It was around this time last year when everything fell apart.
Looking back, I can feel the hopelessness. I can taste the anger and bitterness in my mouth.
Our marriage was a mess. Our life was chaos.
And it was all his fault.
I resented him for his struggle, and the roller coaster that it took our family on.
I was angry, hurt and lonely. I made sure that he knew that.
Looking back now, it is plain to see that our marriage struggled from the very beginning. Daily choices slowly eroded what little foundation our relationship had. We were constantly chipping away at it, completely unaware.
We spoke angry, spiteful words.
*Chip, chip*
We raised our voices daily.
*Chip, chip*
We refused to compromise and sacrifice.
*Chip, chip*
We came into our marriage with wildly different expectations. We chose to ignore them.
*Chip, chip*
We refused to open up and be vulnerable with anyone regarding how deeply we were struggling.
*CHIP, CHIP*
Our marriage was riddled with brokenness and sin, much of it my own. But I was blind to it. I saw one issue in our marriage. One flashing neon light, declaring the very reason why we couldn't get it right and have a happy, peaceful home.
Trent.
Trent and his long-term companion. Alcohol.
If that would go away, we would be fine. If he could get it together and sober up, we would finally be able to have a happy home.
I clung to the knowledge that I was an innocent participant, victimized by marriage to a sinner.
(I am deeply thankful to God for his humbling grace.)
It was the last week of December 2020. We had just celebrated our first Christmas as parents. There had been many sweet moments with our daughter as we created simple traditions and spent time together as a family. It was a beautiful few days of peace, joy and normalcy. That would end abruptly just a few days later.
Sometime in the early evening, as I was enjoying some extra time alone with Vivian, my phone wrang. It was Trent, who still had a couple of hours left at work.
"Hello?"
"Hey." He didn't need to say another word. I could already tell by his voice that he had been drinking, and I was livid.
I accused. He denied.
Why did we even waste our time with this back and forth? It was the same conversation every time. It never changed.
He asked me to come get him.
I went.
There is no sense in recounting what happened that evening. That is not the point of this story. All that needs to be said is that as I drove my husband home that evening, my eyes were full of tears and my heart was full of anger. I rocked my daughter that night and cried. I considered leaving. Not for long, just long enough to get his attention. This had become a semi-regular occurrence, and in my mind there was little hope for change.
It strikes me now, that during this time I never once went to the Lord in prayer. I never wept and poured out my heart, asking Him to work, to heal my husband or give us direction. Rather, I just cried to myself, allowing anger and resentment to grow in me.
What a patient, gracious God we serve.
The next morning, without a word, Trent got out of bed, vomited, and began to get dressed.
"What are you doing?" I made sure that he heard the ice in my voice.
"Going to work."
As I realized that he didn't recall the previous night, I told him that he no longer had a job, pointing out the box of items that I had cleared from his desk.
He was silent.
He sat for some time, tears in his eyes, head in his hands. When he finally looked up and spoke, it was three words that I had never heard him say before, and had never expected to hear from him:
"I need help."
Three words. Three words began what would be an amazing story of God's faithfulness.
Not knowing what else to do or where else to begin to find help, I typed out a text to Krista, the wife of a pastor at our church. I was too embarrassed to call and struggled with the decision to hit "send". A flood of doubts and questions filled my mind.
What would she think?
What would the church say?
Would they be willing to help us?
Would we be allowed to serve at church anymore?
Would EVERYONE know?
When her response came, it was full of grace and love. There wasn't a hint of accusation or judgement. I remember her asking if Vivian and I were safe, and while I assured her that I had no doubt we were, her compassion in even asking touched me.
She asked if we could meet at the church on Monday.
The entire drive to the church was tense. Trent and I were both anxious to know what would be said. Trent was only a couple of days sober and still experiencing the misery of withdrawal. We wondered if this was a colossal mistake.
(Spoiler alert: Reaching out for help in your struggles with sin is NEVER a mistake.)
We walked into the counseling room and met with Krista, as well as one of the pastors. They heard our story, asked questions and prayed for us. They assured us that we wouldn't walk this road alone anymore.
I remember crying a lot that day.
There were options presented for us for how to move forward and the best way to receive help and healing. We left with a plan in place, a mild amount of apprehension, and a flicker of hope.
Yet in the back of my mind, one question was playing on repeat: "Will this time be any different?"
(Spoiler Alert #2: When you finally surrender to the Lord and stop trying to fight sin alone, things will be different.)
We were introduced to a man named Ed, who would be coming alongside of us and sitting in with us during our counseling. We were given a breathalyzer for accountability at home and told that if Trent refused, or failed to pass, I was to call Ed. No more handling this alone. While this gave me a tremendous amount of peace, by the grace of God I never made that phone call.
We began meeting weekly with Mr. Ed and a counselor named Dan. Both men were gentle yet honest, compassionate yet challenging, and personally familiar with the fight against alcohol addiction.
I liked these meetings we talked a lot about Jesus, recovery, and Trent. Never about me.
I was very safe and comfortable, feeling affirmed as the victim of Trent's sin. I liked having my suffering (and obvious innocence) acknowledged.
Until the day that Dan looked at Trent and asked "Does Shelby give you a safe place to come home to, and to share your honest feelings and emotions with compassion rather than judgment?"
