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Prayer

January 21, 2012 in Faith, Forgiveness, Friends, Life Experience, Marriage, Prayer, Second Chances with 1 Comment

**This is the post I wrote for this past Paseo E-Newsletter**

“I’ll pray for you!”

Who knows how many times I’ve heard that in the last 30 years. And though most of the time it came from a well-meaning person, even as a young child, I knew what it really meant:

“Oh, I’m sorry… that sucks! How do I get out of this awkward conversation?”

I won’t lie. I have been guilty of having those exact words exit my lips. And the moment I turned and walked away, I forgot all about that person… till next week when I saw them again.

It comes down to selfishness & lack of compassion.

SELFISHNESS: I didn’t want to squander my prayers away on others because somewhere deep inside I believed I needed to keep all of them for myself. And to be honest… growing up in a dysfunctional and abusive home meant I needed all the prayers I could get. I was running out in my “God Meter”.

LACK OF COMPASSION: I really didn’t care about anybody else. I wasn’t invested in other people’s lives. That’s why I forgot about their situation the moment I left the conversation… I was too wrapped up in my own life to care about anyone else.

Because I was stingy with my prayers, I thought everyone else was stingy with theirs.

It wasn’t until high school when someone finally said “I’ll pray for you… in fact, can I pray for you right now?” AND THEN they kept checking up on me for weeks after that I realized people really DID pray for me. Some people really meant it when they said, “I’ll pray for you.”

And I wanted to be that person.

Not only did I want to be the recipient of other people’s heart-cries to God… but I wanted my heart to cry out on behalf of others. I wanted to be a part of the community. I wanted to care about others as much as, if not more than, how much I wanted someone to care for me.

My age and life has more than doubled since that first time my friend prayed for me right on the spot. And since then, my heart has felt some of the darkest and most intense pains I’ve never wanted to feel. But it was in those times that the intercessing prayer of others became the guide to my only glimmer of hope.

Without people really, truly praying for me & Brian as well as checking in on us, I’m not sure we would have made it.

So with that, I say this: When someone pops up in your head, don’t squander that. In that moment… PRAY. And then let them know you prayed for them.

I also want to invite you to LET others pray for you. The reality is most people wouldn’t offer unless they really wanted to.

So pray… and like 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Pray continually.” We’re all counting on it.

How can I pray for you this week?

CoachUs with RefineUs

December 8, 2011 in Adultery, Faith, Forgiveness, Friends, Life Experience, Marriage, Ministry, Second Chances with 2 Comments

Our good friends, Justin & Trisha, at RefineUs.org have created a new program and opportunity for couples who need some guidance in their marital journey. Brian and I are fortunate enough to get to be a part of this new opportunity.

One of the best things Brian and I did post-confession of my affair was seek counseling AND coaching. The biggest mistake we can make is believe we can do all this on our own. So, I urge you… go check THIS out.

PLUS… maybe you could win something awesome in the process.

Help us get the word out!!!

… Because every single one of us is worth fighting for.

Change

November 11, 2011 in Adultery, Church Planting, Faith, Life Experience, Marriage, Missions with 1 Comment

My good friends, Justin & Trisha, asked me to guest post about transitions… and man, oh man, have we gone through transitions. So, I wrote. Here’s what I wrote:

Robert C. Gallagher once said, “Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.”

For most of my life, I fought against change. My life felt so chaotic I honestly believe my fight for control was justified only by the means of survival. However… once I wasn’t threatened by eggshells and every day chaos, I still hung onto that control (or perceived control) for dear life. Probably because I didn’t know any different.

But then, for the first time in my life… I knowingly hurt myself. In July 2006, I voluntarily broke my marriage vows and stepped into an affair that unfortunately lasted 2 years. I could no longer control any aspect of my life because the choice I made was uncontrollable. 3 years after the affair began, I confessed my infidelity to my husband.

In the process of confessing my biggest moral failure to my husband, then to my closest family & friends, then to our outer circle, and finally publishing it for all to read and watch… I was finally truly letting go of my grasp on control and truly giving it to God, trusting Him to really take care of me better than I could take care of myself. It was amazing. Without me behind the wheel, I saw so much more around me because I wasn’t focused on the unending road in front of me. I could take in the beauty effortlessly. And while I was taking it all in, God was restoring me, my marriage, my family and my heart.

I gave Him even more of me. In fact, I gave him my gifts, my talents, my desires… my life. And what did He do???

… Read the rest HERE at RefineUs.org

And The Winner Is…

August 13, 2011 in Adultery, Books, Faith, Friends, Marriage, Ministry with 0 Comments

LAURA with the word “SERENDIPITY”!

Congrats, Laura. You’re about to receive an amazing book!

Please email me to send me your mailing address by clicking on the “CONTACT” button on the left.

Thank you all for playing… and if you didn’t win… PLEASE STILL GO BUY CINDY’S BOOK HERE.

Have a great day!!!

A Close Call

August 11, 2011 in Adultery, Faith, Life Experience, Marriage, Ministry with 14 Comments

I receive emails every week from other people experiencing the pain of infidelity.

Often, they are emails expressing relief of now knowing they’re not alone in their journey. Sometimes, a spouse has just found out about an affair. Sometimes, the unfaithful is looking for advice on how to confess. And sometimes, someone just wants prayer because their spouse doesn’t want to make it work.

Each person that writes to us ends up getting their name hand-scribbled into my journal so I remember to pray over them. This is my privilege. This is the reminder of WHY I shared my story publicly. This is what keeps me humble.

