Year in Review

            Flashback to January 2011:  My husband and I had gone to marriage counseling in the fall.  I had more hope than ever that his porn addiction was a thing of the past.  Business seemed to be picking up, as well.  Our marriage had a brighter outlook than ever before, and our business had a brighter outlook than ever before.  I expected 2011 to be our best year yet.

February:  My husband was arrested on February 9.  All my expectations for the future were gone, lost to an overwhelming uncertainty.  I grieved hard and had no idea how to move forward.  It wasn’t one day at a time; it was one task at a time. 

March:  My husband was in jail for his birthday and my own.  I hit several low points, including one that made me want a divorce.  I had to deal with selling the business assets and wrapping up other business affairs, which was incredibly stressful.  The future was still completely unknown, but I was beginning to stabilize.

April:  The absolute highlight of the year was my son’s birthday party.  Watching him dance up and down the aisles at Chuck E. Cheese and then stop to whisper in my ear, “I’m so happy,” are memories I will cherish forever.  I began counseling both with a counselor and with the Hidden Hurt group.  I began to have peace about the situation, even though my life was still in limbo.

May:  My husband began to change.  He lost his defensiveness and gained a new love for God.  I changed from wanting a divorce to wanting a separation, to see if these changes would last when he rejoined “the real world.”

June:  My husband was released from jail on June 10.  The rest of the month was pretty rough as we handled some tough conversations and dealt with fresh hurts.  My sister’s family flew in from out of town and we enjoyed some great visits.

July:  We had even more time with extended family.  I rejoiced in actually having a summer!  Working a part-time job instead of 45-60 hrs/week over the summer was heavenly.  We filed our bankruptcy in July, which was actually a lot less painful than I expected.

August:  Things got rocky in my marriage again.  I didn’t let go of hope, but uncertainty didn’t let go of me, either.

September:  My son started kindergarten and loved it!  My husband began proving that he could sustain his changed behavior over time, and I regained some of my hope for the future.

October:  My son was finally reunited with his dad!  To me, this was the biggest step forward so far.  We had a wonderful weekend at the coast with my parents and grandparents, and I realized I wanted a second chance to have a future with my husband.

November:  We began marriage counseling again.  The process of restarting a marriage is pretty tricky, and we definitely experienced ups and downs.

December:  Our separation ended six months after my husband’s release, when he was allowed to move home over weekends.  Just in time for Christmas, he moved home permanently.  My son is very excited to have his dad home again.  We are now trying to figure out a new pattern of life that incorporates the regulations that come with being a registered sex offender.  We are still working out how to live together again, and with healthy communication and boundaries this time.  We’re making lots of mistakes, but we are moving forward.

2011 is undoubtedly the hardest year I have ever lived through.  I have experienced more pain and loss and uncertainty this year than ever before in my life.  And yet I’ve also experienced more growth.  I feel freer, more alive, more at peace than I can remember feeling before.  I think I’ve learned more about myself and about God than ever before.  This has been the hardest year, for sure.  But am I crazy to say that, in some ways, it’s also been the best?

So what will 2012 hold?  Who knows?!  I’m pretty sure there will be pain.  Definitely some struggles.  Hopefully not too many more losses.  Hopefully a renewed relationship with my husband.  Definitely some laughs with my son.  Definitely some love to share with amazing friends and family members.  Hopefully a closer relationship with God who never ceases to surprise me.  And probably a few more blog entries.  J

Happy New Year!

Confession Part 2

                In my last post I discussed the need for confessing to other people as a way to deal with our guilt.  The concept came from Andy Stanley’s podcast series, It Came from Within, which encourages us to focus on our hearts as the source for everything we do.  I ended with the challenging statement that most of us don’t have a safe place to confess.

                Generally speaking, churches are not safe places for confession.  When a “good Christian” hears a confession, he recoils in disgust at such behavior.  He demands that the behavior change immediately.  He questions the “sinner’s” salvation, since you can’t be a Christian and do that. 

                Here’s how Nate Larkin puts it in his book Samson and the Pirate Monks:

You’ve probably seen that poor fellow who decided one day to be honest in a Christian meeting.  Maybe he’d been caught in a sin, so he really had nothing left to lose, or perhaps he was so plagued by guilt that he decided to take the church’s rhetoric about grace and forgiveness at face value and bare his soul in a desperate bid for freedom.

