I recently listened to a testimony of some new friends we met. This couple went through unfaithfulness in their marriage. It was a testimony of how they came out the other side. Their marriage and faith were tested and they came out with their marriage and faith intact, and over time, even stronger. How does this happen?
When the Smoke Clears
Listening and learning from their powerful and heartbreaking testimony, made it clear why they made it. They had a foundation of Jesus no matter how messed up things were, no matter how bad life felt, they knew God and they knew He would never leave them or forsake them. It was Jesus and their people that stood by them that healed them and made them stronger than before. They describe it like a bomb going off but when the smoke cleared, it was Jesus and it was a close circle of people that saved their marriage and their life.
Tight Circles Make Knots
People, their people, took all the cues from them. They were surrounded by people before the betrayal and it was only natural to close in tight once the disclosure had been made. The tight circle, the safe circle, knotted hard, so no-one could get in that shouldn’t be, and no-one could get out. Their people surrounded them to ask them what they needed, not to tell them what they needed to do, and how they needed to feel.
Trust In Betrayal
The close circle took all their cues from the couple at the center of the trauma. They trusted each other, they trusted God, all this trust grew stronger in the midst of betrayal. When something is true, it proves stronger under pressure, and that’s how trust grows in the midst of betrayal.
Loving the Broken Ones
In their particular testimony it was the man who failed but the crazy part is, it was the betrayed who told the circle to love the one who betrayed her. Isn’t that a picture of Christ? It could honestly have happened either way. That’s the brokenness we all live with, the reality of life. We are the betrayed and betrayer on any given day, and what we need and what we need to do on every end, is love. Love the one who is broken, and that means all the broken ones.
Surround the Hurting
In this situation and in most situations, both people were hurting, but one had stumbled and the other was standing on the land mine. We are all going to light bombs and we are all going to get blown up by something, it’s the nature of life. But if we circle up around the hurting, rather than taking sides, we can circle up, surround people rather than dividing and taking sides.
Building relationships with God and community so strong that when someone breaks trust, the only thing that happens is the circle makes a tight knot, it doesn’t not circle. And in that knot of relationship everyone gets tighter with one another and freer with everyone else.
Circling hard around the hurting, may give enough strength to love beyond limits. They can feel loved, rather than judged, and feel seen rather than watched.
Building our relationships on solid Rock so when the wind and waves come we have not only weathered the storm, but we have people standing with us.
This is not a formula to do, it is a way of Love. We can’t do anything that lasts very long in our own strength. When we enter relationship in Love, letting people in, and keeping the enemy out, standing guard for one another; that’s a circle that looks like a heart and fills it with Love.
Psalm 139:4-6
4 Before a word is on my tongue,
you know all about it, Lord.
5 You have encircled me;
you have placed your hand on me.
6 This wondrous knowledge is beyond me.
It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.
