I was 22, but old enough to realize I was making decisions that would destroy my life. I couldn't' stop. It was like I had an inability to say 'no' to a story that my gut was telling me wouldn't end well.
On August 13th 2011 I got married to the only man I had ever been in a relationship with. I said 'I do'. On August 13th 2011, my heart said 'no'.
Only three months before, I, and another 23 year old man realized we had both fallen in love with each other. It was the thing of movies really. Best friends brother, their mom dying of cancer, a mom who changed my world during hard teenage years, we mourned in close vicinity... everything was set up for the perfect love story. But it wasn't perfect. I was engaged, and he was a habitual liar who kept to himself.
Only a few weeks before had we kissed for the first time.
Only two days before had he seen all of me, yet didn't take me.
Only a day before he said 'I love you'.
Only a few hours before he gave me a necklace to wear on my wedding day.
Most people would ask 'Why?' on so many levels. Why didn't I break off my engagement? Why didn't he back off? Why didn't I tell someone this was going on?
That's not how life is. Why's don't matter and a heart wants what a heart wants.
So I got married to the future I knew would be mine and I subjected myself to a heart torn in pieces.
A full year of an affair and it all came tumbling out.
A husband is broken.
A man moves across the country.
A woman wastes away to nothing.
But Grace.
I had poured the truth out on the table for the husbands family and my own family. A few selected friends witnessed this process, and what was left was 'Grace'.
A mother in law and father in law who had a right to throw me out of their lives and hearts, instead, without hesitation said "No matter what happens from here, you will always be our daughter. We love you."
How does a heart walk away from that and not feel the hands of God?
I destroyed any hope and yet, they loved me anyways.
That begun a healing process.
A husband and I slowly and very separately began healing those wounds which went deeper than just a year long lie. It went deep to the core of who we were. That process of healing is another story, but the root of all of this?
Grace.
A mother-in-law gave me 'Grace' when I didn't deserve it.
And now?
Four years later, married again to the same man as I had lied to before. We laugh, we dance, we have traveled and found a real solid Grace Fast, Love Does kind of Love. He graduated as an Engineer and researches in the Oceanography field. I spend my days writing and leaking out truth words that I know other broken people need to hear. And together we work on projects and sing like we have never sang before. We have made a new life and miracle with this love and she is growing inside me, and will be called "Life" for the 'life' we have found. She comes to us this Spring 2015, a time when the world is renewing and growing fresh.
We need to be passing Grace fast and never hesitating because it's the hesitations that halt healing. The healing starts with Grace.
That is why when I bought my Grace key and waited for months to figure out who needed it most, I realized it belonged to that mother-in-law who became to me a woman of great strength and support. Who encouraged me to be who I was called to be. A writer. She showed me Gods Grace and now she has the key and maybe one day, when she has to extend Grace fast again, she will remember the key and her daughter in law and pass the key again.
