Read an Excerpt
unraveling
hanging on to faith through the end of a Christian marriage
By elisabeth klein corcoran Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2013 Elisabeth Klein Corcoran
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4267-7610-6
CHAPTER 1
Raw
From my journal, on a random day of being separated:
I am in a raw place today. I am swimming in the icy cold waters of defeat, but the worst part is that my emotions are numb and I am now used to this temperature. The water doesn't feel icy anymore. It feels like home. It feels like the water has caught me by the shoulders and is looking me in the eyes and is making sure it has my full attention to tell me, "You're not going anywhere—you belong here in this dark place. This is just where you should be, and you do not deserve for this to ever end. Get used to the cold; get used to the dark. Say good-bye to the possibility of ever being loved, of ever really loving."
I cannot stand what I am feeling today. In part, because I have felt this way on so many of my days over the past twenty years. It is a swirling deep inside that I can't stop. My reality today is that I feel like I am trapped in partnership with someone who cannot stand me, and I feel that I am not allowed to sever this crumbling relationship without being ostracized in my community and, worse, without losing the favor of my loving heavenly Father.
So yes, I feel trapped today. I am breathing shallow breaths. And I am not seeing even one sliver of light at the end of this tunnel that is constricting around me. And I am lonely. And I am bitter. And I am angry. And I want to run away and never come back. And I am cold.
OK, so I just laid myself open for you, all vulnerable and open and leaving no feeling unsaid. Can I just say how completely freeing that was? I have kept these thoughts inside me for more than fifteen years. In other words, for most of my adult life, I have acted differently than I have felt. How heartbreaking.
Dear friend, I know I don't know you. And I don't wish to presume that our situations are identical, because I know that they are not. But I know that if you love Jesus and if you have been in a difficult marriage, those two things seem diametrically opposed. I know that you have probably felt emotions that were the complete opposite of what you thought you were supposed to be feeling, maybe for a very long time. And when you keep something like that to yourself, and when you allow it to finally see the light of day, raw is the only word to describe it.
No one likes to feel like this: exposed, defenseless, emotionally naked. But once you have gotten to this place of being able to speak your truest feelings, maybe after all these years, you will be ready to begin to be healed. God won't bother trying to paint over your pretenses. Instead, God will put forth amazing amounts of effort to take your wide-open, unguarded self and recover you, rebuild you, restore you. He can heal those emotions that feel so horrible and blackened and unspeakable. Do not be afraid. God is right there with you, able to handle whatever it is you've got buried deep inside.
A Prayer
Father, please enter in to my rawest places. I cannot even believe I feel the way I feel sometimes. I feel broken by my circumstances, and if I'm completely honest, maybe a bit abandoned by you. But I am choosing to believe that you're with me as you say you are, and I am choosing to trust that you want to bring me full healing. Amen.
A Next Good Step
Be honest with yourself. Stop acting as if everything is OK when it's not. If you're a mess, let yourself be a mess. If you need to yell, go sit in your car and yell as loud as you need to. If you need to cry, hide yourself in your bathroom and sob until the tears run dry. If you need to put words to feelings, journal it out or find a friend you can trust. But don't hold it in; do not pretend. Simply push through your fear of what's inside and get it all out.
A Way Forward
You get us ready for life: you probe for our soft spots, you knock off our rough edges. And I'm feeling so fit, so safe: made right, kept right.
(Psalm 7:9 THE MESSAGE)
CHAPTER 2
Hope
Several years ago, I knew someone who found out she was pregnant after much trying and waiting. She was deeply troubled to learn, then, that the pregnancy was ectopic, meaning that the egg had implanted somewhere other than in the uterus. Most ectopic pregnancies are not viable. The news was grim, and she was devastated. She had a friend, however, who told her she had a dream that my friend would have this baby, that it was a boy, and what she would name him. This expectant mother quickly turned ecstatic, newly convinced that God would bring a miracle healing. I remember one intense phone call where I gently tried to talk her down off that slippery ledge.
"Yes, God can do anything, but we just don't know if he will. Please hope in him, not in this baby being OK," I pleaded with her.
She miscarried. She was undone. And I think it's safe to say that something in her faith in God shifted after all of that.
I tell you this story because, although I don't know in detail what you are currently experiencing, I am currently being told left and right to have hope. To believe God for my marriage. To not despair. I, in part, understand where these well-meaning people are coming from: from a place where they want to have hope, they want to believe God for my marriage, and they do not want to despair. But I also think they don't want to have to deal with the discomfort that God may not heal us.
But the reality is he may not.
People who love Jesus and are trying to follow him with pure hearts get cancer and die, go to Iraq and die, have car accidents and die. We are not promised a bed of roses down here; in fact, there is nowhere in Scripture (that I have found—and trust me, I've looked) that promises all will be made well down here, right now, on this side of heaven.
