A detour in books...

These past few days I have taken some time to read something other than the book I should be reading for the bible study that I should be reading... and stopped to read the books that the Duggar parents wrote.  It was something that I had desired to read for a long time.  Most likely when they were first published.  But at that point other things kept me from purchasing them. 

And yet I will say that I read them in God's time.  If I had read them back then, I am not sure what might have happened in my marriage.  And yet now... with my facing divorce...  I can better understand where things broke down.  And most importantly in our communication.  I could go thru a laundry list of what I tried, and what I didn't.  And even what I desired and what I did not desire.  And that discussion could start at the moment we woke up and continue right up to our life behind the door of our bedroom.  And yet I won't share these thoughts.  I will share that I failed my own husband, and yet I couldn't fail our child. 

Part of this comes from the fact that a mother's job is to protect her children.  And to teach them to cherish God in all they do.  And in these past few days of reading... I have been given a small measure of peace on moving forward as a single parent.  And to make sure that my daughter grows up to understand what it means to be a Woman of Excellence... A Proverbs 31 Woman.  And while we have time before we get to that day... I can see how my actions and even what I say about her father can effect her.  I am very clear to be truthful.  I tell facts, not stories.  And I pray that in this process of healing that we can find a way to bridge a relationship with her father, even with the fact that he is the one who ended our marriage.

And yet what blessing I have gained by reading these stories is a sense of the fact that even if I had kept striving to be the person that God wants me to be...  It might never have been enough for my husband, who is to this day most likely still convinced that a story told when he was in the third grade is still sending him to hell.  Instead of reaching out to God, who would love, cherish, and accept him. And while I will struggle with the changes that the end of a marriage brings...  I also struggle with the fact that forever has been thrown away.  And yet I still need a peace of what is acceptable to come.  I took the fact of forever to heart... and wonder what becomes of a women who's husband just throws her away.