When Mercy Found Me {Day 7} A Hardened Heart

The moment was here.

And how do you possibly speak words that will change all of life?

Alter relationships?

And shatter everything?

I never intended to hurt anyone, but my actions screamed otherwise.

And the awkward formality of my seriousness caught us both off guard,

“I need to talk to you…”

I had no idea what would happen after the words were out.

And I didn’t plan what I wanted to happen in the next days, or even weeks that would follow. I just knew I had to begin with truth, and it had to be today.

My heart pounded and he saw the dread in my eyes…

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

And glancing down at my knees, I breathed deep, and began … one excruciating word at a time.

“You need to know I’ve been having an affair … for the past 2 1/2 years…”

Silence.

The next few hours were a blur.

So few words.

Such great pain … devastating, life-altering pain.

And then … I found myself on the other side of my confession, and a whirlwind of chaos and change began.

Personal counseling alone.

Marital counseling together.

In July, we flew to North Carolina for two weeks of intensive counseling, specifically for pastors in crisis–six hours a day of raw, gut-wrenching introspection.

I can still see our counselor Frank, sitting in his oversized chair with Birkenstocks on his feet, sipping Southern sweet tea. Each day we sat on his couch and he listened long. And his wisdom always caught me by surprise. Regardless of what happened to my marriage, Frank was convinced I had some hard work to do on my own.

“How long will you live in this prison?” Frank asked.

And in those weeks I began to learn how I was choosing to be in a jail—choosing to be responsible for other people’s feelings—trying to make everyone happy at all times and losing myself in the process.

“You are responsible TO others, not FOR others,” he taught.

And I spent hours exploring my propensity for performance-based love–examining the exhaustion of trying to be good enough and realizing the impossibility of trying to earn everyone’s love … including God’s.

Every night I returned to my hotel room alone, journaling, reflecting, and trying to sort through the mess.

Slowly I began to understand how I possibly arrived at this place—

How my performance-based love consumed me.

How I had chosen to be responsible for the feelings of others.

How I had become weary of complying,

And when presented with the opportunity, how I chose my own fleshly sinful self.

And my journal revealed my divided heart…

“I’m so alone, so sad, so screwed up. I have to pick a loss to grieve and I don’t know how to survive either loss. I feel trapped. To choose what’s right, I lose myself… will I ever feel joy and peace again?”

Over the next months people reached out to me–some wrote letters, some called on the phone, and some asked to meet in person. And I read every word, listened to every concern, and met everyone who asked, each and every time. They truly cared for me.

And as long as there was hope for my marriage to be restored, most were supportive of my crisis. But no one seemed to be able to grasp that my heart was ripping in two. To them, it was all about the sin and it was a very simple problem to solve. I just needed to change and go back to how things used to be–me being “perfect”, complying, and making everybody happy … including God.

But this was about my heart, about my own self, about losing or keeping me.

And couldn’t God handle me no matter what?

Could it really be true that God’s love for me was dependent on who I was married to?

Things were no longer that black and white to me.

I had detached myself from my marriage over such a long period of time, and reattached my heart somewhere else, that I couldn’t see any hope.

I had hardened my heart.

Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always,

but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.

Proverbs 28:14 (ESV)

My heart was hard.

I slowly resisted any effort for it to be softened, and there was certain calamity in store.

And that’s what sin does.

It hardens our hearts.

It forms a barrier, making us callous and resistant to rescue and causing a delay in healing.

God longs for us to do what’s right not because His love for us will change, but because His heart longs to save us from pain. ←Tweet that

No matter what the counselor said, no matter what God’s Word advised, I refused to believe God could do a miracle in my marriage.

I failed to grasp the hope of what He had done for countless others—marriages that had been healed and restored and were thriving after the trauma of something like this.

I couldn’t see it.

And honestly, I didn’t want to.

And in time, I selfishly chose my own way.

I willingly jumped and splashed in the mud, and then I sank and stayed.

And divorce followed … for both marriages … a painful ripping apart that was never intended to be.

But mercy was waiting…

Waiting for me to be willing to be found.

And God continued to pursue me, and it wouldn’t be long before I would finally realize how very close He was.

Have you ever found yourself feeling responsible for the feelings of others?

How have you performed for others to accept you?

When in your life has your heart been divided?

To read When Mercy Found Me {Day 8} ←click here

To read ALL posts in this series, When Mercy Found Me ←click here

Photo Credit: danmachold, Flickr Creative Commons

Related posts:

When Mercy Found Me {Day 1} The Beginning When Mercy Found Me {Day 2} Time in the Mud When Mercy Found Me {Day 8} The Surrender