I hadn’t planned to write this today. Didn’t want to write this today. Didn’t want to dive into these feelings.
About three days ago, I found out that my husband had been unfaithful to me.
At first, I was in shock. My brain could not, no it REFUSED to accept the information. I simply did not believe it. At first I thought he was just saying it to hurt me, because he seems to enjoy doing that lately. He could tell I did not believe him. We’ve been separated for some time, but have been working towards reconciling, so I am not currently living there. When he saw that I didn’t believe him, when he saw that I was not crumpled on the ground, he went into the house and got a piece of clothing that had been left by the woman. I had to face the truth, but even then, my brain just would not compute.
Knowing that he could have called me, and simply expressed that he needed me to be a wife to him and I would have RUSHED right over to fill that need, he DELIBERATELY went to a bar, DELIBERATELY got drunk, and DELIBERATELY brought a strange woman into our bed. Then he didn’t just confess it, he threw it in my face (in front of one of his buddies) with absolute relish and fury. And all I could do was say, “Don’t you love me anymore?” I know he does. He did. Thirty days ago, he was confessing his adoration and love for me, apologizing for past hurts, and declaring, giving his WORD that he would allow nothing to come between us again. Just 30-40 days ago. So, as you can imagine, I was not just a little shocked, I was floored.
You know what happened next. I had an hour drive back to my place. I could not drive over 45 mph, so it took even longer. Once home, I began to let the information sink it. The images of the love of my life, naked, with some strange woman, in the bed that I had shared with him – in that bed where he had declared his love for me so often – fractured my mind and heart. Wave after wave of grief. I had emotional vertigo. I felt like I would throw up. I’d go numb for a few minutes, then it would start all over again. Then the anger flared. How could he have done this to me. What about all his promises? What about him giving me HIS WORD. I felt abandoned, rejected, and soooo disappointed.
Has someone YOU loved been unfaithful to you? Stop and revisit those feelings for just a moment…
In the Bible, God refers to our relationship with him, especially with Jesus, as a Bride and a Bridegroom. He uses marriage as an illustration throughout His Word. Beulah Land, the song our grandparents used to sing, is referring to a “Marriage” Land. When the word says that Jesus did not scorn the shame of the cross, for the “joy” set before him, I think it was that he, the groom, knew that when he got through this suffering, he had the JOY of meeting his bride (us) to look forward to. How many movies have we seen where the hero goes through incredible odds for his love, or even sacrifices his very life for her. It was never a question to Him if we were worth it or not!
So when we put anything other than God first in our lives, he is jealous for us. Over and over in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, the Lord equates idol worship with a wife’s unfaithfulness. I thought I knew what he felt. I thought I understood. But until my husband hit me with his statement of his own unfaithfulness, I had a new appreciation for how God feels when we are unfaithful to him. I hope you will pause here, and let that sink in. Especially if you yourself have experienced this in your own life.
God doesn’t just love us as apart of an adoring crowd. He doesn’t see us just as “fans”. He loves us intimately as a groom loves his new bride. Do you remember what it’s like to be in love like that? Have you forgotten? Our love as humans waxes and wanes, but God is not a man. He is faithful and true regardless of how we choose to be.
So, where do we go from here?
Today, and yesterday, I have found myself repenting to the Lord for causing him the kind of pain that I have now feeling with my own husband’s infidelity. Especially when I have tried SO HARD to love him and love him well. Even as I type that, I am reminded of all the times I have read in the Bible with the Lord saying he had been so good to Israel (us) and that had lain naked in open fields and prostituted themselves with other gods. How soon we forget His Faithfulness.
Even when I met my husband, I made him an idol ahead of my God. I had been a single mother for ten years. The last time I had been intimate with a man, had been with my former husband, TEN YEARS PREVIOUS! Then this handsome, charming man fell madly in love with me, and I him. I got so swept up in his adoration (due to my own dysfunction and neediness) that I asked my Lord Jesus to please step down from the throne in my heart, and I replaced Him with my husband. Now I could have kept them both obviously, and still had Jesus on the throne and my husband and I probably be in a much different place right now. Either he would have recognized that Jesus was first and been drawn more to Him himself, or he would have chosen to leave the relationship. Either way, I would have been better off.
Now, I try to admit this pretty often when I write anything and put it out there for public view. I don’t know much at all. I don’t have a bunch of answers for you. I don’t know what tomorrow is gonna look like. I have no plan to wrap this all up and make it all better. ALL I KNOW is WHO I need to turn to. Thankfully, we are under a new covenant, and all the Father’s jealous wrath was exhausted at the cross. If we repent of our own unfaithfulness and ask His forgiveness, it is a done deal, and He doesn’t treat us like a jilted husband would. He welcomes us back with open arms and the relationship is as if the infidelity never occurred. Now that’s restoration.
I could go on, but I think I’ve said enough. I did not want to go here today, but He impressed it upon me that I needed to write this while my own pain was still fresh and raw and pulsating like a fresh wound. If you’ve asked the Lord Jesus to step down from the throne of your heart, won’t you give Him His rightful place again?
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