Today's guest post comes from a reader who does not have a blog of her own, but has been looking for an opportunity to reach out to other people who are struggling: to share her experiences and the hope that has been born from her own tragedies...
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| Image credit: Photo by Pandiyan on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons |
I love who I am today but I hate what I’ve been through. However, I know I wouldn’t be who I am today unless I went through what I‘ve been through. When I reflect back on my life before April 2nd 2005 it all seems a blur. I can’t say there was any positivity about the direction I was headed or if I lived with any purpose. No one would expect that I would’ve been a teen mom, based on the fact I was the shy church going girl, nevertheless I was. At seventeen most of my peers were getting ready for prom but I was getting ready for a baby. My son was born August 9 2002.
I wish I would have known that God was going to only allow him to be here for two years. I would have worked less, took him to the park more, and kissed him extra. By the way April 2nd is the day my son died from a tragic drowning accident. Fifteen days later my second son was born. It was like God was giving a second chance, a reason to keep moving forward. During that time I searched for those who went through similar crises. I met this woman that had lost her daughter fifteen years prior. She seemed bitter, maybe mad at God, and just terribly sad. I wondered if that’s what I had to look forward to, if I would be that sad fifteen years later.
I made up my mind I didn’t want to live that way. At that point I began to realize that the hurt was always going to be great but if I trusted God, he would give me the strength I needed to sustain me. My husband and I wanted desperately to know how to use this pain for purpose. It was shortly after Demetrius’ death that we were impregnated with the vision of having a group home for foster boys in his honor. So now we feel that is our purpose, and live with that goal I mind. Losing someone close to me took me on a journey that opened my eyes to the world around me, gave me a true appreciation of life, and a deeper love for children.
Now recently I’m discovering some significant truths about myself. What sparked this journey is when my husband came to the realization he was a sex addict. Knowing his dysfunctional childhood history I wasn’t surprised that he had developed a distorted view on sex and relationships. I went in with the mind set that I would be willing to do my part to help him recover. However the more I knew the harder it was to stay in that mind set. My fear, anger, hurt doubt, and lack of control began to consume me into a downward spiral of deep depression.
I eventually fought through it and began to put things in perspective. Just when I felt things were okay I found out that my husband had been acting out again. I felt myself going into the behavior and state of mind that led me to depression. In search for some understanding I looked to the web and stumbled across A Room Of Mama’s Own. Here is where I was able to gain some acceptance about the addiction, my codependency, and the man I love not the addict. I’ve truly grasp that two halves of a person doesn’t make a whole it makes a mess. I’m now doing what I can to make myself a whole person, and support my husband on his journey to wholeness. I often wonder how this pain will turn into purpose; after all I know that there is hope at the other side of this.
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