When the unimaginable happens

(I originally posted this message to my personal Facebook account on September 21, 2023. I’m posting it here in case someone who’s stumbled across my blog is hurting and needs to hear it.)

Have you watched that old Jim Carrey movie The Truman Show? Remember how at the end of the movie Truman realizes he’s spent his entire life believing a false perception of reality? As the world around him literally falls apart, he begins questioning everything he’s ever known until eventually he’s forced to accept the inconceivable—that the town he’s lived in for the last 30 years is actually a television studio and that the people he knows as his friends and family are paid actors. Stripped of his identity and unable to process the loss of everything he’s ever known, he eventually suffers a nervous breakdown.

That’s what it feels like to be betrayed by someone you love.

Perhaps, like me, you’ve experienced the devastation of being abandoned by someone you believed in. Or perhaps you’ve experienced some other psyche-warping life change. What do you do when, like Truman, you find yourself left with no choice but to walk through the EXIT door of your life into a new reality? How do you heal when it’s not your body that’s been beaten and left for dead but your heart, mind, and soul?

I’m not going to pretend to have all the answers, I’m just going to tell you what's helped me heal after I walked through that door in hopes that it will help you. Looking back, I see 8 things that helped me adjust to my new reality. I could say a lot about each, but for time’s sake I’ll keep it brief.

Prayer. The number one thing that helped me handle what happened was that I continually talked to God about it, and I was honest in what I said. I trusted that God could handle all my sad, bad, mad feelings, even when some of them were directed at Him. Many times I prayed the Psalms aloud, pausing between verses to tell God in what way I thought that particular verse expressed what I was feeling or how I felt it related to my situation.

Scripture. I searched my bible for verses that I felt applied to my situation, expressed what I was feeling, or promised something I felt I needed at that time. I looked for verses that promised strength, wisdom, help, vindication, etc. then wrote them on index cards and posted them around my house so I would see them. I reminded myself that God cannot lie.

Friends/Family. I can’t say enough about how God used the people in my life to love and support me. I know they got tired of hearing me ask the same unanswerable questions over and over again those first two years as I struggled to make sense of what had happened, but because I was transparent about my pain, they were able to minister to me, sometimes by listening to me lament and sometimes by reminding me of Truth. Sometimes they encouraged me just by spending time with me, even though my sorrow meant I wasn't always fun to be around.

Church. This was especially hard because my life fell apart at the beginning of the pandemic when everything shut down, including church, so it was months before I was able to receive the comfort of being with my church family again. Going to church was actually hard for me at first because it was something I’d always done with my husband and it felt strange to be sitting in the pew without him. But hearing the truth preached, sitting in small groups and being with other believers, most of whom have experienced their own seasons of suffering, has been invaluable to me. I couldn’t have healed without it. 

Listening to sermons/podcasts. For the first couple of years (and even now occasionally) anytime I was alone, my brain replayed painful memories, facts, and conversations. One of the best ways I've found to combat this and fill the silence is to listen to sermons and podcasts. John MacArthur, John Piper, Alistair Begg, and Lysa Terkeurst are some of my favorites. Bedtime was (and sometimes still is) a hard time for me, so often I fall asleep listening to a sermon.

Reading books written by people who have gone through similar experiences and are ahead of me in the journey. I’ve found that reading a book by a theologically-sound author can be a good alternative to in-person counseling. The really good ones I’ve read more than once.

Counseling. I waited awhile before doing this, but I found it very helpful to meet with a lady from my church who has been trained in nouthetic counseling, which is simply when you use the truth and promises found in scripture to deal with the painful situations of life. We talked about fear, anger, forgiveness, the pain of injustice… It helped that she had experienced the same trauma as me and could relate when I talked about what I was feeling. 

Being open to new hobbies/experiences. I hate that it took a crisis to make me open to trying new things, but losing my identity as a wife helped me examine who I really am and what I like to do. Strange as it sounds, I’ve found that I’m not exactly who I thought I was, or even who I was made to feel I was at times. People kept reminding me of Elisabeth Elliot's quote "Do the next thing" and for awhile the only "next thing" I could do was get out of bed in the morning. But once I reached a place where I could function mentally, I found "doing the next thing" to be sound advice. Exploring new hobbies has helped me meet so many new people and make so many new friends. 

Again, I’m not claiming to have all the answers. I’m sure those of you who have experienced your own seasons of suffering could add to this list. My prayer is that by sharing what's helped me those of you who have been forced to accept a new reality will seek peace and hope in the Sovereign God who loved you so much he died a cruel and unjust death for you. I pray you find in Him your sweetest comfort. I pray that, like me, you find life on the other side of that EXIT door to be unexpectedly beautiful and absolutely worth living.

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

“Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.” Charles Spurgeon