Working in the medical field I have worked with more wounds than I can count. Surgical wounds and accidental lacerations, sewn, stapled, and glued up in nice tight lines that heal well and leave linear scarring. I have seen pressure wounds so deep it is amazing that they ever heal. The ones I encountered that are the worst are the burns. The larger and deeper the burn the worse it is to manage and heal. They are the ones that completely remove just enough tissue to leave all of the nerve endings exposed and damaged. Raw. The word even sounds like a growl of pain. That pain is excruciating. Pain meds are nearly useless for those types of extensive injuries. With the wound comes new potential problems. Protection and normal defenses are gone with the lost skin. The wound is prime for entry of any infective microbe. Infections complicate and delay the healing process. Some infections and their outcomes are far worse than others. The wounds need antibacterial barriers and cover dressings placed to restore protection and promote healing. They require dressing change, after painful dressing change to continue infection prevent. Each dressing change exposes the raw wound to the elements causing more pain. Yes, these are the most painful wounds I have encountered.
Raw—That is what I was after discovering my ex-husbands duplicitous life style. Everything that I believed in and about him and even us was suddenly stripped off. My life as I thought it existed melted away. My heart was left raw with every nerve pulsing in pain. I literally felt flayed.
There is a tiny window in a severe wound case where the nerve damage is so great the brain and nerves become for a lack of a better term confused and decides to shut down the acknowledgement of the pain. Add to that some hefty doses of adrenaline and the excruciating pain does not register for just a very short period of time. A sort of numbness allows the body to continue to function in a flight or fight response.
I was severely injured and hit that gracious numb window of time. It was during that brief interval I knew I had to protect myself kicking in my fight/flight responses. I discovered there was only $100 in each checking and savings account. I called in at work and my supervisor was very sympathetic and gave me time off. I went through bank statements trying to make sense of the finances and actually visited the banks. The checking account was such a mess I didn’t want to touch it. I found myself in a pawn shop selling a couple of jewelry pieces for gas and grocery money to get through the week. (Ironically, even here I discovered some of what I thought was “real” from my husband was imitation.) I was able to go open a bank account in my name only with the $50 minimum requirement. I moved all of his things out of the ensuite master bedroom and into the guest bedroom/bath. (Yes, he refused to leave the house for two weeks after the affair discovery. ) Then the gracious deep numb period was over. I was left back in my emotional state wracked with pain. I needed the bandages and medicine.
I do not know what I would have done without the love and support of my friends and family. There were constant calls and text messages to provide love and support. I spent a lot of time with my daughter, sister, niece and friends. All were balms and soothing salves for my raw heart. At the same time I was dealing with more anger than I ever felt in my life. This was new as I am not typically an angry person. I was angry at my ex husband for ALL he had done. The cheating, the lying, the financial irresponsibility, the hurting of our daughter……the list went on as I discovered additional duplicity. I wanted nothing more than to strike out and hurt him the way he had hurt me. I wanted to rail against him and emotionally cut him as he had cut me. Living in the same house and having so much of the finance and business of marriage in existence, we did have to interact. I took my verbal pound of flesh as often as I could. He deserved every bit of it did he not? I planned on making the divorce as painful for him as possible.
God really began to deal with me at that time. He kept telling me not to fight. The scripture kept coming to my mind out of Paul’s teaching. 1Corinthians 5:4-5 “…in the name of the Lord Jesus you must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in the spirit and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan, so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns.” (NLT) Pauls was writing to a church facing and permitting a situation where a member was behaving beyond immorally. Paul instructed the church to let that person go. It was not to be done in anger, but in “the power of our Lord Jesus” so that ultimately the person’s soul could be redeemed. I fully believe the Lord was letting me know that I needed to let my husband go. I was to do what Paul instructed the people of Corinth to do. I was let my husband go to his sin and let God manage him, not me. I would not be able to save my husband from his activities as I had tried to before. This time God was going to have to do a greater work that was not going to directly involve me. My marriage was truly over. Divorce was going to happen. I was to let my husband go. I was not supposed to fight him. I was supposed to let him go. Whew…. that was so not what I wanted to hear and nothing near what I wanted to do. I was fine with the “throw him out” part, but the no fighting and letting God work parts were not on my to do list.
This was another pivotal moment in my life. God was asking me to trust Him yet again. Trust Him with my anger. Trust Him with my pain. Trust him to deal with my soon to be ex husband. That is a lot of trust. That was not as easy as I want to say it was. I had already told God I would given my husband up for Him. (See “Final Answer”) I never imagined this situation. Once again I had to reach way down in my core where I know who is God and who is not. I had to decide who I was going to follow; My hurt and anger joined by the bitterness that would infect me or the God who had loved and led me since childhood? Which would it be? I had seen too many bitter people in my life to want the bitterness take hold. I had seen God do so much in my life, but could I really trust Him with and for this? Looking over past moves of God in my life, I knew who would always have my best even when it appeared in complete opposition of what I wanted. I knew who I trusted even with this situation. It still was not easy. It still hurt. It was what was right. When I agreed to what God asked I had a sudden surge of peace. That “peace that passes all understanding” is real. I also came to realize if I wanted my husband to live in God’s salvation I was going to have to let him go. I had to face the fact that beneath all the anger and hurt, I still had a love for him. I did want him to live in salvation even without me.
As soon as I told God I would let my husband go, thoughts starting surging and formulated a divorce settlement in my head. I sat down and wrote out everything. I contacted my ex husband and scheduled to meet to discuss the divorce process. A couple of days prior, I had met with an attorney and started the process of separation, but not the settlement. I was amazed when my husband came to meet me and agreed to absolutely everything in the settlement agreement I proposed. I was fair. I did not try to take him for anything. Given the financial mess that existed, there was not a great deal to divide. He announced that he had made arrangements that day to move out by the weekend and give me some peace in the house. God was already working. I contacted my attorney and continued the proceedings for the divorce. It was all so agreeable my husband did not hire a separate attorney. There was no fighting. It was not magical. It was not easy. I was still raw. I just was not infected by bitterness. My wounds had bandages made of trusting God and love as protection against that bitterness infection. God had provided peace to get me through. That does not mean I did not still want to lash out in my pain and occasionally gave in to that. I am not Super Christian who does not given into my desires at times. I certainly do not travel with angel choruses or a glowing halo. The peace allowed me to make it through the sales and business of divorce. It allowed me to sleep at night. It allowed me to hold my hurtful words back way more than they slipped out.
My pain was not instantly relieved nor was I miraculously healed emotionally. It would have been great if I had, but God is sovereign here. Once again I trust he is working it to my benefit. I do believe my obedience to just letting go did keep my pain from being worse. If I had fought and bitterness set in, I would have experienced so much more pain. So much more damage would have been done to me, my daughter, and even my ex-husband. The healing would have been delayed. The obedience was the first dressing change. The most difficult and painful dressing change. There would be more dressing changes. There would be more tears. There would be more pain as there is any any healing process. This was also the beginnings of healing taking root just a matter of weeks after the devastation. Healing that would eventually be completed in God’s perfect time.