We were blessed from the beginning with a support system that truly carried us through our darkest days. But now, now we’ve started sharing our story and the love, support, and encouragement that we’ve been met with was more than either of us ever expected. I hope something we’ve had to say about our story through Him, has managed to touch y’all as much as y’all have blessed us.
So… Grace.
Grace flowed down on us in ways we couldn’t have ever began to imagine. Matt and I had just experienced one of the biggest hits our marriage could have ever taken. Don’t get me wrong, although there was no way we could see it at the time, we were still blessed. We were both still alive, we had both our kids, we even had each other. And while we weren’t exactly sure how to do it, we knew we were going to fight to get back what had. Or better yet, we were going to fight to make what we were even better. We both knew it was above us to survive this, much less thrive from it. While we were both Christians, and we both would have told you that when we got married Christ was at the center of our marriage – that’s a lie. We were too busy following the world to realize it was a lie of course, but here we were in the fight of our lives for our marriage. Could it have been avoided if we had been following God and seeking Him first in everything like we as Christians are called to do? I’d like to think so. I don’t believe God WANTS his children to sin, but I do believe He ALLOWS it. He created us in His image, but He gave us our free will. Above all, He wants us to chose Him. And we weren’t choosing Him and seeking Him in all that we were doing. We were choosing us – we were choosing the world. That led to a crack – in my heart, in my defenses, in what I knew was right.
And the enemy found his way in.
What we had done this far into our marriage hadn’t worked, it was time to get out of our own way and admit where we had gone wrong. We desperately needed God now more than ever. And through a LOT of praying, a LOT of counseling by our pastor and a LOT of work by two very imperfect people, we began to turn our marriage into the marriage God intended for us to have all along.
One of the very first things we learned early on in our marriage counseling was that men and women essentially need to be loved differently. Sure, this seems like a no brainer, but I’m willing to bet that if you are like we were then you probably have never been mindful of this. A man sees love through the respect he is shown by his wife. In turn, a woman is constantly watching and listening to her husband to be reaffirmed that HE loves her. This seemed so obvious to us when Bro. Terry was counseling us, and really didn’t seem like something we weren’t already doing. However, Biblically we were so far off track. Matt needed to know I respected and loved him through my actions and words, and the opposite was true for me, I needed to know he respected and loved me through his actions and words.
The Five Love Languages. If you haven’t read that book, trust me on this one… read it! That was our next obstacle. We knew we had to show each other how we truly did love one another, and we had to do it how Christ commanded. Bro. Terry told us it is human nature to show love to someone based on how you want to be loved, but it’s not always how they want to be loved so it’s not always received like we intended. So this book, The Five Love Languages, says that everyone can be categorized into a “love language”: 1) Acts of service, 2) Words of affirmation, 3) Physical touch, 4) Gifts and 5) Quality time. Matt and I have two totally different love languages. (Because having the same one would make things too easy 🙂 ) So since my love language is not the same as his, I’m far more likely to show him love based on how I like to be loved. But because it’s not how he likes to be loved, he doesn’t always receive the love I’m showing him. And vice versa. This was a big one for us. Or I know for me it was. We both had to start making a much bigger effort on being sensitive towards the others needs in communicating our love towards each other.
Marriage is designed to be like Christ and the Church. We shouldn’t have a selfish love, always expecting something from our spouse; rather we should have a selfless love. Love our spouse unconditionally, like Christ loves His Church. Agape love. We were thrown in the fire of practicing agape love head on. God had been faithful to us by showing us exactly what we had in our marriage and demanding forgiveness, so we were determined to honor Him by not only loving each other unconditionally, but also making sure we were loving Him like He loves us.
We failed daily. Sometimes it seemed like we even failed SO miserably. But we were finally learning from our mistakes, and not being the biggest hard heads around.
Bro. Terry had us both write down a list of traits that we wanted in our perfect spouse if we could hand pick everything. We then read our lists to each other, and realized we really did already have pretty much everything we needed in each other. BUT, he pointed out that there is no way we as humans can ever be something 100% of the time. But we must still love each other anyway. Agape. We traded lists so that we can always go over them and try to be the best wife/husband that we need from the other. This is something we still do to this day. It’s always good to make sure you are giving your spouse everything they need.