I've heard Beth Moore put it this way: "Make no mistake ... we have a Deliverer. He will either deliver us from suffering, deliver us through suffering, or deliver us on Home."
I needed a readjusting of my perception of hope, so I looked to Scripture: "Though he slay me, yet I will trust him" (Job 13:15).
We are to hope in God no matter what he does or does not do. "Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; / when I looked for light, then came darkness" (Job 30:26 NIV).
Don't hope in anything but God. "Sustain me according to your word so I can live! / Don't let me be put to shame because of hope" (Psalm 119:116).
God's promise is that he'll be there for me and sustain me, not that he'll answer me any way I want him to. And apparently, I can ask God to not allow my hope to fade. "Hopes placed in mortals die with them; all the promise of their power comes to nothing" (Proverbs 11:7 NIV).
I should not place my hope in a person.
We longed for relief, but received none; for a time of healing, but found only terror. (Jeremiah 8:15)
I should not hope for a certain outcome.
"Therefore, once you have your minds ready for action and you are thinking clearly, place your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed" (1 Peter 1:13).
I have a bigger Hope.
I do not believe I have lost capital-H hope. I may have lost hope in my marriage, after years of seeing the same things over and over again; but I have not lost Hope in the one and only thing we're called to hope in, and that's God.
I still believe God can do absolutely anything. I've seen him do miracles. But I am not claiming any false promises of what he may do in my life's circumstances, because all he guarantees is that he'll get me through it and it will be for his glory, not that I'll love what he chooses to do or that it will be my idea of a miracle. So, sweet one, hope all you want; just make sure you are hoping on God and on nothing else.
A Prayer
We put our hope in you, Lord. You are our help and our shield. Our heart rejoices in you, God, because we trust your holy name. Lord, let your faithful love surround us, because we wait for you. Amen. —based on Psalm 33:20-22
A Next Good Step
Write a note to someone who is hurting today, and remind them of the hope they have in Christ.
A Way Forward
Why, I ask myself, are you so depressed? Why are you so upset inside? Hope in God! Because I will again give him thanks, my saving presence and my God. (Psalm 42:11)
CHAPTER 3
Guilt
I feel guilty that my marriage has failed. I feel guilty that maybe I didn't try hard enough to love my husband along the way. I feel guilty that I didn't pray hard enough, serve him often enough, respect him well enough all those years. I feel guilty that I didn't make sure we received proper help earlier on, even though I did ask. I feel guilty that I'm replicating my childhood in my own children's lives. I feel guilty that I haven't been able to reconcile with my husband. I feel guilty that I no longer want to. I feel guilty that I'm pretty much a single parent right now, and I'm afraid huge things are falling through the cracks with my kids. I feel guilty that, because of me, there isn't a man living in the house with them. I feel guilty that I hired someone to plow us out of a recent blizzard. I feel guilty that I've watched four movies in five days. I feel guilty that if I drink a smoothie and eat some dark chocolate, I feel pretty good about my health for the day. I feel guilty that I don't make a home-cooked meal for my kids every night of the week. (Umm, who am I kidding? Most nights of the week.) I feel guilty that I don't leave my house each day and drive to a "real job." I feel guilty that I'm not volunteering. I feel guilty that I want to sleep in every day. I feel guilty when I actually do sleep in. I feel guilty if I snap at one of my kids. I feel guilty if I don't take them to task on something because I don't want them mad at me right now. I feel guilty that I'm not a hugely invested, outward-focused friend these days.
Most of all, I feel guilty because I feel like I'm in sin—being separated and divorcing— while, at the same time, I feel like I'm not. But then again, I sort of do. And yet, I don't.
Here's why I feel in sin right now. Because I am supposed to have enough strength in Christ to get along with everyone, especially the person I took a vow to get along with the most. Because some people have made it quite clear that they believe my husband should be back in our home, and that he is not back here, in their opinion, because of me. Because it says in the Bible, "Do not separate." (Thank God that it goes on to say, "but if you do ..." because that implies that some people clearly will.) Because even though I have received wise counsel and read myriad books that tell me sometimes separation is the best thing for a broken relationship, it can still feel scandalous and controversial and just plain wrong.
I am going through the book of Philippians with a dear friend. I'm writing out verses that jump out at me, and little thoughts that come up, and then we talk about them together. Here's what I shared with my friend just this morning: "If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ ... then ... agree with each other, love each other" (Philippians 2:1-2 THE MESSAGE). And I said to her, "This is guilt upon guilt for me. I have gotten everything out of following Christ. So, what does it mean that I am clearly failing at agreeing with someone, failing at loving someone? I can't stand that loving God and loving my husband seem so intrinsically bound. Will I forever be in sin because I cannot love this man?" I looked at her and shrugged with resignation and a sigh.
