Healing

September 22, 2018 was my and my wife's 17th anniversary.  The next day was a Sunday, and I went to church where the preacher taught how husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the church.  I had heard the message many times, but I tried to pay attention anyway.  Almost as an aside, he said that we should each draw a circle around ourselves and work on everybody inside the circle.  At that moment, I felt God lean over and whisper, "everything and everyone outside your circle are your circumstances."

Suddenly, everything and everyone outside my own skin had a new name.  Circumstances.  I have worked for many years to deal with my circumstances with serenity, wisdom and strength, taking life as it comes and accepting the bad and good from God's hand.  But some things and people I did not see that way, such as my kids and especially my wife.  I had always considered them to be in my "circle", a part of me, so to speak.  In a moment, I found myself on the other side of a solid line from her feelings ... especially the anger that had always terrified me.  To be fair, everyone's anger terrified me, as did the possibility of anger or judgment.  That fear was a constant in my life, and I had come to accept it as part of who I am.

After the sermon, I sought out the pastor and shook his hand, thanking him for the timely illustration, and explaining how God had revealed that truth to me at a new level.  He was surprised, but gratified.

Over the following week, I began to realize that this revelation was pivotal and had greater ramifications than I had imagined.  Sunday night, my wife and I had a fight, and instead of shutting down as I was wont to do, I lashed back at her in anger.  I said some mean things and hurt her feelings -- at the time, that was my goal.  The next day, I cooled off and decided I should apologize for my actions and try to make amends.  I bought a "fall" bouquet from a florist and brought it to her. I knew she might well reject it, but she accepted the flowers and the apology.

I realized over the next few weeks that I was feeling a range of normal emotions, including disappointment, irritation, joy, gladness, and frustration, but one thing was missing:  constant and crippling anxiety, especially regarding my wife's emotions.  This anxiety and fear carried in its wake deep frustration and bitterness, against which I had struggled for many years.  But now I felt ... calm.  She is outside the circle, along with all the negative emotions and judgments (real or perceived).  I don't have to let them in when they knock because ... I finally know that they don't live here.  In fact, my circle has become my safe space:  I can let the good in and reject entrance to the harmful.  I feel like a man who grew a new skin after living without skin for many years, fearing the pain of unprotected nerves brushing against another.

At the moment God spoke to me, it was as if the anxiety, fear, and insecurity that had been log-jammed in my heart were suddenly broken up and flowed away, as He tapped just the right log at just the right place.  I have cried out to God, "Lord thank you!  But why did you wait so long to heal me?"  He has not answered, but I know He has His reasons, and I am just thankful that I am healed.

And now a confession: if, before my healing, you had asked me to describe my wife in a word, I would have said "unstable."  However, in the weeks since my healing we have had disagreements and other incidents that would have "set her off", but they did not.  I have come to the painful realization that I had a massive blind spot in my treatment of my wife: I was a major destabilizing factor for her (I do not understand this yet).  She has noticed a significant difference in my behavior, and she feels safer around me, more able to confide in me than she was before.

I grieve for the years stacked upon years wrecked by my dysfunction.  I sorrow for the people I have thus hurt, including an ex-wife who finally couldn't stand me and a second wife who held on anyway.  I do not like that man I was, which is one thing he and I have in common.  Now I praise God that "I am no longer a slave to fear; I am a child of God." (as sung by Jonathan and Melissa Hesler), and I pray fervently that He never allow me to go back.

But though I may grieve the past, my hope for the future is incomparably brighter than before.  In fact, I have received the answer to my tearful cry, "God, where is my joy?"  I HAVE FOUND IT.