That simple thing changed so much. And that Terry Fant really is a smart man 🙂
Early on it seemed like the bad days out weighed the good. Forgiveness doesn’t equal forgetfulness – that became apparent. We also learned forgiveness is an ongoing practice, not just a one time deal between Matt and myself. There would be fighting, things eventually said out of anger that we shouldn’t have said, then more fighting. It was a vicious cycle we kept finding ourselves in. No matter how hard we tried to honor God continually with our healing, it seemed like we weren’t doing a very good job most days. Hopelessness would creep in. A darkness would settle over each of us. But then Matt pointed out one day – no matter how bad this day may seem, if we had total forgiveness less than 24 hours after “ground zero”, then we’ll get through this day together just fine too. And we would. We did. And every day we got a little bit stronger; as an individual and as a couple.
Grace. We got real good at practicing it! I’m sitting here thinking back on everything, and I realize how quickly it seems to have passed by, yet how it’s also seemed never ending. I guess it’s kinda like what they say about when you have kids, the days are long but the years are short. We never expected to snap our fingers and be past this, it’s just some days (the bad days) seemed like that would be our life forever, our new normal I guess. We owe it ALL to God that we are here today. And it is truly a God thing that we are where we are today. To be able to say that not only are we still married 5 months after the blow our marriage took, but to look at my husband by my side and know that my marriage is THRIVING in a way it never has before! Only God!
If you’re going through a rough spot in your marriage, hold on. Better yet, CRY OUT! Cry out to God! Let Him in to hold you and heal you. You can survive this; you can even thrive from this. Trust me on this one. But also trust me on this, you CAN’T do it alone. If you are just in a rough spot in life, hold on and cry out. Take it from me, the girl who can turn into the biggest “Daisy Downer” you can imagine, there is nothing God can’t handle for you if you’ll let Him. There is nothing you should be hopeless over. He may not give you the answer you want when you turn it over to Him, but He’ll give you the answer you need. Don’t take my word on it though. Get in your church, or find a church and try it. Find a pastor. Find a brother or sister in Christ. There are many out there who love you, and want to talk to you. Reach out to me or Matt. Turns out God gave us a pretty good instruction manual on marriage, on life in general. Once Matt and I started using it, loving each other became SO easy. Life became so easy.
Prayer has become such an integral part of who we are as a couple; there is not much better than hearing your spouse pray for you and with you. If you feel led, we would love your prayers still. We’re still a work in progress, and we appreciate all the prayers we can get. If we can pray for you, please let us know!
** 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.
grace/ɡrās/ noun: the free and unmerited favor of God, as manifested in the salvation of sinners and the bestowal of blessings.
If there is a theme to our story, this is it. Grace. Unending grace.
I’ve been arguing, or more accurately, trying my best to ignore God the past several weeks. ” It’s time Lauren.” Nope. ” You can think about how you want to do this, but it’s time for you to do it.” Still no. ” I told you it’s time, and I haven’t been wrong about anything yet.” Honestly, by this time it was a very HARD no for me, so I did whatever I had to to ignore Him speaking to me.
Y’all. Lemme tell ya – God threw EVERYTHING he had at me. Everywhere I turned, everything I saw, every sermon that was preached at church – it was on my heart to the point that I couldn’t sleep good at night. Lesson learned. If God leads you to do something, go with it the first time.
So here we are!
I guess I should probably clarify a little – it’s time for our testimony. I’m not a writer, I’m certainly not an authority on the Bible, BUT I have had God take something broken in a thousand pieces and make it whole again. And not just whole again, He’s made it 1000x better, and He’s done it all for His glory.
My whole world in one picture, and I thank God every day for saving my family!
Matt and I have been together about 7 1/2 years, and married for about 5 1/2. We were married in May 2013 and have two amazing kids, Logan(18) and Mae Harper(5). And in September 2018 our lives changed forever. We even refer to it as “ground zero” – we both knew that whatever happened in the next few days to come after that would define the rest of our lives.
I had an affair, and it all came spilling out one Sunday in September.
