02 May 2011
Last Supper
After doing an Alpha marriage course last year, I came to realise that I didn't feel like I supposed to have felt. From a lack of feelings I said that I didn't love Carol anymore but I still wanted the family together as a whole. Not to be broken as I feared for my son's future. Maybe I was naive. Maybe I just wanted the security. No, there was no-one else in my life as some have asked. I just didn't feel like a married person is supposed to feel. I felt so alone.
I could not give a time limit on my feelings as Carol demanded. It was not something that I could simply read in a book. One counselor said that love was just a feeling, that it comes and goes. I answered that I don't feel love at all but I liked Carol as a person and still wanted to be married. Sadly that was not good enough for them. They wanted all or nothing. Come to think about it, I suppose it wasn't fair expecting Carol to accept it. So I was pushed out to the cottage on our property.
Living in the cottage still didn't change me 180 degrees as I felt everyone was praying for. The problem was still there. I still didn't love my wife as a husband supposed to. I started getting very depressed. Blaming myself. To help me cope and survive, I started surrounding myself with many friends who kept me busy. This of course widened the gap between the main house and cottage. Interesting thought crossed my mind was that when we moved here, the cottage wasn't a big draw card for us but now that I am living in it, I am starting to realise that maybe God is in control after all.
I am still a child of God but I still feel so lost in this mess that I have created because I didn't feel the love for my wife. I keep saying to myself that I could have pretended that everything was still alright and maybe, just maybe because love is a feeling, I could have felt it again. After a number of skirmishes across the ever widening gap, Carol has unilaterally moved my son to another school on the other side of the city and taken up a lease. She is now packing. I had no say in any of her decisions. Maybe the gap has become a big a gulf. If it has come to this I wanted to part as friends and have my son every second week. But this too is becoming bleaker.
Tonight we are going to a mutual friend for a dinner party. This may be our last supper together.
26 March 2011
Running on Empty
A friend sent me a letter this week in where she wrote:
"...I will always remember that you were the first one welcoming me with a big teddy bear hug when I first came to BBC. It meant a lot to me. Back then you struck me as fully trusting the Lord day in, day out and as the last person who would turn his back to our Lord..."
I am holding my hand out for Him to take me by the hand but it seems that I am all alone. I have felt so alone only twice in my life before. Alone, so alone. The first time was when hidden suppressed memories of atrocities committed against me as a child came flooding back when I heard that my brother was been searched by the police for questioning for the same type of crimes. Alone, so alone. And the last time was when I found out my spouse's plan to leave me for someone else. I found myself staring down a lift shaft all alone. The only thing that stopped me that night was the thought of letting my son down and him being raised by the other man.
Both times I eventually found solace in God's arms and my friends that surrounded me. Now I have reached empty but still find myself hurtling downwards out of control. As in the past, I've reached out for God's hand but this time it is not there. He has promised never to leave me nor forsake me so I know, yes I know that He is still here with me but now is the time that I need Him to take me by my outreaching hand.
Yet why do I still feel so alone?
27 February 2011
I want to believe there is more to this...
07 October 2010
Am I dead?
22 February 2010
Annus Horribilis
I felt like God had deserted me and I was all alone. But God sent some good Christian friends over just to comfort me and help me see the wood from the trees. I had to learn to stand against all that was coming up against me. But the real lesson I learnt was that God had not left me as I felt He had. He was always with me. I was so deep in grief that I could not feel His presence but He was holding me up all the time through it. My friends that God surrounded me with opened my eyes to see that my circumstances was passing through God's hands first. All I could do was put my head on God's lap and cry. I had to start on a journey to learn to love again, unconditionally.
It has been a long journey since then and it is still a long way to go but God is walking every step with me along the way. My annus horribilis is behind me, glory of God is ahead. Thank you to all my friends who encouraged me alone the way. It was the comments in my post "Good people don't go to Heaven, forgiven people do." that made me think about writing again.
God will turn the horrible year into something that brings Him glory. AsAaron Shust's song goes:
To God Alone
Can You take me by the hand
Can You use me as I am
Break me into who You want me to be
When the time is finally right
Will You open up my eyes
Show me everything You want me to see
This life is not my own
To God alone be the glory
To God alone be the praise
Everything I say and do
Let it be all for You
The glory is Yours alone
Yours alone
Take the offering I bring
You want more than what I sing
Can I give You every part of me
Turn these pennies into gold
Take this life I call my own
Until I'm running after Your heart
I'm needing to let go
To God alone be the glory
To God alone be the praise
Everything I say and do
Let it be all for You
The glory is Yours alone
We will rise, and we will fall
But You remain after all
You're glorious and beautiful
You're beautiful
To God alone be the glory
To God alone be the praise
Everything I say and do
Let it be all for You
The glory is Yours alone
The glory is Yours alone
Yours alone
Yours alone
02 February 2010
Smith Wigglesworth's challenge
07 March 2009
For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain
We in the Home Circle started going through Philippians and in chapter 1 we find these words "For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain". Wow, these are deep words just to utter and never to understand them. As for me do I really understand these words and what they actually mean? How would I feel if I come to a life or death situation?
Today I was shocked to get a message from my cousin in Durban if my brother had been shot. I was grappling with these words "to live is Christ and to die is gain" when I got the message. Wow talk about a shock to the system. I quickly phoned my brother and he told me that it was the first time he heard about it. I messaged my cousin back that we are trying to keep it a secret and may his soul rest in peace. That should teach her to mess with me.
It is lightly that we take these words "to live is Christ and to die is gain" but do we mean it. I mean really mean it. In other words do we understand these words when we say them?
God's Word translation puts it as "Christ means everything to me in this life, and when I die I'll have everything". This sounds a bit easier to swallow than to say "to live is Christ and to die is gain". But I don't think it is all sugar coated easy. How often does ourselves get in the way of God and when things don't go our way how easy it is to question God.
A few hours before Jesus died for us He said to His Father "Not my will be done, but yours". Not easy is it knowing that you are about to take all the sins the world upon His shoulders.
If we not ready to die for Christ, then we are not ready to live for Christ.