Help her … You ARE her only hope!

My recently moved neighbor/friend dropped by today right in the middle of my messy cooking. We’d been busy all morning digging holes for planting trees and rose bushes and then planting them and then watering them, so everyone was hungry and I was cooking an early lunch … or brunch. When I finished, she and I went out to the back porch to talk.

That’s when all hell split open, and in my backyard unbelievable ugliness reared its horrific head. She told me that she’d discovered that her husband was having an affair … again (this is the third one in 25 years of marriage). And it’s been going on for almost three years!

How do you get over that? How do you recover? Where do you go from here? Tears spilled over and splashed on my cheeks. It’s never happened to me but it’s so horrible that what I see and hear breaks my heart.

I’m thinking, "Revenge! Or just simply kill him and put us both out of our misery. Oh that the ground would just open up and swallow me and deliver me from this agony!"

The problem is … there’s no getting away from the pain. Even if you could exact pain and retribution, you still have a crushed heart … the petals of your crushed heart leaving stains on the sidewalk … you still have ashes for dreams … you’re still broken and no one can fix that.

Or maybe there is only just One who can. But how do you let Him? How do you let go of the pain long enough to ask for help? How do you trust anyone after that? Even God … I mean the anger … the rage … … the hopelessness … the utter aloneness. Because even if you share with someone else what’s going on … when you leave them you’re still left with those raw infected emotions and the fever of pain burns through every pore of your body.

Oh dear sweet Jesus … please have mercy on my friend!

Like Jeremiah, I hear my friend saying things like, "Cursed be the day I was born! ... cursed be the man who brought my father the news ... May that man ...hear wailing in the morning and battle cry at noon. For he did not kill me in the womb ... Why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame?"

Jeremiah 20:14-18

Someone asked, “Where was God when this horrible thing happened?” and the reply given was, “The same place He was when His own precious Son was nailed to a tree.”

Please Lord Jesus, help my friend to know ... really know that, "You long to be gracious to her, that You rise to show her compassion. For You are a God of justice. And she will be blessed if she waits for You!" Isaiah 30:18

Dear God please have mercy on my friend. God give her courage to face this situation, give her strength to carry on. Surround her with the knowledge of Your love, comfort, and protection. Help her … You ARE her only hope!