I’ve stared at this screen for I can’t tell you how long just now trying to type that. Not that it’s fresh news, or just happened. There’s no easy, or good way to put it. There’s nothing about it that doesn’t still make me cry when I think about all the hurt it’s caused. It takes my breath away and my throat closes up a little thinking back over the past few months. Ugly honest. Our pastor has put that term in my head, and that’s it, ugly honest. I was unfaithful to my husband. The devil found a crack, made his way in, and he took a mile. But the ugly honest isn’t what Matt and I try to focus on, rather we try to focus on the now. We focus on grace. Don’t get me wrong, some days it feels like we are in the deepest valley of our lives and it seems like we will never get out, and we can’t help but focus on the ugly honest. But God.
Let me share a little of our story…
Like I said, it all came crashing down one Sunday in September. I think we can both agree it was the single worst day of our lives. I’m not here to get into the details of all the affair, I’m here for what happened after. We knew this wasn’t something we could make it through the night without having some counsel over. Matt told me that Bro. Terry Fant said he could come meet with us, we weren’t members of his church but Matt had met him through a specials needs hunt earlier in the year through the church and felt comfortable meeting with him, so I told him that was fine we just needed someone to get here and get here quickly. We owe all the glory to God for saving our marriage, but Bro. Terry was His angel on earth that night for us. A man that didn’t know us, had no reason in the world to drive 20 minutes to our house after preaching FOUR times that day, but he did because there were two people hurting. There were two people in desperate need of hearing that God was with them and loved them and that it could be OK. There were two people that needed to see that there was someone that believed in them and would help them fight. And through Bro. Terry, those two people saw hope and God, and knew that it would be the hardest battle they’ve ever fought, but it would be the most rewarding victory they’ve ever won. Bro. Terry from that night on has meant more to us than he will probably ever know. He stayed with us, and talked to us for hours. It was well past midnight when he left. So much is a blur from that night, but he told us if you can just try to sleep in the same bed, don’t let the devil come between you any more than he already has. We’re going to fight this together. He prayed over us and told us that he would see us Tuesday.
It wasn’t easy, but we slept in the same bed that night. So much hurt had happened that day, and so many strong emotions were going on within Matt and myself, but we both just tried to focus on the things that Bro. Terry left us with. We woke up the next morning, and I for one felt the most dejected I think I have ever been in my life. I remember thinking there is no way we can get through it, as much as I want my family and my husband, I don’t see how we can come out together from this. I kept replaying things in my head that we had said to each other the day before, and remembering how he had looked at me. I prayed to God for a sign that we were going to be OK, but it was like I knew already that there was just no way. Matt had to take Logan to school, so maybe I should just pack mine and Mae Harper’s stuff then and leave while he was gone. A little bit later Matt’s alarm went off and he woke up. He sat up on the side of the bed and I heard him crying. Immediately, I wanted to comfort him; I reached over and put my hand on his back, and as soon as I touched him he recoiled from my touch. I may as well have been slapped; never has anything hurt so bad. Knowing that my touch made him physically pull away from me broke something so deep within me. I rolled over crying, and told myself that was what I needed – I’ll pack our stuff while he’s gone and not be here when he gets back. This won’t work, I don’t care what Bro. Terry said last night, too much has been broken. But on his way out the door with Logan that morning, Matt turned around and came and kissed me on the forehead like he has everyday for the past 5 years and told me he loved me. God was faithful. God gave me that sign. Matt had no idea what had been going through my head, but that stopped it. If that man could kiss me and tell me he loved me after everything he just learned, then I was going to be here when he got back.
He got back and we sat in the living room talking and crying and yelling for hours. He’d walk outside to get a break for a little bit, or to just give me a few minutes to myself, and then we’d start all over. Ugly honest. Then the next thing I know, one of the times he had walked out of the living room, I was doubled over crying thinking maybe I should still just pack my stuff and go, this is just getting worse on both of us, he came back, got on his knees in front of me and took me in his arms and told me to look at him. I was thinking sweet mercy this is it, he’s done, he’s really done this time.. he literally cannot take anymore, and I don’t blame him. He said, “I forgive you. I’ve been wrestling with God all morning about this, but he’s telling me that I’m going to forgive you. And I do – I forgive you. I love you, and I forgive you.”
