Finding Unfailing Love

Note:  This post deals with infidelity.  If you have been affected by infidelity, this post may cause triggers.

I don't remember the date that I found Jesus.  I used to envy those people who remember the exact date they found Jesus.  I mean, it's a pretty important date, right?  But I finally realized the date that I found Him doesn't matter as much as the fact that I did find Him.  What  I do remember is that the journey was long and the journey was painful.  Not only for me, but for my husband.

My husband and I met in 1992.  I was at my first duty assignment in the military and he was getting ready to leave that military base and go on a one-year remote tour.  We got married while he was visiting me on his mid-tour in 1993.  My husband is Catholic and I was raised Jewish.  Our wedding was a civil ceremony and it wasn't until our son's baptism that we had our marriage blessed in a Catholic church.

Over the years, I did very well in the military and I started to put the military above everything else, including my marriage and our children.  Work was where I felt worthy.  Whenever I was needed at work, I would drop whatever I was doing and take care of work.

I was successful in the military but I didn't feel I was successful as a wife and mother.  Hindsight would show me that if I had invested my passion and time in my husband and children, I would probably have been a better wife and mother.

When my son was in elementary school, he started asking questions about Jesus.  In 2003 I converted to Catholicism.  Not because I felt led to but because I wanted to be able to answer my son's questions about his faith.  I went to church and stood when everyone else did, kneeled with everyone else, said "Peace be with you" when I was supposed to.  But I never felt like a Catholic.  My husband even said once during Mass that it looked like I was "going through the motions."  I was mad that he felt this way but, looking back ... he was right!

During all this time, despite putting my family second, or third, my husband still put me on a pedestal.  And so it was especially shocking for him to see me fall from this pedestal.

In 2006, I was deployed to Iraq.  I worked the night shift.  Twelve hours a day, seven days a week for six months.  I was the one of the only women in a huge building full of military men.  I wanted to fit in so I emulated the men.  I swore like they did, I joked around inappropriately like they did.

During the deployment, I worked, slept, went to the gym and repeated the cycle.  Except on Sundays.  I was relieved for an hour to go to church.  I didn't really go to church to be closer to God.  I went to take a break from the mind-numbing routine of work/sleep/work out.

Eventually, one of my co-workers and I got too close.  I won't go into details but we did have a physical affair in Iraq and we continued with an emotional affair for a few months afterwards, when we were back with our respective spouses.

I could give so many excuses as to why I did what I did.  Now, seven years later, it doesn't matter if I was trying to fill a void, or if I was flattered by all the attention or if I felt as if I got in over my head.  What matters is that I willingly chose to betray my husband.

Over the years, and through much soul-searching, I've come to the realization that this would not have happened had I put all my trust into Jesus and turned to him when I was struggling.  Sure, I was going to church during the deployment, but I was only going through the motions.  I was going to church the weeks leading up to the slippery slope of adultery.  But I wasn't giving my all to Jesus.

I know now that He could see what I was doing in Iraq.  And some people might say, "Well, if He saw what you were about to do, why didn't He stop it?"  And to that I say, we have free will and I freely and willingly made the decision to commit adultery.

Jesus stepped in at the exact place and time I most needed him.  He was there to guide me through the painfully rocky road to reconciliation.  He was there for my husband who needed a miracle to help him decide whether or not to divorce me.  He provided that miracle to my husband in the form of a home run during a Phillies game (true story).  He was there when I thought about driving off a cliff, thinking my family would be better off without me.

Jesus was there to show me that if He could forgive me, and my husband could forgive me, I should forgive myself.

It's been written that it takes two to five years to recover from infidelity, whether the end result is reconciliation or divorce.  I knew from the  day that I confessed -- during a phone call where I screamed "Okay, okay, I'll tell you!" -- that we would be on the five-year path.  And my husband did tell me he forgave me at the third year mark.  But just because my husband forgave me, it still took more than three years to get back to a place where he could trust me and have any respect for me.

And it took way more than five years before I could look in the mirror and see something other than a whore, a bad mother, a bad wife.  It took a long time for me to have any respect for myself.  But thankfully, I found Jesus along the way.

And thankfully, with Jesus' unfailing love, I am finally able to look in the mirror and see a woman worthy of unfailing love.  And I will never take that love for granted.  This is what I believe self-forgiveness is.  I can't explain to anyone how I forgave myself -- I just know that I couldn't have done it without His unfailing love.

As Jason Gray says in his song "I am New" -- "I am not who I was, I am being remade, I am new.  I am chosen and holy, and I'm dearly loved.  I am new."

From "A Confident Heart" page 63:  "Thank you that Your love never fails, even when I do.  Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You and praise You as long as I live."

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P.S.  Since that deployment in 2006-2007, I had one more deployment, again to Iraq, in 2010.  It was tough, and my husband and I both had many triggers to work through; however, we were prepared for those triggers and we talked through them and we survived the deployment.  Today I am so blessed to say that we are thriving and enjoying our lives together.  Our love has been remade, we are new.