It's been a while.......

Since I really spoke my mind here about my life and my marriage. We've been busy here.

Happy and busy.

I was thinking today though, about our separation. Someone brought it up and some of the more uncomfortable details were rehashed, only briefly, and I revisited some emotions I hadn't felt in a while.

Anger

Sadness

But mostly shame.

I feel ashamed that my marriage is so scarred in the eyes of others.

We're "that" couple. The couple that separated. The couple that almost got divorced.

My husband is the husband that left.

I'm the wife that was left.

Even though we've reconciled, sought and received wonderful Christian marriage counseling, and are doing so well in our rebuilding, it occurs to me every now and then that the world, our immediate little world might still see us broken.

Worse still, maybe they don't believe that there's any such thing as getting over what we have definitely gotten over. Maybe they think we're still broken. Maybe they're just waiting for it to all come crashing down again.

And I feel ashamed. I don't want my life and my marriage to be viewed that way. I have a good and loving marriage that overcame a huge obstacle. We hit a rough spot and came through it in tact, not broken, because if we were ever really broken would we be standing here together today? No, we'd be broken.

So, I was thinking about how God fits into all of this. Of course I believe that it was by the will and grace of God that Elvis and I managed to pull together when things were falling apart and that we healed what was dying in our marriage. God truly was that third strand in our rope, making us unbreakable. And he's using the ugly emotions, the anger, the sadness, the fear, and the shame, for good. He's making it speak to the power of His mercy and his grace and his love. He is so great that he can take the ugliest parts of our life and make it useful and good. He took our marriage issues, our separation, our fears and also our trust, our faith and our courage and gave us a new start, as well as a testimony. We can now testify that even the nastiest and ugliest marital issues can be overcome, and that God is ever present for love and support during your hard times.

God grows flowers from dirt.

I'm so thankful that God has taken such an interest in me and my marriage.

I'm so grateful that He gave us a wonderful church and caring Christian friends.

I'm so thankful for the Christian blogs he's led me to online when I'm searching for like minded women.

God has been taking such good care of me, even when my life has gotten ugly and hard, He's been there walking me through it, and it's been a while since I acknowledged how He is working in my life.

He is.

Katie