Adultery

A distasteful word.
A painful word.

A word I have had experience with in a multitude of ways.

Grieviously and unfortunately, I have, over the last couple of years, held the hands of four different women as they confessed this.

Three that have been committed against.
One that has done the committing.

Last week found me meeting with two different women - one a new aquaintance and the other a dear friend.

Both of them having the same word applied.  Different usages but the same end result.  Their worlds ripped apart, making them question everything they thought they  knew.

As I laid my hands on them, as they poured out their heart, as I wept with them, my prayer was the same:

"God, would you show them your goodness?  Would they know that you are good and you do good?" (Psalm 119:68)

Yet, even uttering the words made me feel as though I was a liar.

How can you, in the midst of such heartache, such despair, such heaviness, even think of what "good" is?  How can you see a God who is sovereign, that could have stopped this with a word, as doing good? 

I believe, help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24)

The days have you in a fog, simply surviving, trying to make it through, knowing you have to do it all over again tomorrow.
It is relentless.  And to have someone tell you that God is good, even in this ugliness, can deepen the pain rather than lessen it.

But here is what I know:
Hope awaits.
Restoration is coming.
Redemption is rising.

Those verses that are simply head knowledge right now will sink deep in your heart one day and the truth that you know right now will be something you convictingly feel later.

So take heart dear one.  He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world and he has all ready overcome.  (John 16:33 and 1 John 4:4)