But rarely, do I receive “close-call” emails.

I received this one from “Eve” last week. I’ve received permission to share her letter as long as I kept her anonymous, so “Eve” she will be for now:

Hi Jenni,

I have to confess I have been reading your website for a couple years now and have always meant to send you an email but haven’t. I wanted to say that the courage in your story and the raw emotion that you have shown along with your commitment to be closer to your husband and God is awe inspiring and has really assisted me in putting things in perspective for myself. I am married now but this is my first marriage and the second for my husband.

About 6 months ago I could see myself distancing, and we were starting to become “glorified roommates”. It was one day I came home from work and a male coworker had asked me if I wanted to grab lunch the next day that I got to thinking. I was giddy, excited, and felt “special”. But when I really started to think about it I asked myself why was SOME OTHER man besides my husband making me feel like this?

I read your blog one more time and I snapped out of it. Not only was going to lunch with him very inappropriate but it was asking for disaster. I knew he had a supposed crush on me and I was walking into the fire.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for the courage, grace and love in your heart for others to be able to come forward and share your story so unabashedly and wholly. I know that sharing your story had to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done but please know that you are changing lives by eliminating the shame and stigma of the subject. We are all after all human and as such will fall down but it’s not how you fall down but how you pick yourself back up that counts.

I’m happy to say I sought counseling, turned things around and my husband is now in Afghanistan on deployment with the Army. We are happily planning our “real wedding” as we only had a courthouse wedding in the first place.

I guess I just wanted to say, the truth is life changing. And you assisted me in seeing that.

My heart to yours,
“Eve”

This is why I shared my story. And this is why I’ll keep an open dialogue about infidelity till I die. Because sometimes, a marriage can experience a “close-call” instead of devastation.

So… here’s my challenge to you:

SHARE YOUR STORY!
The good, the bad and the ugly.
SHARE IT.

You never know what it can do for someone else.

————————-

Don’t forget to COMMENT HERE to win a free copy of Cindy Beall’s new book “Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken”. I’ll choose a winner at midnight (mountain time) on Friday night.

Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken

August 10, 2011 in Adultery, Books, Faith, Friends, Marriage, Ministry with 53 Comments

The first time my friend, Cindy, guest-posted over here was two years ago in 2009.

All this means is we were friends for longer than that because I don’t just have anyone post here. I trusted her. I believed her words were worth reading. I knew everything she had to say could only add to any readers life. The only thing that was “strange” was Cindy and I had never met in real life. You see, our friendship had grown over sharing our lives with each other in the blogosphere and emails.

That changed in May of this year (2011). We finally got to give each other one of the most epic hugs while we were in Nashville, Tennessee. She was every bit what I expected her to be… but more. More beautiful. More gracious. More funny. More taller. No joke. It took two to three of my little Asian steps to match her one tall German goddess strides.

She’s amazing.

And one of the most amazing things she’s done is write the book below.

I was fortunate enough to get an early copy to review. It’s probably because Brian and I were interviewed by Cindy and featured in a small portion of this book. I don’t know why I get invited to do cool stuff like this, but I’ll humbly accept.

In “Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken“, Cindy brings us back to the day her husband, Chris, came home and confessed his unfaithfulness. Not one, but many. And within the many, one was pregnant. Cindy’s life would never be the same. Cindy doesn’t candy coat her story with Christianese or out of context bible verses, but articulately ushers us into her living room to reveal the greatest loves story of all, God’s redemptive love in the lives of the broken.

Cindy is raw but elegant in her honesty and graciously wise in describing her experience. Here are a few of my favorite excepts:

“If you are battling something, if you find that you are sinning the same areas over and over again, chances are that you believe a lie about who God says you are.”

“So many people don’t deal with their grief adequately. They stuff it down and try to be strong for everyone else, thinking they aren’t allowed to feel sadness or they don’t have time to step away from routine to truly grieve. But I can tell you with full confidence that even when people are depending on you, even when life has to go on you must keep moving forward, there has to be time for grieving.”

“When people go through situations that rock their worlds, that destroy their trust and even their hope in mankind, they want to fix whatever is broken – fast. Unfortunately, trust isn’t a destination we reach; it’s a path we walk. Every single day.”

“When we compare our sin with the sins of others, we turn our standard into a moving target.”

“Take time to examine your heart. It’s amazing – we long to have our significant other know us intimately and truly, and yet many of us have not done the work to uncover our true selves and needs.”

Cindy’s book is FULL of grace, conviction and truth. I have already recommended this book to many people going thru similar experiences of infidelity and will continue to for as long as infidelity happens.

If you have survived, are surviving or fear having to survive infidelity in your marriage, this book is a MUST READ. In fact, I’d even got so far to say that if you’ve ever had your trust broken or felt deceived by ANYONE, not even necessarily in infidelity, this book applies to you.

And I believe this so much, I’m actually giving away one free copy away to one of you (or you can CLICK HERE and just buy it… but play my game anyway, k?).

If you’d like a free copy of Cindy Beall’s “Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken”, all you need to do is comment below. I want to get to know you so enter by telling me what your favorite word is and why. I’ll randomly pick a winner by this Friday.

I’ll start:

“Restored” – because that is what I am. I love it so much, it’s tattooed on the inside of my left wrist as a reminder to myself. Being “restored ” is being seasoned, loved, invested in, better than new and having more character.

Your turn. And good luck!