Five years ago...

I want to share something with you that is terrible that happened five years ago. I will apologize in advance for the rambling because my thoughts are all over the place. :-)

Five years ago, I made a horrible decision, a tragic mistake. I allowed anything other than God to lead my life and listened to the lies of the enemy.

I had an affair on my husband of almost 6 years (at that time). There, I said it! I can't honestly tell you WHY I did it. I allowed my sinful emotions to rule me. I felt old, I felt ugly. I believed the lie that satan told that committing this sin would make me feel young and pretty. My husband wasn't abusive, he didn't treat me bad. He was (and is) actually a great husband. I won't say that we had a perfect marriage. But, hey - who does? :-)
Five years later, I can honestly say that doing what I did makes me feel very ugly - even five years later.

With God, Darrin and I are still married five years later and honestly our relationship is better than it ever has been! I will not take one piece of credit for that. Everything that has transpired to make our relationship a success is due to God, prayer and my wonderful husband.

When I did this awful thing, I felt so guilty. I felt awful. I remember when I 'told' Darrin. We were arguing about something, I can't remember what. I said to him "what if I did have an affair". I can't remember what he said but he went out to mow the lawn. He wasn't out there long and he came back in and said to me "have you". I said "yes". I don't remember the exact conversation from there. It went from bad to worse, I am sure. I cried, he cried. He didn't understand, naturally. I didn't even understand why. But, the one thing I can remember for certain is that Darrin never raised his fist to me, he didn't yell at me, he didn't tell me he wanted a divorce when he had every right to do so. I broke our marriage vows. I committed the worst sin that I could find against my husband and more importantly against God. I am so blessed and so thankful that Darrin sought God through this. Thank God that we were involved in a church and a small group. Our small group was awesome. They rallied around us. They cried with us. They prayed for us.

Our pastor was doing a series on sexual sins at this time and one night at church the sermon broke me. I went to the front and fell on my knees and cried out to God. I shared my 'secret' with our small group pastor. He was point blank honest with me. He told me what I was doing was wrong and I had to stop, immediately! I was sick at work. I couldn't eat. I lost 15lbs from the stress, the diarrhea. I cried all the time. My best friend at work knew something was wrong and she asked me if I was seeing someone else. I told her yes. She told me point blank that what I was doing was wrong and I needed to stop, immediately. I know that God put these people in my life to be honest with me. I needed someone to tell me that I was sinning against my husband and most importantly against God. I needed people who loved God to see what I was doing and to tell me to stop! If you are doing this...if you are thinking of this. When someone who loves you tells you to stop - listen to them. They love you and want to help you.

Also, during this time I had a friend who said to me "maybe God put this guy in your life because you are supposed to be together". What?!?!? I knew that God did NOT do this. Know this. God does not tempt us. God does not put sin in our path for us to fall into. What God will do is this. He will provide a way for us to get out of that temptation. IF we will only listen to Him and follow.

Here we are, five years later. My marriage is wonderful. God blesses me more than I could ever ask for or deserve. The repercussions of my affair are over, right? Not by a long shot. I have often heard that the consequences of sin are in the sin itself. It didn't make sense to me. Now it does. I (and Darrin) are still faced with the consequences of my sin five years later. He still wants to know why. I think of what I did on a daily basis. No kidding, daily. I remember what I did on a daily basis. I remember the torture and the hurt on my sweet husbands face and I know that I did that to him. Me. My bad decision. My mistake. My choice. Mine. I have to live with that hurt that I inflicted on him.

I asked my husband if he would mind if I would blog about this. I can imagine what he was thinking "why" would she want to do that. The only reason is because I felt like I should. I pray that someone who is thinking of doing this will come across this and maybe re-think their decision. If that is you...email me, get in touch with your pastor, a Godly friend. Ask for help, advice. Seek Godly counsel. One piece of advice I will give you is...don't take advice from your lost friends. They may be great friends but a lot of times they won't lead you in the direction that God wants you to go in.

I pray that someone reading this who is thinking about or in the middle of having an affair will read my story and question the lies that they have been told by the enemy. Please feel free to email me at bookworm614@bellsouth.net if you would like.