Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough (21 page)

The wounds I created and perpetuated by allowing the impostor to exist had prevented me from experiencing the full capacity of God’s love. When we do not live in the fullness of God’s love, we are incapable of loving others fully. I could have read every marriage book, listened to every great sermon about marriage, and gone to a marriage conference every weekend, but until I dealt with the false self I had created, I wouldn’t experience healing. And without healing, I would be left with only a partial intimacy.

TRISHA:

Christmas morning 2006 could go down as one of the best Christmases ever. We had lived in our new house for almost a year, and that morning it finally felt like home. The boys had finished a full semester in their new schools and had made tons of new friends. Justin was killing it at his new job as an executive recruiter and even won rookie of the year. There was a sense of joy in our home not just for the awesome gifts we shared with each other, but for the best gift of all: our family! Our family was together, and it seemed that even our three-year-old understood the significance of that.

As exhilarating as it was to celebrate that we had survived a whole year together, Justin and I both struggled to believe that God would
do a “new thing” in us. There were still more questions than answers for how this new life would unfold. With each passing day, Justin and I felt excitement over how we were seeing each other in ways we never had before. Our love for each other
was
different. Our relationship had become honest, passionate, fun, and exciting. I can’t help but smile as I type those words, knowing they are still true for who we are today. But as awesome as our relationship was becoming, there was a fear to match it. We had become so in love with each other that both of us were terrified that we would mess it up.

What if we really aren’t becoming “new creations”?

What if Justin struggles again?

What if I wake up one day and decide this is too hard to get over?

What if . . . ?

“What if” was starting to attack our hearts and minds. Although we authentically loved being together, we realized our motives were often fear of the “what if” rather than living in the “what is.” Neither of us hung out with friends. I met Justin three to four times a week for lunch. We called each other multiple times a day just to check in. We made sure we went to bed together every night. We were trying really hard to do things differently.

Each night we read together (okay, Justin read aloud, and I would listen to half a chapter before falling asleep), looking for someone to teach us how to work harder. We had already read a few books, but one night we started a book that not only validated that God was making us new but also explained the how and why behind it all. That night there was no falling asleep. I listened wide eyed, with ears open to what Justin was reading.
Abba’s Child
, by Brennan Manning gave no formula, no prescription, but rather the simple truth laced with perplexing human brokenness and a call to live as Abba’s child. His words of wisdom that true healing doesn’t come from working harder but from surrender breathed freedom into a fearful couple.

As Justin fought to conquer the impostor within, I struggled to surrender my distrust. As I’ve shared before, I love people. I love seeing people victorious, redeemed, and restored. But it wasn’t till
I read these words from
Abba’s Child
that I realized the root issue for my lack of trust:

Manning goes on to say this:

I struggled with trusting that God was making me a new creation. I couldn’t fully surrender to the thought that “the old life is gone; a new life has begun” (2 Corinthians 5:17) because it never seemed to prove true. In the past when I
would
authentically and deeply love people with compassion and tenderness, I often didn’t get the same in return. While I love seeing people succeed, it crushed me when they would break my trust in the process. The affair was my worst nightmare, not only for the obvious reasons but because it went against the core of who I am.
Faithfulness breeds
faithfulness,
I thought.
If I am faithful to you, then you should be faithful to me.

In theory, this is reasonable, but what I was really saying—or demanding, rather—is that other people must be sinless, and the one I love must be without human weakness. No one, other than Jesus, can live up to this standard. We were all born sinners, and although we can live righteously through the power of Christ, we will never live perfect and blameless lives. God’s mercies are new every morning because he knew we would need them every day. I had to embrace the painful reality that my view of myself masked a dangerous illusion that I would never be unfaithful, when in truth I am unfaithful to God every day. Yet in his great love and his daily mercies, he still chooses to love me. The question that remained was, would I surrender to this new life that would ask me to do the same?

My new life in him is daily choosing to surrender my need to find my identity in the way people respond to the way I love them, forgive them, and trust them. This is the impostor that tells me to stop trusting others because they will let me down. I have lived most of my life with this impostor, and it’s a struggle I still face today. It’s a struggle I have to surrender and confess to Justin and those close to me when my impostor threatens to take over, shut me down, and keep me prisoner in the muck and mire of bitterness and self-protective anger.

Needless to say, Justin and I had no idea how much an impact
Abba’s Child
would have on who we are today. The book you hold in your hands was created in part from the almost decade-long research project of two people who together have been trying to live in surrender as Abba’s children. I am so thankful that the extraordinary is possible through a life surrendered to God.

JUSTIN & TRISHA:

FORGIVING YOURSELF

One of the takeaway points that Trisha and I (Justin) got from Brennan Manning’s
Abba’s Child
is that we are to find the whole
of our identity in who we are in relation to God, and God sees us as his dearly loved children—children he loved enough to sacrifice his Son for in order to obtain their forgiveness. But we don’t always live in this identity, especially after we fail on a large scale.

For about a year after the affair, I lived in shame and guilt and remorse. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t think about all the damage I’d caused; all the hurt I’d inflicted; all the relationships I’d destroyed. I knew that Trisha had forgiven me, but my heart couldn’t accept it.