Silence.
Trent squirmed. "No."
I was mortified.
Obviously, I am okay with Trent's honesty in regards to his own sin. Big fan of that. But his honesty about my own shortcomings was not my favorite.
Was Dan implying that I was also responsible for the current state of our home and marriage? And for my husband's spiritual and mental health?
I didn't like his question.
And I certainly didn't like Trent's answer.
That was the beginning of God softening the hard heart that I had grown towards my husband and putting my own sin in front of my face to see.
Around this same time, at the encouragement of our pastor, we hit pause on our current small group and began attending a new "Hope Group". My expectations were low (always the optimist), but I figured it would be easy to take some notes and blend in. I was just going to support Trent in his effort to get his life together, after all.
We walked in to a group of ten people - five of which were leaders.
So much for blending in.
When the men and women separated and the women moved into the nursery for discussion, I chose the chair in the far corner. I liked it best because it seemed the least vulnerable.
God had other plans.
Two women led the discussion (both of whom I have grown to love dearly) and began by asking one simple question: Why are you here?
I was ready without hesitation "My husband is an alcoholic, and I am here with him so that he can work through that."
That response has played through my head countless times since then. It is saddening to think of how completely convinced I was that Trent was the sum of the sin issues in our marriage and our home. The Lord would soon correct me.
While Bonnie and Chrissy were compassionate, and full of grace, they were also challenging and honest. They encouraged us to listen, study, and answer honestly not about our spouses' sins, but our own.
It is hard to do that and still hold on to the belief that you are an innocent, sinless victim in your marriage.
I am deeply thankful for their hearts that led by example, encouraging deep conversations and vulnerability. For them pointing us to scripture over and over. For them seeing evidence of God at work sanctifying and growing us, and praising Him for that together.
I could write pages and pages simply of what God taught us and revealed about himself in these discussions.
He showed us His love.
He showed us His grace.
He showed us His tenderness.
He showed us HIs compassion.
He revealed himself to us as a Father who delights in His children.
He taught us to rest in his Forgiveness.
And as He revealed to us - to me - the truth of who He is, he also revealed the truth about myself. He began to soften the heart I didn't know had hardened, and graciously show me my own sin.
He showed me the sin of my anger.
He revealed a heart of unforgiveness.
He convicted me of my sin of slander.
He exposed the idolatry in my heart.
He weakened my pride.
He softened my resentment.
He removed the "victim" identity that I clung so tightly to.
He restored my love for his word.
He showed me the joy of confession in community.
He revealed to me where my desires and demands ruled me .
The most beautiful part of all of this is that he was doing the exact same thing in the heart of my husband. As the Lord worked in our hearts as individuals, he was also in the business of healing our marriage. Each week, as we drove to pick up our daughter, the car was full of confession, discussion, forgiving, asking for forgiveness, and praising God together. The relationship that had been full of anger, frustration and unaddressed hurts began to mend. Where we had only a few months before been asking "Will it ever change?" we now saw - by God's grace - HOPE. Not just for a future for our marriage, but for a beautiful one. Our love for one another deepened.
As the Hope Group drew to a close, I began fear whether Trent and I would continue to learn together and grow our marriage. So we began to pray that God would direct us to an older couple who could disciple, challenge, and do life alongside us. That is when sweet Bonnie and her husband loving asked us if we would be willing to work through a marriage study together.
What an incredible blessing and answer to prayer they have been! They placed "Marriage" by Paul Tripp in our hands, and faithfully met in our home for months, working through it with us. Their presence, honesty, prayer and friendship became the greatest encouragement to our marriage. Trent and I have been deeply impacted by these times in God's Word, honest conversations that it has encouraged, and the ability to seek guidance from another couple who loves God deeply.
The changes it brought in our relationship were slow and subtle, but mighty nonetheless.
We were pointed over and over to God's Word.
We were encouraged to learn to pray together.
We were convicted of the complacency in our marriage.
We learned the purpose of covenant marriage.
We have learned to experience the beauty of worship in marriage.
We are learning to ask for forgiveness.
We learning to have difficult discussions.
We are friends again.
And we know that it is all by the grace of God and through his love and patience towards us. We pray that we never lose the awe and gratitude for God in this.
It floors us to look back to a year ago and see the dysfunction and hopelessness that we felt in our marriage. The entrapment to sin, the loneliness, the tension and selfishness that we both showed. And then to look at our life today as we celebrate Trent's one year of sobriety. As we see our daughter raise her hands in worship and bring us her Bible saying "please" because she sees Jesus and his love in our home.
And the countless moments where God has shown his grace, provision and love towards us.
I would never have imagined a year ago that the words, "I need help" would turn into God radically changing our lives and making his glory and goodness known in such an abundant way. I pray that I never again underestimate God's power and his willingness to meet us in our messy brokenness.
Sweet friend, my prayer for you this coming year is that you would see God work in such an incredible and abundant way. That you would embrace vulnerability and gospel community. That you would allow God to expose, convict, grow, and change you. May you also look back a year from now with a testimony of his faithfulness and be able to say "yet not I, but through Christ in me."
You are loved.
-Shelby
Your vulnerability to share Gods work in your marriage has not only inspired me but it has helped me see things from a different perspective In my marriage. Thank you Shelby❤.