Escaping the Demons

I have my husband to thank for all of this. Which seems pretty odd considering what he did. Last summer he simply never came home from work. He left me at home worrying and wondering, our three young boys ages 5,3 and 1 all waiting alongside me. No warning for the storm ahead. Three days later he came home to inform me our marriage was over. No explanation. A week after that he told me of the other woman. A young, 20 year old stripper. To say I was devestated would be sugar-coating it. I spiralled into depression so deep I was drowning in it. I went into function mode only in order to feed and properly care for my three sons. This meantthey were on thier own, watching too much tv and trashing the house. But they were fed and clean and supervised. It was all I could do. I cried more in those first few weeks than in my entire life combined. My best friend would bring me home sandwiches loaded with roast beef and cheese or pastrami...unwrapping them she woudl insist I take bites while she watched me eat. It all tasted like soggy cardboard to me and it was literally thenly thing I would eat all day. When she went home I would throw the rest of it away. Inevitably my mind would return to dwelling on my husband with the other woman and I would run to the bathroom to vomit. I lost twenty pounds in two months. I spent hours and hours down on my face in my bedroom pleading with God, pouring out hot tears and snot as I begged him to change this, to bring my soulmate,my lover, my best friend back home. And for a short time He did. Teh other woman did two months in jail in another state and he bagn to come back around, spending nights and making love. A week before she was due to get out I discovered she was pregnant with my husbands child. Three weeks later I took my own positive pregnancy test. I couldn't begin to see what exactly God had planned for all of this because to me it looked overwhelming. He was gone again. The first ultrasound was bad. No fetal heartbeat detected. Probable miscarriage. I went home and called my husband, begging him to go with me to the next ultrasound the following week. He refused, calling me nasty names. I hung up and sat in his closet, pulling a shirt off of a hanger and inhaling his familear scent as I sobbed, soaking it with tears.
Thsi was my life. Fear. The devils greatest tool is fear. it keeps us paralyzed. It did for me for many months. I popped teh antidepressants and prayed teh same prayers to no avail. It was the lonliest I had ever felt in my life. I have struggled off and on my entire life with OCD and anxiety disorder and both kicked into high gear. I would have panic attacks that lasted for hours. I would be up at 3 in the mornig rearranging my cd's over and over or counting the letters in individual words, dividing them by two's and three's. My mind was a whirlwind of pain. I was lost. Thsi was not what I signed on for. I was going to grow old with this man. Till death do us part.
One morning while I was cleaning teh house and watching the 700 Club something twinged my heart. At teh end of teh show they do prayer time, where they speak directly to viewers when God lays it on thier heart. For osme reason I felt led to stop and pray. I got down on my knees, down on my face on the rug and just began to give it all to God, to let it all go. Then teh woman on teh broadcast spoke straight to me. "Somewhere there is a mother praying...a mother with a family..young children....Thsi year has been very trying, filled with turmoil and hardships, financial struggles. God says right now you are FREE. Released and healed. He is healing your mind right this minute." My tears turned to laughter. Joy. Peace that passes all understanding. That was teh last day I ever took my antidepressants. I never had another panic attack. The OCD bahavior ceased entirely. My mind was healed. Fear was gone.
That was nearly a year ago. And life is beautiful now. My husband is still with teh other woman. They live in a crappy efficiency apartment that is falling apart in a crummy part of town. He has had 8 jobs in the past year. They were in a serious car accident a few montsh back. Thier baby was born underweight with a diagnosis of "failure to thrive" amidst rumors of her drug use. I have seen for myslef how unhappy thier relationship already is. I, on the other hand have been exceddingly BLESSED. I am doing childcare in my home to pay teh bills so I can continue to stay home iwth my boys. I have four now. Four beautiful, healthy boys. I homeschool them still and they are growing by leaps and bounds. My eldest has such a lovely desire to know about God and has no qaulms of sharing his Faith with anyone he meets. He led his four year old brother to teh lord earlier this year. Now my four year old is a prayer warrior. They are respectful and loving and okay despite the fact thier father is a less than stable part of thier lives. My yongest turned three months old two days ago. He is perfect and peaceful. Every single need we have is taken care of. Above and beyond. I have had many oppurtunities to help out other single mothers in my community with gifts of food, cards of encouragment, childrens clothes, etc.... My cup runneth over.
I am so grateful for Gods wisdom in not granting me teh answer to my prayer that I had so ferverently desired. I am so glad my husband left. There are no more fights, no more yelling in front of the kids, no more chaos or fear. No more flinching from sudden movements made by someone who should be trusted in teh first place. I have a new man in my life. At a time when I wasn't even looking. He showed up when my youngest was just two weeks old. If ever there is an unlikely time for romantic pursuitr its two weeks postpartum. As a single mother with four sons to raise I had resigned my self to being alone foreer...and being okay with it. And then there he was. A beautiful man who calms the storm, who reminds me to stop and breathe when my multi-tasking type-A personality shines to brightly. He brings me flowers and wrestles with the boys and gazes adoringly at my baby whe he thinks i am not looking.
Thsi is my life now. Better than I ever could have imagined or planned it out to be. I spent alot of energy hating that other woman. But she can have him. I have my children, my health, Norman. I carry this peace within me that says everything will be alright. And that is enough for me.
I named my youngest boy Creed Judah-Ishmael. His name ends thsi chapter perfectly. Creed means "a statement of faith." That is my life, each and every step of the way. Judah was a name I found in teh bible, in Genesis 28. It is a story of a woman named Leah who has three boys and after each birth she thinks finally her husband will love her and accept her but he never does. After the birth of her fourth son she decides to focus her attention on God instead and let His love be enough for her. Ishmael is also biblical and means "God hears." And he does. He went beyond my words and heard my hearts cry, saw what it was I truly needed instead of what I thought I wanted.
And they all lived happily ever after.