For Those Who Are Not Aware.

When I blog, it's my way of dealing, processing, and re-assessing my life. It is not in a manner of being regretful or wishing anything had been different.

I am not perfect. I am far from perfection, which is why I am so in love with a Creator who can make me into something better than the scum that I am when I go at life alone. With Him, I become someone better, someone with a purpose.

I grew up in church. But that didn't make me a Christian. I loved Jesus. But I lost sight of Him at one point. There's not a single reason that I wandered from my faith. It was a combination of many things, but it happened.

When you lose the path, it's not always obvious. I remember being a little kid, walking through the woods with my best friend. There was a path, made of dirt and covered with leaves. We walked and walked and walked, following the leaves and enjoying ourselves. Then, all of a sudden, we looked around and realized we were lost. We dug around underfoot and realized that we were just walking on leaves, that the path had gone one direction while we had gone another. We had no understanding of where we lost our way. It had just happened because we weren't paying attention.

I'm not entirely sure that anyone has a perfect walk with God. I tend to think that if my relationship with Him was always cupcakes and rainbows and smiles, it would be a pretty boring relationship.

Similarly, if my relationship with my husband was always cupcakes and rainbows and smiles, our love would never be tested. Our marriage would never grow.

Our darkest hour was a year and a half or so ago. I'm not sure when it started, but when we pawned our kids off onto my mom, I was at the bar drunk every weekend, and my husband was sleeping in someone else's bed, that's when we looked down and realized that we lost our way. It's not like a domino effect kinda thing. I don't know which came first. I just know that we were both lost. And darkness was consuming us. I was hateful. And ugly. And full of anger. He was hateful. And ugly. And full of anger.

And once it came out into the open, I had to be honest. With myself. With my husband. With God. If it had not been my husband having an affair, it could have been me. Had the right situation presented itself, I was vulnerable to do the same. And if it hadn't been an affair, it would have been another sin. Drunkenness. Drug use. Self mutilation. Abuse. Who knows? Darkness has a way of making things difficult to see. It's hard to find the light, the truth in the darkness.

But the thing is, one beam of light can enter the darkness and help lead one out. That beam of light was my mom. She was there, taking my kids when the meltdowns came. She came and swept up the broken glass when I threw photo frames across the room. She was my rock. And she told me, the only way to fix the mess was to turn to God. To go back to church. She flooded my inbox with links to churches nearby that we should try.

I clicked on this one. Which led me to the pastor's blog and this post, which made me cry. I remember walking into the kitchen and wrapping my arms around my husband's broad shoulders and sobbing, telling him that I wanted to go to Anchor on Sunday. He agreed.

As soon as the light enters the darkness, it expands. Darkness is simply the absence of light. Darkness cannot exist when there is light.

Once you lift your heart up to God, he takes it. He will never reject your heart or your life, not matter how fallen or sinful. And when you allow Him to, He creates beautiful miracles with it.

God knew what he was doing. We went to church that Sunday. It was as if Pastor Tim was speaking right at our hearts, right at our lives, right at our situation. Jose cried. I sobbed. At one point, my husband turned to me and asked "Why did you choose to come here?" It was too perfect. And we decided to stay right there. God had put it on our hearts that Anchor was the place for us.

Since then, we have done many counseling sessions. With a psychologist and with our pastor. We have spent many nights talking, crying, and working through our problems. We have become dedicated to our faith. To our church. To serving others. Our lives have made an 180 degree turn. And I truely know that this was the plan God had to bring us out of our darkness.

I may not be the best versed person in the Bible. I may not remember who said what or which story is in which chapter, but I understand what Jesus taught. And it was love. That's all my life revolves around now: LOVE. Loving God. Loving my kids. Loving my husband. Loving my church. Loving my friends. Loving my neighbors. Loving strangers. LOVE is what the Bible is all about.