Our marriage in many ways was in recovery mode, and we were growing in our love for one another. But the daily pain of my decisions ate away at my heart. It affected my view of myself. It affected my relationship with my kids. It affected my relationship with God.

I felt undeserving. I felt unworthy. I felt like I should be unloved.

I remember standing in the kitchen one evening and breaking down in tears. I knew God and Trisha had forgiven me, but I couldn’t forgive myself. Trisha said to me, “Grace is only grace if you accept it. I’ve worked so hard to extend it to you, and you aren’t accepting it. I forgive you. I think it’s time you forgive yourself.”

Those words were like water to my parched soul. I didn’t think I could ever forgive myself.

If I forgive myself, doesn’t that mean I’m getting away with something?

If I forgive myself, doesn’t that make it seem like I’m not paying for what I’ve done?

If I forgive myself, who will remind me of how much of a screwup I am?

But these thoughts did not allow me to see myself as Abba’s child. In God’s eyes I was already forgiven. To live as if this weren’t true prevented me from finding all of my identity in my relationship with God.

Second Corinthians 7:10 says something so powerful: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no
regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (
NIV
). In other words, true repentance paves the way for us to forgive ourselves. When we are more brokenhearted over the
act
of our sin than the
consequences
of our sin, that is godly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is being sorry for getting caught or being sorry for the consequences of our sin more than for the sin itself. That type of sorrow will leave regret in your heart, and it doesn’t lead to life.

Shame and regret can leave you in an ordinary marriage just as much as the resentment and unforgiveness we’ve talked about in other chapters. If one person in a relationship has forgiven but the other consistently lives as a second-class citizen, not feeling worthy to be a part of the other’s life, there is no soil for grace to take root.

Maybe the best thing we can do for our spouses is give them permission to forgive themselves.

Your marriage may feel ordinary, and the intimacy you desire may not feel attainable. You may be the only person who can set your spouse free to forgive him- or herself. If you are the person who messed up and you consistently live in shame and guilt and you’ve been offered forgiveness, receive it.

Shame isn’t attractive. Guilt isn’t a good basis from which to build intimacy. To quote my beautiful wife, “You’ve been forgiven. I think it’s about time to forgive yourself.”

BETTER OR BRAND NEW?

We have a tendency to equate healing with being fixed. If we can fix ourselves, if we can fix our spouses, if we can fix our marriages, then everything will be better. Can I (Justin) share something with you? God doesn’t want to fix your marriage; he wants to heal your heart. The truth is that both you and your spouse bring a past into your marriage. You bring sins and hurts and disappointments. Maybe you were raped in high school. Maybe you had a one-night stand in college. Maybe you were physically or sexually abused as a
kid. Maybe you had an abortion. Maybe you cheated on your first wife and are now married to the woman with whom you cheated.

What Trisha and I have come to understand in our marriage is that the depth of restoration and intimacy we experience today is in direct proportion to our willingness to understand our hurts and completely surrender them to the redeeming power of Christ. God promises to re-create you—that is how committed to your healing he is. God doesn’t want you to be
better
, he wants you to be
brand new
.

What hinders the healing of our hearts and pushes us to pursue being “fixed” is our tendency toward self-preservation. Our own reputations so often take precedence over the wholeness and healing that God longs to give us. For us to develop extraordinary marriages, we have to get to the core of our ordinary lives.

There are so many couples who wear themselves out merely trying to fix their marriages when God longs to heal their hearts. Maybe that is where you are as you read this book. You are tired. You are exhausted. You have tried everything you know to be a better husband, but it isn’t enough. Maybe you have tried everything you can to make your husband happy, but it isn’t enough. Things get better for a week or a month or a year, but you come back to this place of discouragement or discontentment.

When Trisha and I experienced problems or issues in our marriage, I had always asked the question “what?” I thought,
Just tell
me what to do. Just give me the steps to take to be a better husband, to be a better father, to be a better Christian
.

Maybe that is where you are as it relates to this chapter. Maybe that is where you are as it relates to this book.
Just give me the steps to have a better marriage. Just tell me what to do.

I think one of the great tragedies in the church today is that we’ve too often reduced our relationship with God to a checklist of what we can do to improve, rather than focusing on who we can become as Christ transforms us. “What” might change your behavior, a little at a time. But asking “what” brings something inferior for which we’ve settled for far too long: incremental change.

INCREMENTAL CHANGE

Incremental change is you and your spouse doing your best and working your hardest to stay married or to not get divorced. Incremental change makes big promises but lasts only a short time. Incremental change is change you are in control of. Incremental change is you working harder to stop the things you keep messing up. Incremental change, at its core, has you at the center trying to be better today than you were yesterday. Incremental change tells you if you try hard enough, you can cuss less, drink less, click on pornography less, eat less, lose your temper less, spend less, lust less, lie less, cheat less. Incremental change is motivated by guilt and shame and feelings of incompetence and failure. Incremental change convinces you that if you can endure the pain of trying harder to cover up your sin and get better, then no one needs to know; you can overcome this. Incremental change doesn’t allow you to experience grace and forgiveness because you are constantly trying to make up for the sin in your life. Incremental change carries a small price tag up front, but it robs you for the rest of your life of the peace and joy and victory God longs to provide.

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE