Rejection Happens... Even in the Church

I'm going to head off the homeschool topic path that has dominated this blog lately for a minute. This has really been on my heart for a while.

My husband and I have a story. Our story isn't as pretty as some and truthfully is a story that most people cringe at and walk away from. We cringe too at the pain of it, but even though there was some physical walking away there was never walking away from the story.

You can read our full story in these posts here.

The long and the short of it all my husband had an affair a couple years ago. Full blown affair. All of our relationship though I knew he struggled with pornography, the flirting, and attraction to other females. Yet there was something that always drew me to him. Not so much because it was a "bad boy image" but something stronger. Of course almost 11 years of being together and 8 years of marriage later, many tears, an affair, and rebuilding I can say with 100% certainty that "something stronger" was GOD.

ALL GOD.

For some that may be hard to understand, but not for us. Not for our hearts and not for our family. God saved us before any of it all started. Even at the very beginning.

Why am I bringing this up?

Well, a couple weeks ago we were talking with a new family at our church. The wife was saying how her husband needed a group of men that could help hold her husband accountable and such. Our church has such a group but truth is the majority of attendees are men that struggle with purity yet stand firm to encourage and hold each other biblically accountable to purity as a whole. This group is amazing and my husband used to attend when his work schedule allowed. Sadly that hasn't been able to be for months due to employee shifts and such. However, it is a group that has helped lay a foundation for my husband since his affair. It is a group of men that I will forever sing their praises. As will my husband.

I kept trying to tell this wife how awesome it is and she just kept bashing it. Bashing how most are struggling and such and wasn't listening to how even though that is true the group is so helpful. I was about to just be like "LISTEN IT WOULD BE GREAT FOR HIM!!" Instead I said "Listen, I know from first hand experience how great this group is. I know because we've been there. That group has helped my husband and helped us." I went on to give her the cliff notes version of our story and how the Lord has (in my husband's words) "Saved him from himself."

Now granted her husband has never cheated at all and stands firm in his purity. It's still a group that helps hold that moral strong.

She still wasn't having it. She flat out told me that "I don't even want my husband hearing stories like that. He hears it all day at work and I don't need him hearing about in church too." I felt like I was hit with a 2x4 right then. I guess you could say that at that moment it was the first time I have ever been "rejected" by our story. A blunt shut door if you will of rejection. "I don't want to hear that." "I would have left."

What!? Really!? By someone in the church no less.

I thought for sure the first time of rejection by our story would have come from someone outside of the church if that makes sense, but that's just it even outside of the church I haven't heard that. Yes everyone is surprised I stayed with my husband, but truthfully when you hear God's voice so loud to stay how can you argue? Our marriage is so much better then it ever was when we said "I Do". I am glad he told me to stay. Even when she told she would have left and I told her God told me not to she still was like "no way I would have stayed."

What boggles my mind the most is how this person is so blunt at showing everyone where they are wrong biblically. Yes biblically I had all right to leave but God said no.

I guess the long and the short of this is really that I needed to get all of this off of my chest. I have been so confused and blown away how someone in the church could turn their nose up like that and be so turned off by the story that while yes holds hurt but it screams of redemption.

Isn't that exactly what Jesus died on the cross for!?

I am not trying to toot our own horn our marriage will always take work. Just like any marriage. Maybe just a little more, but God saved my husband... literally and spiritually. He is a changed man. A man literally after God's own heart. Just like David. God saved our marriage and family too. I understand and respect her wishes to not want to hear our story. I understand and respect that she doesn't want my husband around her husband or our families to be friends. I pray one day she sees how great God has been, and that even though there was a struggle and my husband left our marriage for sometime it wasn't until after his affair that we both learned what love and marriage really was all about. She had a rough past too. None of us are perfect. Growth and redemption comes in all forms from God. Affair. Abuse. Addiction. Redemption is there for the taking for those that listen and follow the Lord's will and calling.