My Dear Sister,

Sometimes the pain of indifference at the depths of betrayal can be so overwhelming. I’ve dropped to my knees several times over the course of my journey at the sheer disbelief and callousness I’ve experienced from my ex-husband and family of origin. They literally do not see the pain they have inflicted.

Unfortunately, because of the neurological damage addiction and attachment disorder incur within the brain our husbands will NOT be able to empathize with the pain and betrayal they have caused.  In addition, the longer he waits to repent, the more damage he will do to himself.  The Bible describes this as the hardness of heart, in Ephesians 4 “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.”

They cannot validate or feel the pain you have endured; raising your children alone, carrying the health insurance and the budget, and full time job alone, having to scrape money together at the end of the month because he fed his porn addiction or paid for hotels to meet the latest hook -up, the pain of realizing you can never compete with the images he’s consuming and devouring, the pain of being neglected and unseen, the pain of losing  your feminine soul.

My dear sister, after all the betrayal is unaccounted for in your husband’s ledger – we are left with anger and RAGE from the injustice of it all.

>WHO WILL SEE MY PAIN?

>WHO WILL ACKNOWLEDGE MY HURT?

>WHO WILL PAY ME BACK FOR ALL THAT I HAVE LOST?

>WHEN WILL HE HOLD ME AND TELL ME I AM RIGHT AND JUSTIFIED FOR ALL THE HURT I AM SITTING IN?

>WHO WILL VALIDATE MY EXISTENCE AND THE PAIN OF BEING UNNOTICED?

>WHO WILL HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE FOR LAPPING UP ALL THE PLEASURE IN THE WORLD WHILE I AM DYING ON THE VINE?!

>WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?

All the anger, rage, depths of despair, hurt, loss and grief is normal.  Cry out, grieve and let the tears flow.  Justin and Lindsay Holcomb state, “Anger is more than just a stage to get through, “it is an act of profound faith to entrust one’s most precious hatreds to God, knowing they will be taken seriously.” Anger expressed to God is the cry of the weak one who trusts the Strong One, the hurting person who trusts the One who will make it all better.”

You are right to be angry at the evil you’ve survived.  Psalm 97:10 says, “You who love the Lord, HATE evil.”

I know we want our husband’s to pay for their sins NOW. We want them to HURT as bad as they have HURT us.  Please, do not condemn yourself for feeling this way. It is a necessary step in the grieving process, please know that your cries for him to PAY are actually a godly, biblical longing for justice.

My Dear Sister, your goal is JUSTICE. You are just like the ONE whose image you bear. As an image bearer – you reflect your Creator’s deep, deep heart toward JUSTICE and PEACE. You desire to be validated in your pain – and you desire to be acknowledged. Your Creator has the SAME desire.

Your Creator was frustrated to the point of ANGER several times when he had proved himself over and over and over to the Israelite’s, yet they STILL hardened their hearts. He wanted to be seen and acknowledged – just like you!  The Lord says, “Don’t harden your hearts as Israel did at Meribah, as they did at Massah in the wilderness.  For there your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw everything I did.  For forty years I was angry with them, and I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts turn away from me.  They refuse to do what I tell them. So in my anger I took an oath; ‘They will never enter my place of rest.’ -Psalm 95:8-11  

 “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,  DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AS WHEN THEY PROVOKED ME, AS IN THE DAY OF TRIAL IN THE WILDERNESS, WHERE YOUR FATHERS TRIED Me BY TESTING Me, AND SAW MY WORKS FOR FORTY YEARS. “THEREFORE I WAS ANGRY WITH THIS GENERATION, AND SAID, ‘THEY ALWAYS GO ASTRAY IN THEIR HEART, AND THEY DID NOT KNOW MY WAYS’;  AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, ‘THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST.'” -Hebrews 3:7-11

Just as you cry out for your family, husband, community to see you; you reflect the heart of your Creator in this way.  He desperately wanted His people to acknowledge Him, to hear His heart and to fall into relationship with Him.  As betrayed wives, don’t we cry out for the same things from our husbands?

Instead, we are left with the bitter taste of being unnoticed, feeling unloved, unwanted and deserted in our pain.  We WANT JUSTICE for the this pain.

My Dear Sister, when you trust your hatreds and pains to the Lord – HE sees them.  HE WILL HAVE THE FINAL SAY.  And you are JUST LIKE HIM to want that act of JUSTICE!!  You reflect the Imago Dei as you cry out to be noticed.  You reflect your RESCUER as you cry out for JUSTICE.  Look here:

“JUDGEMENT will again be founded on justice, and those with virtuous hearts will pursue it.

Who will protect me from the wicked?  Who will stand up for me against evildoers?  

Unless the Lord had helped me.  I would soon have settled in the silence of the grave.  

Can unjust leaders claim that God is on their side- leaders whose decrees permit INJUSTICE?

They gang up against the righteous and condemn the innocent to death.

BUT THE LORD IS MY FORTRESS; my GOD is the MIGHTY ROCK where I hide (trusting him with my hatreds)

GOD WILL TURN THE SINS OF EVIL PEOPLE BACK ON THEM.

He will DESTROY them for their sins.

The Lord our God will destroy them.” -Psalm 94:16, 20-23

Every time, you cry out to Him from the depths of despair – He FEELS your lack of validation…

“God is an honest judge and a God who FEELS indignation EVERY DAY.  (He is ANGRY with the wicked every day)

If a person does NOT repent, GOD WILL SHARPEN HIS SWORD;

He will bend and string his bow.   He will prepare his deadly weapons

And shoot His flaming arrows.” -Psalm 7

My Dear Sister, remember today that you REFLECT the HEART of your CREATOR.  Your deep need and desire for validation, a longing to be seen in your pain, and rage at the depths of betrayal are ALL a heart for JUSTICE.  Girl, YOU HAVE A VIRTUOUS HEART! (Psalm 94:16)

IT is OKAY to feel what you feel – lean into the CREATOR who loves you, He feels your indignation and HE IS FOR YOU.  As author Andrew J. Bauman writes, “… we must enter the rage, and the fullness of the injustice.  Fury at the unfairness, anger at the innocence lost a fierceness that reminds you that you matter, that you are worth raging over.”

“He will judge the world with justice and rule the nations with fairness.  

The Lord is a SHELTER for the oppressed, a REFUGE in times of trouble”

-Psalm 9:8-9

“He protects the lives of his godly people and rescues them from the power of the wicked.” -Psalm 97:10

Run to your Shelter, Rescuer and Refuge.  You are precious to Him and so are your cries for justice.

You are not alone.

Love,

Rochelle Sadie