I am anonymously posting this in order to help any other brides out there that may be going through something similar or suffering with these emotions needing help.
Dear Atarah,
Hope this email finds you well. No one would understand better than you as you’ve been thru a restoration journey and I just want to share some of my recent struggles as I have nowhere else (I shared with the Lord). I am trying so hard to restore the peace but I just seem to keep on failing.My EH still lives at home but we live like roommates in separate rooms. He spends most of the time in the basement while I stay on the main floor. That’s not the point. The point is whatever I found in the past still bothers me (female things that he bought that are not my size) and I get triggered easily as I am very sensitive. Today he lied about his whereabouts and the fact that his front passenger seat was very neat (which is not most of the cases), it gave me some thoughts. Though I prayed more than 10 times today, I still seem to have trouble getting over it. I also tried getting into His words but it’s a battle in the mind that I didn’t seem to overcome. I know there’s no way you would have experienced the same thing, but how do you overcome situations like this?
I feel like my mind is driving me crazy. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
First of all focusing on your EH, what He is doing, His whereabouts and questioning is not good, read this lesson Married https://hopeatlast.com/c2/d8-married/. You must change your focus, you can do this by meditating on scripture, write them down on 3 x 5 cards or stored on you phone and when you are struggling you can meditate on God’s word instead. Whenever you feel anxious you can read His promises to you.
Even though I knew the principles that I read in WW I also still struggled with living them out in my daily life and with all of the negative emotions and even flashbacks. In my case there was an OW involved who I knew because we worked in the same building and she befriended me. So I had these constant internal battles and asked myself “why did I not see?” “Why was I so stupid?”
Read Dealing with Adultery https://hopeatlast.com/c2/d16-dealing-with-adultery/
What really helped me was find the Lord as my HH, becoming His Bride
https://loveatlast.org/his-bride/ and journaling “Finding the Abundant Life” https://loveatlast.org/finding-the-abundant-life/. I just took every opportunity whenever those negative emotions came up to tell them to my HH, ask Him the questions I wanted to ask my EH earthly husband.
Cry before Him.Tell Him how I felt. I remember days and days being in my kitchen, doing dishes and cooking. I would walk up and down struggling. As each internal struggle came bubbling up within me I would give it to my HH, tell Him how I felt, ask Him to help me, to take away the negative horrible feelings I had.
Many of us have found that having Him as our HH helped us to live out the principles in a WW.
Hello, my relationship with my partner is still not restored but for me the book How God restore your marriage is the best book. Everyday I read from this book and every morning before work I read from the book My beloved. Read Bible too. And than for me the perfect ist prayer. Tell everything to God. All things are possible with God. Maybe it will take a long time but God will restore your marriage. Believe! I believe too 🙂
Yes Yvet thank you for sharing about the My Beloved devotional you read everyday that also helps tremendously https://encouragingwomen.org/devotional/my-beloved/. Read your Bible and tell Him everything 🙏 🙏thank you for sharing ♥️
Dear bride, the reason that this trial is happening in our life is because the Lord love you SO MUCH. HE is longing for your. Would like to walk with you, bless you and take care of you. To have a intimate relationschip with you. As His bride you can have so a Abundantly life. My marriage is not restored yet. And even that my EH is nog living with me in the same house, we have four children together so co-parenthing is not always easy. There is another women who is in their lives. But reading on a daily basis and meditation on His promises that i wrote down on 3×5 cards is my comfort when i feel down or getting angry.
Also reasonly i have read this Novel
https://narrowroadpublishinghouse.com/rjn-lota/
It gave me comfort and happiness that even if you are so close involved you can have a happy life. So i think that it will help you too.
Everytime He is faithfull to dry my tears and gives me strenght to go on. And be happy.
Dear bride, I am so glad you have come here. This is a safe place for you. When I came here, I was so distraught. I would pray and pray and feel the presence of the Lord and I felt His love, but a few hours later the pain was so great I thought I would die from the pain. once again I would pray, I would hear God speak kindly to me, and I would feel his peace . Then again the great pain would return. It was like the grief I had never experience. I wrote to the ladies here, and I said help! I get healed from the pain, only to feel it again and again! I thought I could not maintain my healing. Many times I was in a ball of pain in my living room.
But Mrs. Atarah is right. I began to apply the principles. I still had to go to work as a cashier. I didn’t know what to do because, as I worked as a cashier, the tears would roll down my eyes as I was cashiering, and not matter how much I tried the tears would no stop. my bottom lip would quiver but I still had to work. So I continued to pray and I began to write down scriptures and put them on 3×5 cards! I would put them in my work jacket and take them out and read them over when I had no customers. This helped a lot! And on my breaks I would read the scriptures more and hey were healing to me. I especially liked Psalm 119 during that time. I was tickled when I was reading one of the ” words of their testimony” books, and I couldn’t believe another lady pointed out that exact chapter in the bible!!!It was so amazing to me because, I didn’t know anyone going through what I was going through around me! The testimony books were also such a blessing as I would read those also when I went to my car during breaks. In your car you can pray and cry. I hd my index cards, wise woman, God will restore your marriage books in my car and it al helped me so much! I was saturated with the word and praise reports in the word of their testimony books! They have me hope and it all turned everything toward the Lord ad not on my husband! I found my HH was strong enough for my grief to heal me and be patient with my healing. It was also the best time in life because nothing else worked but God! This is what I tell my children! Nothing else works but God! Be encouraged dear bride because it was not by accident that you came here! God loves you and is guiding you to blessing with Him in His wonderful arms! You will find peace! He will give you wisdom and direction, and He will heal your broken heart. If God did it for me He will do it for you! He is meek and mild, you will find rest for your soul! Dear bride, don’t forget your courses and the fellowship. HH is with you, you are not alone. Truth Him and He will do it. Don’t put your eyes on anyone or anything else! He is there to comfort you!
I can understand the mental battle you are going through because I lived it too. Like Atarah and Kristine, His Word was my comfort all the time. So having the 3X5 promises helped me a lot, I remember my Heavenly Husband took me to use an application to memorize the scriptures and there I could select the scriptures that He gave me and when I had a crisis I listened to them over and over again, but now I remember that we have an audio with those promises that can help you in those moments: https://hopeatlast.com/crisis-corner/ What also helped me stay firm in faith and in inner peace was listening to praise music full of scriptures in their letters almost constantly, only His love could heal me and remove the pain, because He says “He sent His word and healed them, And rescued them from their destruction”, His Word heals S10720.
Of course, the devotionals https://encouragingwomen.org/devotional/, and the praises of the other ladies kept me encouraged and expectant for what He would do for me, at that stage the constant spiritual food was essential for me who was dying spiritually, and like every spiritual baby needed food very often all day to survive (The Bible, courses, devotionals, and all the resources basically). Praying is fundamental, reading and speaking the word of God helps you build your faith, strengthens you, and gives you the courage you need to continue moving forward.
In my case, there were many intimate details about the other woman that made my heart ache but every time that happened and I had any negative emotion because of my thoughts or what others said to me or what I saw, I would give it to my Husband. I told Him how I felt, and what I was thinking and asked Him to help me, so he led me in His word, sometimes it seemed that what He said had nothing to do with it but I understood that I needed to learn to hear Him so I stayed with Him reading many times the same passage until I understood He wanted to say to me, the light came on in my mind and I began to feel Him so close to me. I knew I was not alone anymore.
His words of encouragement and advice were precise, He warned me what was about to come, He got up me when I fell, He comforted me and instructed me through the courses… anyway, how not to fall in love if He was there every step of the way!! I began to write love letters to the Lord with my feelings and thoughts and what He answered me and so I began to notice I could face something and what He had been talking to me during the week would come to my mind just when I needed it. It was wonderful!!! He definitely showed me how he had control of everything and the knowledge of the future. That friendship and “complicity” with Him helped me to keep myself wrapped in his arms in a protective way, it was like a shield of love around me, nothing external could destroy me because I had Him, and His word in my heart strengthened. My dear, when the crisis comes, talk to the Lord, cry only with Him, and listen carefully. He longs for you! Just talk with Him about all your feelings and thoughts then listen and keep all that He is saying in your heart, His words healing your soul.
Even though my marriage has been restored, I still at times struggle with suspicions. I have to shake it off as soon as a realize and keep busy and keep my mind talking with the Lord. I know if I let those suspicious thoughts in for too long, how much havoc that can create.
Anytime you have suspicions, shake it off and start talking to the Lord right away! It gives me comfort to imagine Him just draping and covering me with His “robe of righteousness”.
I pray for you to follow His will for your journey. 💕
I think the mental battle in the beginning is probably the worst. But once I was able to let go https://hopeatlast.com/c2/d15-the-freedom-of-letting-go/ and focused on my relationship with the Lord as my Heavenly Husband, https://loveatlast.org/his-bride/ and He became all I needed and wanted, the battle in my mind started to become less and less.
-So I would also suggest having your 3×5 cards close when these overwhelming feelings start to overwhelm you. Read and reread all His promises to you until your emotions settled down.
-Setting up and going to your prayer closet (anywhere you can be alone with Him without distractions) where you can be alone with the Lord or your Heavenly Husband and cry at His feet, pour your heart out to Him, let Him comfort you and listen to Him until you feel at peace and your emotions calmed down.
I did a podcast today about this principle: https://loveatlast.org/tell-it-to-your-husband-6/
-And something that also helps me when I am in a place where I can’t get alone, is to just repeat the promises that He brings to mind in my head and then repeating this to HIM until I calm down: “You’re all I want, You’re all I need and all I live for”
The Abundant Life Series of courses and books will also help you to focus on your HH and not your eh or what he is doing. https://loveatlast.org/finding-the-abundant-life/chapter-1-what-is-the-abundant-life/
https://loveatlast.org/fc/living-the-abundant-life/