Y’all. I still can’t even. I’m crying typing it. I can’t talk about it without crying. Grace y’all, grace! We held each other and cried and cried and cried some more. That was the first time I think I for one can say that I finally let the Holy Spirit in and felt Him move in ways that I can’t even explain. Was it easy that day? No. Has it been easy since then? Heavens no! But Matt obeyed, and he forgave me. And without him being faithful and listening, we wouldn’t be here today. Forgiveness doesn’t mean its been a downhill ride, not by a long shot. This has been the hardest thing either one of us has ever done. It took a while for the good days to out number the bad days, and there are still bad days. But God is faithful, and He is good, and He started working in two very broken people building back the marriage He had intended for us all along.
We walked in Bro. Terry’s office the Tuesday after it all happened, hand in hand. Bro. Terry laughed and shook his head, he said, “I don’t know what happened and I can’t wait to hear, but let’s pray.” And we glorified God, we glorified Him for getting us to where we were that day and we praised Him for seeing us this far through the storm and thanked Him for His persistence and His faithfulness, and He is good y’all. We walked through Bro. Terry’s door on Tuesday; we walked through the doors of Hickory Ridge Baptist Church on Sunday; and our walk with Christ hasn’t been the same since. We had always considered ourselves Christians. We were members of a church, and we were involved when it was convenient for us. If I can tell you one thing, find a church and get involved. From the day we stepped foot through the doors at HRBC, we have been loved, accepted and treated like family. Whether they know it or not, they helped save us.
God has pounded this on my heart. There have been many days that it’s felt hopeless for us. And then out of the strangest places, God sends exactly what we need. Our lives have changed SO much from this. They’ve changed for the better, even though some changes have been tough to swallow. We’ve lost friendships and relationships; we’ve learned how to safeguard our marriage; we’ve seen how our lives weren’t examples of Christ that we want to live out for our kids. There have been several times in counseling with Bro. Terry that he’s said offhanded, “Y’all just wait till you see how God uses your story!” There’s so much more to our story – this is just the beginning. We want to share it with you though. We want you to know that there is hope, no matter how dark it may seem or how broken you may think it is. Our story is one of redemption, and mercy, and GRACE! It’s of forgiveness and blessedness. But what we really want you to know that our story is one of HOPE. Without God we wouldn’t be here. Without God, I couldn’t write this. If you’re a couple that’s going through the same struggle, hold on – it’s going to get better, I promise. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s going to be worth it. If you’re in a marriage or a relationship, then please don’t make the same mistakes I did, and we did, use our hard learned lessons to safeguard your marriage now.
Our theme in church this year is DEEPER. So here I go… I’m going deeper in our journey to where we are now. I’m going deeper in our testimony. We don’t have all the answers; I don’t know if we even have any answers. But we’re going to go DEEPER and tell our story. This isn’t about us, this is all for His glory. This certainly isn’t your typical fairy tale – it’s SO much better, I’ll take a story that God has written over a fairy tale any day! This isn’t a journey either one of us ever thought we would take, and we certainly never want to go down this road again, but we both wholeheartedly agree that we wouldn’t trade the relationship we have now for anything. If I can say one thing, it’s how much I love this man. No matter what’s happened today, I know without a doubt when I lay my head down at night, I have never been happier and I have never loved anyone as much as I love this guy right here. We started our marriage with just us, now there’s three of us, a marriage CANNOT make it without Christ in the center; and our love has NEVER been stronger since our walk with Christ is where its supposed to be.
But one more thing, I’d like to ask you to pray for us. This isn’t just our story, it’s His story – pray that what God has put on my heart I can do justice in writing and that it will glorify Him. Pray for our family as we continue through our healing. Pray with me for anybody else that is going through this as well. Praying is one of the things Matt and I started doing together, and let me tell you – there is something so powerful in praying for your spouse and with your spouse!
So stay tuned, there’s so much more to come!
THIS IS AMAZING GRACE!!
In Christ, Lauren
“For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15
a heart of grace 