Silence

Ok, God. Why am I here? How am I here? Line up a thousand men, and my husband would have been the last one I would have ever expected to cheat. So how did this marriage, almost 9 years old, end up in sharply shattered pieces around my feet? I knew something hadn't been right for quite some time. There were even the classic signs of infidelity, and I would spend days spiralling into a frenzy, finally working up the courage to ask him directly if there was another woman. He would vehemently deny it, accusing me of destroying our fragile relationship with my mistrust and suspicions. Other times, I would tell him that I could feel in my very soul that something was wrong, there was something that he wasn't telling me. Silence. He'd look away, pain shivering the muscles in his face. He'd eventually deny that he was hiding anything from me.

Now the truth is out, he has confessed to the affair. He moved out before telling me, robbing me of the opportunity to behave as a woman betrayed - screaming, striking, throwing tools and clothing out on the front lawn demanding he leave my sight and never return. He told me over the phone, and this time I was the one who was silent as he sobbed and told me how sorry he was. He said he loved her, and that he was completely undecided as to which future he would pursue.

For the following year, we danced through conversations strife with questions: how could you, didn't you love me, what did I do that was so horribly wrong, why don't you want to stay married to me, is she better than me, so forth. To his credit, he did his best to answer my questions. He would sit uncomfortably on the couch as I allowed the tears to flow, the questions to flow. Of course, these questions had no answers adequate enough to bring any sense of resolution to the corner of my life that had been decimated.

So I turned my questions to God. Why did You allow this? Was this part of Your plan for my life from the beginning? Am I so valueless in Your eyes that You permitted this pain? What did I do to deserve this? Silence. Very few answers even a year later. But in that silence, Abba held me close and felt my tears soak His neck. In that silence, He felt every shattering wave of grief that crashed over my head. In that silence, He simply Was, carrying me through the night.