I wrote this post a very long time ago.  In fact this isn’t something I thought I would ever publish.  There are different kinds of pain when it comes to sharing a difficult story.  There is the pain that people go through in the real live event.  That would be the trauma.  There is the pain of healing.  This pain, although excruciating at times is a very good pain.  And there is the pain of the reveal.

My husband and I have been married for 20 years.  When we were in premarital counseling the pastor who was marrying us kept calling me Jennifer. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I corrected him, still he would inadvertently call me Jennifer.

During that season before we got married I brought issues to the pastor such as a bachelor party where my husband with many of his friends went out and deeply betrayed me with a bunch of strippers.  When I brought the whole issue to the pastor I wasn’t sure if I should even get married.  The pastor gruffly said, “WELL, ARE YOU GOING TO FORGIVE HIM?”

I was a new Christian at the time and I stammered out that yes I would forgive him.  Years later I returned to the pastor and quite frankly told him that he had done me a disservice in the way he had responded to me.  He shrugged his shoulder’s and said the experience would give me a platform to stand on.

You can get wisdom in the school of hard knocks or you can learn from someone who has been there. I have a track record of making really bad decisions.  Am I getting better? Yes, but what I’ve learned has come at a very high price.  I don’t recommend it.

One of my very favorite Bible verses is John 11:35 “Jesus wept.”  I love it so much because Jesus doesn’t rush into showing the glory of God without first stopping to acknowledge the deep grief and loss.

A man named Lazarus was sick.  He lived with his sisters Mary and Martha.  When Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick he didn’t go to him right away even though he loved all three of them very much.  Instead he waited until Lazarus died.

When Jesus finally showed up Martha basically tells Jesus that Lazarus wouldn’t have died if he had been there sooner and honestly that is how I have felt about my marriage.  I know Jesus is a savior who saves.  He can bring the dead to life and he could resurrect my marriage.

Jesus did in fact raise Lazarus from the dead and everyone who witnessed it saw the glory of God.  But before Jesus raised Lazarus, Jesus stopped and he cried.  Jesus understood that you cannot skip lightly over a broken-heart.  Grief must be observed.

Every person has a chapter in their story that they don’t want read out loud.  Since  I have spent many years walking through a valley basically proclaiming every sin of mine that I could think of, I have become very sensitive to the pain of exposure.  Words are life if only we will allow them to flow. You cannot heal a wound you pretend isn’t there.

Below in italic print is only one of many blog posts I wrote to help me process betrayal.  I never thought I would share it.  But recently I have felt a strong urging to share this testimony.  It was how I remembered the story at the time and so quotes may not be exact.  This is what I know to be true.  There is not a sin that cannot be forgiven and there is not a sinner that Jesus doesn’t love.

Jesus saved me when I was dead in my transgressions.  He gave me mercy instead of judgement and I desire mercy for all people including myself.

Many years ago my husband asked me to put together an estimate for work. It was a painting job for a man named Mr. Bell. For some reason my husband showed me the job location which he doesn’t normally do. He completed the job and came home and told me he had a surprise.

“Close your eyes Alison.” He said

I stood in our kitchen and closed my eyes. As I stood there my heart started to beat faster. What did he have, I wondered? He doesn’t usually get me a surprise. Then I felt the stinging slap across my face. I was shocked! As I opened my eyes and rubbed my cheek, I questioned him sharply.

“What did you do that for?”

He threw a stack of money in my face. As the money was falling to the floor, he just stood there cocky and self assured with a glowing grin on his face.

I couldn’t believe what was happening.

“Why in the world would he slap me and where did he get this money?”

“That was a bitch slap baby!”

I didn’t know who this person was standing in front of me. I was really pissed off!

It turns out that his friend had turned him onto the idea of a bitch slap. I guess it makes a man feel powerful to hit a woman and then shove a bunch of money in her face.

It didn’t make me happy that’s for sure. I’m certain he did not get the response he was looking for either. 

He finally fessed up and told me that he had done the painting job for cash at a lower price so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes. I was not happy about any of it but what could I do? In the end I was left with a pink cheek, a wad of cash and a broken heart. He hit my face but it hurt my heart.

Later that week he needed me to retrieve a message he had saved off of his voicemail. I had to scroll through each of the older messages to get to the newest message. That’s when I heard her voice.

I sat in my living room with a baby wiggling around on my lap and reaching up to play with my cellphone. I turned away so as not to let him have the phone and heard her voice.

“Hi Kevin, this is Jennifer….” Her words slipped out smooth like oil.

She went on, “I just wanted to call you and tell you how much I love the paint job you did in my bedroom.”

My heart sunk into my stomach I could feel my chest constrict.  I couldn’t quite catch my breath. Her voice was sickeningly sweet like honey. This woman was drawing in my husband and I had no idea who she was. I was struggling to listen because it seemed that my heart was thumping in my head.

Jennifer continued, “Kevin, I also wanted you to know that I just loved the classical music you were playing while you were here. Thank you so much!”

I listened to the voicemail several more times. Then I called Kevin to confront him.

“Hi Kevin, it’s me. I just listened to your voicemail. WHO IS JENNIFER?”

I didn’t hear anything but silence on the other end.

“HELLO, KEVIN, ARE YOU THERE?” I demanded.

“Uh,Yes, I’m here.”

“Well, who is she? And why is she saying you painted her bedroom?”

That’s when he told me that the painting job he did for Mr. Bell, ended up being a painting job for Jennifer…. I asked him why he hadn’t told me and why he had lied to me. But he never really owned it. He told me he hadn’t lied to me. He said the day that he got there to start the job that Mr. Bell said he was going out of town and apparently his “wife” was going to be staying there.

Kevin said he didn’t want to tell me he would be alone with her because he thought I wouldn’t like it.

Damn Straight! I was pissed off! I demanded to know why (if she was his wife) she had a different last name. Kevin stammered out a lot of I don’t knows and never really gave me an answer I was satisfied with.

The flaming arrow had gone straight to my heart.

You see I used to be beautiful, by the worlds standards anyway. I had 7% body fat. I worked out all the time and took really good care of myself. Because my beauty was my idol. I didn’t know it at the time. I mean I knew my looks were important to me, after all my looks helped me to get what I wanted from men. But God saw that my looks had become more important to me than him and in his loving kindness he chastened me.

I went through three abdominal surgeries in three years. My abs were butchered, never to be the same again and my muscles atrophied. I gained weight and became depressed. I prayed for God to help me take care of myself and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t blessing my efforts.

I prayed, “Lord, I know my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Please Lord, help me to get back in shape.”

But it seemed as though my prayers were unanswered. I knew it was within God’s will for me to take care of my body. I just didn’t know why He, the almighty powerful God wasn’t helping me.

What I learned is that God does not share his throne with anyone or anything. God could not grant me the answer to my prayer until the idol of beauty living in my heart was evicted.

So the day I found myself listening to Jennifer…. drip her smooth words all over my husbands voicemail. I also found myself completely ugly.

I had those shoes made specially before I went to do the Mississippi River Marathon.  I believed the Lord had impressed upon my heart that I was going to help walk some people home.  Home as in heaven.

The framed picture on the wall that says “HOME” is something I made.  What you can’t see is that each letter is filled with tiny writing that repeats over and over again, “LOVE GOD, LOVE PEOPLE, LOVE GOD, LOVE PEOPLE.”

These are small examples of the types of things I find myself doing.  I do it to encourage myself.  I don’t want to stop believing that Jesus is a savior who saves.  I don’t want to stop loving God or stop loving people.  God is fair but I have struggled immensely to move forward under the burden of a broken heart.

I remember desperately searching the internet trying to get information on this woman named Jennifer.  In the end I found a ministry of a woman named Jennifer Smith who wrote a book called The Unveiled Wife.  Her ministry helped me a lot and I thanked the Lord for his mercy in handing me her name.

All those years ago my husband and I never did reconcile what happened.  He insisted that we paint our home the same colors that he used in her house.  We fought about paint colors.  We fought about music because for her he played classical, but at home he played heavy metal.  It felt like he was trying to push me away.

Our living room wall was painted “My Valentine” which you can see in the photo.  Our basement was painted a color that at the time reminded me of McDonalds. My friend’s living room is the same exact color and it is featured at the top of this post.

Because of the pain the of situation I truly resisted the paint color.  At the time we were in counseling and he told me that the color he wanted in the basement was the same color they had on the wall at Compass Counseling.  So I agreed we would paint the wall the color they had there.

The next day I drove to the counseling office with a paint sample color deck in my bag.  Much to my disappointment the color my husband wanted seemed to be a match.  I think I stood there for about two hours asking every single client that walked in what they saw.  Every single person agreed 100 percent.  That’s when the Lord showed up and spoke to my heart.

I started remembering some scriptures….In quietness and trust is your strength, in rest and repentance is your salvation.  Behold, I make all things new.  I was still pretty new to God’s word but I took it that the Lord was going to do something.  So I actually went home and quite happily agreed to let my husband have his way with the paint color.

Isaiah 30:15 and Revelation 21:5 were the verses I was remembering parts of.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool. Isaiah 1:18

Do you know the joy of being forgiven?

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. Matthew 6:14-15

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. 1 Corinthians 7:14

Why be bitter when you can be bold?