When my ex-husband first dropped the bombshell that he was having an affair, I was in shock. After a few hours of processing the information in a state of disbelief, I started shaking. I was confused. My mind seemed fully intact, but my body seemed to have a mind of its own. I was lightheaded. I needed to lie down, but then I was hit with nausea. I ran to the bathroom and knelt at the foot of the toilet bowl gripping its sides. I vomited over and over again till there was nothing left to expunge.

On a daily basis my patience was tested and I found showing grace to others increasingly difficult because of the weight of stress and responsibility. I was overwhelmed.

For many of us, looking into the past may be difficult, like walking through a graveyard of broken relationships and missed opportunities.

A marriage can certainly be saved, but you can never return to the relationship of the past. This is a difficult reality that every woman must learn to accept whether or not her marriage survives.

We have a short period of beauty and youth, some of us anyway, and then an agonizing slow decline towards death and despair. God, why did you sign me up for this? Is this really what life is?

When that can of worms is really a priceless treasure.

My unhappiness was the result not only of my husband’s actions, but my own inaction. I had spent my marriage hiding from the truth.

In a marriage, the pathway to infidelity is really a gateway to more secrets and more lies. Whether you’re the cheater or the injured party, both spouses enter a world where it feels necessary to lie and prevaricate at every turn. I became a liar because I didn’t want people to know the truth about my marriage.

There is nothing empowering about seeing yourself as a victim. This is not the story of your life. It is not honest and it is not true. This narrative will eat you for breakfast and spit out your bones as it leads you down the path of sin and misery.

Joy does not come to people who live their lives bracing for the next disaster. We have to plan and make room for joy, but many of us secretly believe a joyful life is simply asking for too much. We dare not prepare for joy, because we don’t believe we are worthy of it.

How tempting it was to ignore what was really broken to pretend that my life, my house was okay and that nothing was wrong.

The holidays are difficult for those of us adjusting to the single life after years of marriage.

I care too much what people think and this is an attitude I need to release in order to make spiritual progress in my life. Why am I so afraid of being vulnerable?

I am living my best life now because I was forced off my intended path. Praise God for that.

Oh no! The holiday season is around the corner and if you’re a relatively recent divorcee like myself, you may be thinking this might be a fine time to shop for bourbon and Moosetracks ice-cream. You might be planning several hot dates with Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix.

I wish we could go back in time and make different decisions, act on more powerful insight, and build a brighter future, instead we are in struggling to stay afloat in a system that seems to be falling apart.

Of course, every responsible person sometimes needs a break, but perhaps it’s not really a mental health day that we need, but a spiritual health day.

Sometimes a genuine apology is all that’s needed to set a relationship gone wrong back on the right path.

This song is in many ways a compliment to Ellie’s story in House on Sand and a testimony to God’s amazing way of navigating us through life’s storms. We can become joyful survivors and happier more grateful beings.