Lie #2: This season is going to last forever.

So many of you have reached out to me since my last post to share with me in some way how it has affected you. I’m so humbled by your courage and bravery in sharing your “lies” with me, and I’m eager to explore all our ideas together in this space. 

My lie #2 is quite similar in many ways to my first. And this post is about to get as vulnerable as I’ve ever been publicly and definitely ever been online. I tend to be open about my past because it’s who I am and I have nothing to hide, but so many people (especially women) stand ready to judge and misuse your openness and vulnerabilities against you. I’m taking that risk because on the flip side, I think it’s imperative that we relate our experiences to one another to learn from each other and to keep one another from making the same mistakes (or believing the same lies). So here it goes...

My Lie #2: This season will last forever. 

The only constant in life is change. If that’s not true, what is?  Sometimes it changes so quickly that it gives you whiplash. But when you’re in a season of despair, it feels like it is an unending nightmare. Time veritably slows down and your period of waiting or misery or depression or anxiety lasts what feels like a literal eternity. 

See, one of the almost tangible qualities of my anxiety is it’s perpetuality. Once it begins, I feel there is no end. And perception is reality, so once I’m on the coaster, there’s no getting off. 

Those of you who know me probably know some version of this story already. I’m not afraid to share it, but for brevity’s sake, I will just hit the highlights here.  When I was a teenager, I fell in “love.”  I use that term loosely because I only thought I knew what love was. But it was immature and volatile and unhealthy. I allowed this person to manipulate my mind, my body, my emotions, and my whole life because I convinced myself that’s what “love” was. Despite many red flags, I chose to marry him. I knew the dangers in marrying someone who didn’t share my Christian faith, but I did it anyway. I justified this unwise and risky decision by claiming I would evangelize him eventually being a 1 Peter 3 wife. 

Eventually, he left me. And when he left, he destroyed everything in his wake. Something about me is that I feel intensely and passionately. When I let someone in, I give my all. And this relationship with him almost cost me everything. Because I had loved so vulnerably and naively. 

Because we didn’t share the same spiritual foundations and beliefs about marriage, divorce, and remarriage, I tried my best to make efforts to change his mind and do what God would have had us do at that time and work on our marriage. But when he eventually confessed to an affair (three years later), I knew it was time to exercise my scriptural grounds for divorce, and that chapter of my life finally closed about another a year after that confession. 

Four years. Four years of my life gone. Not to mention the two I had spent actually “happily” married to him (I use that term skeptically now). And more than that, I had dated him since I was barely a teenager. I felt all my best years were behind me. I had been robbed, destroyed. I was now damaged goods. The season of waiting and praying and hoping and all those other feelings that accompanied that nightmare felt like a veritable hell for the years that they dragged on. 

It’s hard to share all this because I’m in such a different place in my life now. Those feelings I once had are gone. And I thought they were long gone until recently when I realized that, though the feelings may be gone, the damage done to your spirit and soul can still re-emerge at the most inopportune times and situations. Sometimes you think you’ve dealt with the issues until they somehow manifest in surprising new ways. 

This is what I mean by the season lasting forever. God blessed me with the most amazing of friends during that season of my life. I know they hated seeing me in pain. I know they wore their knees out praying on my behalf for an end to my pain. I know they loved me despite my brokenness. But I couldn’t see all that. I was trapped in my hell. It felt like there was never going to be a resolution. And so often I was afraid that it was going to rob me of any future in God’s eyes with a man that truly could honor and love me the way the Bible instructs. I thought my pain, my sadness would never end. 

Then once my divorce was final and it had all technically “ended”, I was still broken for the longest of times. I don’t think I will ever forget the moment lying on my best friend’s couch, years after it was all over, and she finally admitted, “Erika, I was so scared you were never going to be okay again. I thought it was going to destroy you forever.” I knew I had been bad but never realized the toll it had taken on her. 

When I’m in the dark places, Satan wants me to believe that the season is going to last forever. He wants me to believe that there is no escape and no way out. Because if I believe that, I will limit my prayers (or maybe stop praying all together), I will lose hope and expectation in my God who can do all things. If I buy into that lie, I miss the blessings in the present because God can still do amazing things through the pain. 

I’m thankful now for having gone through all that. I never thought I could be though. I learned so many of my most important life lessons in that trial. But I still struggle thinking that terrible times will last forever. That experience scarred me to believe that whatever negative feelings I have in response to my environment are not temporal but permanent. Though I know it’s illogical, it still requires true WORK on my part to convince myself otherwise. See, sometimes the lies aren’t open and obvious. Sometimes they’re subtle and sneak in through the little daily stuff. 

I enjoy finding and collecting quotes that sometimes articulate the way I feel better than I can, so I’m leaving you with a few I’ve grabbed from Pinterest to capture this sentiment. 

May I leave you with one more idea though; don’t ever be convinced that your despair will last forever. And if you need someone to just be there in it with you, please call me or let me know somehow. Because I’ve been there and I won’t judge you for falling into that lie. I will do my best to remind you that you will somehow be brought through it, and I plan to still be there with you when you are.