Then my dear friend said, "Maybe just read to read. Don't look at everything through the eyes of your current circumstances. I'm not saying don't apply it because that's what we're supposed to do, but maybe for now just read it as Beth." Then she added a little disclaimer, "But what do I know?"
"You know a lot," I told her.
So that's what I'm going to try. For a little while at least. I'm just going to read to read.
And today I open my Bible and my eyes fall on this: "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1 ESV). And I am reminded that Christ did not die on the cross so that we would continue to carry all of this around with us. He came to take the weight of the world off our shoulders, so today, I'm going to let him.
A Prayer
"Lord, in your mercy, forgive all our sins against one another. Take from our hearts all suspicion, hard feelings, anger, dissension, and whatever else may diminish the love we could have for one another. Have mercy, O Lord, on all who ask for your mercy. Give grace to all who need it." —Thomas à Kempis, from A Forgiving Heart: Prayers for Blessing and Reconciliation
A Next Good Step
List all of your current sins, all that you are feeling guilty for; ask Christ's forgiveness; then burn or shred that list and breathe in his freedom.
A Way Forward
"But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from everything we've done wrong." (1 John 1:9)
CHAPTER 4
Heart
I have a hard heart. My heart is hard and cold and wounded and tired and done. Not hard to God. Not cold toward my family or friends. But closed off to the one I once loved most.
At the time of this writing, it is the beginning of the Lenten season. I view Lent as preparation. As giving something up. As laying something down—something of value to you. Something that takes up your thoughts and your time and your energy. Something that may even be good but isn't the best. Something that moves your thoughts and your time and your energy away from the Source of Life and Love. And, in preparation, we could replace those empty spaces with thoughts and time and energy that focus on the Resurrection of Life and Love.
I haven't given something up for Lent in years. I wasn't planning on giving anything up this year either. But what's forty days in the scheme of things?
In my specific life circumstances, forty days did not just bring me to Easter. It brought me to the six-week point after a benchmark meeting. A meeting where a gauntlet was thrown down by our church leaders, for me and for my husband. I had asked our church leadership for help with our marriage, and they had stepped in. Months into our separation, we both had several things to work on within ourselves to be made whole.
But when it all came down, my main task was this: be ready if he tries to win your heart back.
There is not one thing I can control regarding my husband's thoughts toward me, his intentions toward me, his words or actions toward me. But I am in control of the state of my heart—at least, I am told that I am.
So we were both told, one final time, to do what we were supposed to have been doing all along: my husband, pursue me; me, receive any pursuing.
It did occur to me, what is the worst thing that can happen? I open my heart, I begin to want my husband back, I begin to long for him again, and my heart gets broken one more time? Oh well. Then God will just have to heal my heart yet again. He's done it before, he can do it again if need be.
So for the next forty days, each single day, for the purpose of being obedient to God and looking for Christ in everything, I am giving up my hard heart for Lent. It began with the idea of simply saying to God something like, "Here is my heart, Lord. Please take it and change it," each morning during my devotions. Then I ratcheted it up a bit, once I realized that my thoughts were wandering and going haywire a thousand times each day. I decided to take those errant thoughts captive, and each time a cynical thought about my marriage slithered through my mind, I would say out loud, "I'm sorry, Lord. My sin was enough on its own that you had to die. I am a sinner. Please change my heart of stone into a heart of flesh."
Ahh, but then entered friendship. I have women surrounding me who love me, who challenge me. And one dear friend suggested I up the ante even more. She suggested I take my love of rituals and create a moment that would allow me to look back and remember that I have laid my hard heart down once and for all.
So this morning, I found a stone from my beach collection and wrote on one side: "my hard heart toward my husband." On the other side I wrote: "Surrender. Ezekiel 11:19." I walked out to the pond that is attached to our property—that I can see from my office desk and from my living room—and I waded through spider webs and bramble and thistles and mud. I found a spot at water's edge, and with the weight of the cold rock in my palm, I held it up to God and looked at the sky. I told him that this was a symbol of my hard heart, that I had become so used to it as a comfort and as security and as protection, but that I wanted to be free. I then confessed that I wasn't ready to give it up fully but acknowledged that this was a start. I hiked my arm back and flung it as far as I could, hearing the splish and watching the ripples as it sank to the bottom and the sludge. I walked away, thanking him for the process of replacing my heart of stone with a heart of flesh.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from unraveling by elisabeth klein corcoran. Copyright © 2013 Elisabeth Klein Corcoran. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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