This is such a difficult experience for me to share but I honestly cannot think of a better example of the Healing Power of the Lord and I hope that each you can see how powerful the Lord truly is in our lives.
As many of you know Tommy and I have hit a very difficult path in our marriage… The end of March Tommy and I had started fighting about his relationship with a co-worker and within a week he had decided to move out. He moved in with this woman and in all since of the word “gave up” on life. He began having an affair with her and started neglecting his family. Once he made this decision things moved very quickly on my end. I filed for divorce immediately. Things continued to escalate between us in a negative way. The first of June Tommy started telling me he wanted to fix our marriage and how truly sorry he was…. As you can imagine I was beyond angry. He had gotten his own place and had started taking the steps of repentance. I say steps because meeting with the Bishop is one small step, to truly repent of something you must transform and take action to ensure those mistakes do not happen again. In the beginning I did not care what he said I was set on going through with the divorce and moving on with my life…. But throughout the month my heart started to soften and I began to realize how important my eternal family was.
I can truly testify of the healing power of the Savior from my experience. I don’t think I ever truly understood the Atonement until I was put in this situation. I am a very stubborn person who has the attitude that I can do everything on my own…. Also extremely prideful so for me to try and forgive Tommy in my mind was I sign of weakness. Through the Power of the Atonement my heart has softened more than words can express. At the first of June I literally could have cared less if I ever talked to Tommy again in my life but now I am fighting to save my eternal family. Only the Atonement and the Lord could make such a drastic change in someone’s heart. I have never been alone in this trial in life and I know the Lord has watched over me and my children and given me the strength to endure this trial.
I want to include this in here as almost a warning to others…. Nurture your Marriage. Tommy is without a doubt my best friend and the person I chose to spend eternity with but we became selfish in our marriage. Tommy became very self focused and we both lost focus as to what truly mattered in life. We did not do family prayer, scripture study, family home evening, we never truly understood how to make our family grow in the correct direction. We also did not nurture our marriage—Tommy and I rarely took a night out without our children and we have not taken a vacation for the two of us in over 5 years. You must do this. Reflecting back on my marriage with Tommy I can tell you where our short comings were and how we got to such a difficult trial in our life. Tommy grew up with a very difficult background- his mom abandoned him at a young age and his father was emotionally abusive. I only include this because they way Tommy handled our problems was a learned behavior; your spouse might not handle something as extreme as Tommy did but that does not mean your marriage is safe. Nurture it, love your spouse!
Trials are given to us for a reason and although it is so difficult to see while going through the trail we always come out stronger. Dieter F Uchtdor states, “It is often in the trial of adversity that we learn those most critical lessons that form our character and shape our destiny.” Without a doubt this is true for me. I have learned the true meaning of the atonement, I have learned the healing power of the Savior, and I have learned what kind of person I want to be and what kind of mother I will be.
Tommy and I both want to fight for our eternal family and although I know we have a very difficult road ahead of us I know that through the healing power of the Lord I will be able to forgive Tommy for his transgressions and that we will be able to grow together in our marriage if we both truly turn our will to God. Lastly, I want to reference an article that made such a strong impact on me when deciding what to do in my marriage: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/divorce?lang=eng
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