I remember a guy who did that.  As soon as the fateful words were uttered he looked around, hoping somebody would say, “Me, too,” but all he heard were crickets.  After a pause, a curious investigator launched into spiritual cross-examination.  Then a few concerned “ex-sinners” gathered around him and preached a series of sermons disguised as prayers.  Finally, a helpful brother prescribed three Scripture verses to be taken in the morning and at bedtime.  Later, the guy was assigned to a probation officer – excuse me, an “accountability partner” – who would check in on him for a few weeks to make sure he had actually turned around.

In all this religious activity, he heard this message loud and clear:  “You have lost status, boy.  For the foreseeable future, you can forget about being a leader in this group, or even a trusted member.  Maybe later, if you can demonstrate that you have been fully rehabilitated and if you promise never to speak that way again, we will consider reinstating your membership.”

To make matters worse, as he left the meeting that poor guy was struck by the realization that he had just volunteered to become the church’s new topic of conversation.  Suddenly he knew that telephone lines were already humming with the latest “prayer request.”  Next Sunday, his suspicions were confirmed.  The sidelong glances, the awkward silences, the careful distances kept by his former associates, their wives, and others, verified that his disclosure was now common currency in the congregation.

                This story makes me so sad.  Mostly because I know it’s true.  I can see myself in some of the church members represented.  Can you see yourself, too?

                Confession is tricky because it opens a huge can of worms called “Christians who still sin.”  How do we deal with that?  Which sins are acceptable to work on for a while, and which sins must be changed immediately?  Do we pray for the person, offer advice, demote him, carry on as usual, lecture him…???

                Samson and the Pirate Monks is the best book I have read so far that deals with this topic, even though you would have no clue from the title.  The first half of the book is Nate Larkin’s autobiography.  He was a pastor’s kid, and everyone considered him a saint.  But in reality, he just had a really good filter for a pretty ugly heart.  He became a pastor himself, but had enough sense to change careers after he hired his first prostitute.  He struggled with sexual sin throughout his kids’ entire childhoods, and he never told a soul.  He finally sought help from a sex addicts support group after his wife threatened to leave him.  The relationships he formed in that group transformed his heart and his life. 

                The second half of the book explains in some detail about the Samson Society, which he and several friends created at their church and which is now a nationwide fellowship.  According to samsonsociety.ning.com, “The Samson Society is a fellowship of Christian men who are serious about authenticity, community, humility & recovery - serious, not grave.  Samson guys are traveling companions on a great spiritual adventure, not grim pilgrims on a death march to personal holiness.”

                Basically, Larkin and his friends created a safe place for men to confess and journey together – honestly and authentically.  No guilt attached.  No demands for immediate change.  No lectures or demotions.  A place for men tired of carrying the weight of their guilt to finally hear other Christian men say, “Me, too.”

                I was very inspired by the book and would highly recommend it to anyone.  It is a very entertaining and engaging read; one of my favorite sentences is, “To make matters worse, I farted in church.”  Ha!

                So, to tie all these thoughts together, let me ask:  Can we change the culture of today’s churches?  Can we remember that the heart is what counts, not the behavior?  Can we agree to look past the repulsive behavior and look into the heart?  Can we acknowledge that someone brave enough to confess their ugly behavior has their heart pointed in the right direction?  When someone confesses, can the first words out of our mouths be, “I am so proud of you for having the courage to confess?”  Imagine the healing power those words could have on a heart that has long been burdened with guilt!

                If we condemn destructive behaviors upon hearing a confession, we are really encouraging the “sinner” – and everyone who is watching – to continue in secrecy and dishonesty.  This of course has the opposite effect of what we intended; instead of ceasing those behaviors, the “sinner” learns to hide them better, and he is even more trapped than before, his burden is even heavier than before, and his guilt grows faster and more terrible than before.  The same is true for every “sinner” who observed the first guy’s misery.

                If we want to be agents of change in this world, we must find a way to provide safe places for people to confess their porn addictions, prostitution habits, homosexual urges, petty crimes, not-so-petty crimes – anything that will destroy a person from within.  If we can acknowledge that confession is necessary, then let’s work at making it possible.  Maybe for your church that means a Samson Society.  Maybe it means an FMO group or other type of support group.  Maybe it means something completely different.  Whatever it is, let’s figure it out and make it happen.

                As a side note, I would just like to say once again how thankful I am for the people of my church and all my friends and family, who reacted with compassion and love to the disclosure of my husband’s sin.  Thank you for not lecturing or condemning.  Thank you for loving and supporting us through this journey.  I am so blessed to have you in my life.