Guest post from Greg Oliver:
Ever since God exposed my sin and sexual addiction in January ’09, I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had with people who struggle to understand how Stacey and I can be doing as well as we are. More often than not when I tell someone my story of addiction and adultery, and how Stacey chose to forgive and stay, they’ll respond with something like:
“I don’t think we could have made it.”
I sort of cringe when I hear people say that. Of course I understand that reaction. There were years when I would have thought and said the same thing. When you consider the impact on a person who finds out that their husband has been keeping secrets, lying, and cheating for years, it’s enough to make most any woman start to hyperventilate. It’s every wife’s deepest fear (or at least one of them). It plays into every insecurity and emotional weakness that exists in her life. When her husband has betrayed her the way I betrayed Stacey, a wife can very easily start to question everything; because everything she thought she could count on in that relationship has been shaken.
But what happened with us was sweet, amazing, and nothing short of a miracle. God used my brokenness to put me in a position where I could no longer pretend I had control of anything. I couldn’t create or maintain an environment that would make Stacey stick with me. I was vulnerable, and realized it for the first time in our 17 year (at the time) marriage. God used Stacey’s brokenness to show her that she had been looking to me for things she never should have. In many ways she found her security and her identity in her relationship with me, instead of her relationship with her Savior. God put her in a position where the pedestal she’d put me on was smashed to bits and what she had left in front of her was a broken, repentant husband. But that wasn’t all she had.
We both had a Savior in Jesus, who worked through all our brokenness, even worked through my sin, to bring us to a point where we would realize and experience grace like neither of us ever had before. When you realize you have no control, and nothing in the other person to give you security, there’s nothing left except to cry out to Jesus. He gave both of us the clarity to see that He was there. He was offering so much grace for everything we both needed. Grace for me to begin to heal and be restored. Grace for her to see me the way Christ saw me, and to choose forgiveness and the healing of our marriage. Grace for both of us to come to a point of intimacy – with Christ and with each other – that neither of us had ever known before.
It wasn’t without excruciating pain. So many days and nights early on, Stacey would weep and mourn and scream and hit me. Over and over again, her mind created images of things I’d done and confessed to her. But over and over again, with every breakdown, God would flood her heart with grace to see her own sin, to see His love for her, to see His love for me, and to accept the ability (in His strength) to show the same to me. It was, and still is, remarkable to me. Watching how she relates to me has shown me how God relates to me. She has been a picture of forgiveness, grace, and unconditional love.
So when I hear people say, “I don’t think I could have made it,” I like to tell them, “No, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t. The great thing is, as a follower of Christ, you never have to.” Will you believe that God can heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds? Will you believe that there’s no sin or brokenness that He cannot restore? And by believing, will you choose to let Him do His amazing work in your own marriage?
To learn more about Greg Oliver, visit his blog.
–Greg, this was intensely beautiful. Thank you for writing this. Thank you for all that you and your wife are and do. You two are beautiful, so beautiful.–
