"I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry!" I can remember saying these words over and over and over from the time I found Brett and into the coming days, weeks, months after. Oh how the guilt that over took my body and my mind, it was so heavy and so intense, the only thing that I felt would fix it was if I could just talk to Brett. The days shortly after his passing are like a fog to me. It is as if I was here in the flesh but was covered by this dark cloud of shame and loneliness. My stomach stayed in knots for months, a lump in my throat and this overwhelming sense of failure that I had become. I would wake up and walk outside and just fall to my knees screaming. I did not even have the strength to stand on my two feet. My body would just crumble to the ground and I would look up to the sky and plead for forgiveness. My tears were like streams of water and had no end. My pleas initially not actually directed towards God but actually I was just pleading with Brett. Various areas in the Bible suggest that when you die, as a believer, you are aware to some degree of activities and events on earth. So, I knew he probably was aware of the pain he had caused through is death. I wanted him to know how much I was sorry I did not make him feel loved, wanted, needed, important, worthy, valued, etc, etc, etc. My thoughts were so heavy and they were spinning in all directions. I started picking apart everything I had done, said, not done, not said. I could only see that this was all my doing at the time.
I think most of us carry around a certain amount of guilt and/or shame at various times in our lives. So often we show some of our worst character traits to the people closest to us; often times that is our spouse. We take for granted the promises of marriage and we tend to project a lot of our own stresses, insecurities and frustrations out on our spouse or people we are very close to. The truth about GUILT is we ARE all GUILTY people and we are all born guilty since the fall of Adam and Eve. (Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.") Understanding that guilt is an action based emotion, it is something you feel when you have done something wrong. It is something you could be put on trial for in a court of law and be found guilty or not guilty of doing. Since Brett's death I have heard over and over and over, people try to reassure me that I am NOT GUILTY of him taking his life. But hearing people continuously try to reassure me of that was only a constant reminder of of the reality that I AM GUILTY!! I understand (after much time researching depression, PTSD, anxiety, medications, chronic pain, searching for understanding and seeking answers) that his decision to take his life was so much more complex than me just not being a perfectly loving and supportive wife all the time. However, I am still aware that I AM GUILTY of many other things that I feel did not help his situation! I am guilty of not upholding my promises I made before God and him on our wedding day. I am guilty of being self absorbed in his time of need; focusing on my children, my job, my house, everything else but his needs because I just did not know what to do. I am guilty of not being patient. I am guilty of saying hurtful things. I am guilty for not keeping God the center of my family and my home. I am guilty for letting worldly things distract me. I am guilty of getting angry. I am guilty of being insensitive. I am guilty of being distant. I am guilty of allowing my insecurities to create a wedge with the man I loved most. I am guilty of not parenting on a united front. I am guilty of not being understanding. I am guilty of not being compassionate. I am guilty for thinking I had time. I am guilty for holding grudges. I could honestly go on and on and on and most of us can find guilt in a lot of these same things in our relationships. I do, however, realize I am ultimately not guilty of his decision to end his life. Nonetheless, it is a heavy burden to know the actions I am guilty of, how they may have contributed to my husband's pain and not being able to right those wrongs with the man I love and promised to keep safe and love til death do us part. It is something I will always live with but God is continuing to teach me, show me and deliver me with a greater understanding than my own.
It is this heavy weight of guilt where the slippery slope began for me and I would be lying if I said it is not a constant battle in my head on some days. I know I am guilty of many things that I feel contributed to losing my husband and things I wish I could go back and change. (I urge you to learn from the things I am telling you.) The fact is, we are all guilty of not being perfect spouses/people and if tried in a court of law we would all be found guilty in various things that we have done in our life. The reality is we do not even need convincing that we are guilty, most of us are aware of that. The real battle is not letting our guilt push us into shame. Shame will start telling us we are not worthy, we do not belong, start doubting ourselves, lead us to hide, disappear or begin to define or dictate who we are. Shame is a character based feeling where we start to believe we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging. Satan is a master mind at the shame game and the great deceiver and accuser. He loves to remind believers of their sin, their unworthiness of a place in God's family and in this way he will sow doubt into our hearts and minds. Satan hates God's children, he hates His mercy and the forgiveness He extends to sinful humanity. Satan is the one that will stand next to you and say "you do not deserve happiness", "you are not worthy", "you are not loved." He literally takes shame and uses it to make you feel worthless and then our own minds start to lie to us. For me, Satan was trying to convince me that people would blame me and tbh he was making me blame myself. All I could think of is how much I had wronged my husband, all the things I did to deserve this, God was punishing me. Satan wanted me to be swallowed up with grief, guilt and shame and hide from facing everyone and believing in the goodness of this God I had faith in. He was making me believe that everyone was judging me, my marriage, my life, my character, my choices and accusing me of having a broken marriage, being a horrible wife, assumed there was adultery, that I was this cruel person, mistreated my husband, on and on and on. And the truth is, no marriage is perfect, no marriage that lasts doesn't go through some hard times; I loved Brett and I never doubted we could get through whatever we faced, I was just so damn stubborn and was scared of being vulnerable and showing my heart in completeness to him at the time. As I pushed aside the lies Satan was trying to get me to believe, I started to seek God's hand in all that was happening around me and is continuing to happen.
I can not tell you that it is easy. I can not even tell you that there are not days that Satan tempts me with thoughts of shame and doubt still, where I feel like a complete failure of a wife. But what I can say is that God appears before me each and every time reminding me of His love and mercy. He continues to show me that He has a much greater plan and purpose in my loss, grief, guilt and pain. God reminds me that my actions did not line up with my true values as a Christian and has used the guilt I feel to help me re-examine my identity in Him and help me live up to it and share my story and His love. (I highly suggest you don't wait for tragedy to hit you for this to happen to you.) I am so thankful that God was the judge of my sins and is the judge for every one of us! He showed up in the high courtroom of Heaven with Jesus as the great substitute and He said "NOT GUILTY!" He took it all, the cup of wrath of God for sin in the world (your sin and my sin) has been poured out in full so that we can break free from the power of shame! We are all dead in our sins but by grace we have been saved. We were purchased and our our sins condemned on the cross. Because of Jesus we have been acquitted- tried, put on trial and declared innocent by the blood of Jesus! (Romans 4:25) "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification." (Other passages reminding us of Christ's sacrifice for us; Galations 1:4, 1 Peter 2:24 and Romans 5:8)
While God does not condemn us (Romans 8:1-4) there are consequences to our sins or things we are guilty for. However, we have the power and ability to let our guilt convict us, so that we do not repeat it and so that we can become more Christ like. Each time I fell to the ground in defeat of my guilt, my shame, my grief; it was as though I could feel God each time lifting me up and saying "do not cry, for I love you, nothing you can do or have done will change that. I do not hold anything against you. Seek me and I will show you the way." I realized that I could not forgive myself (as if I had wronged against myself) but I could learn to slowly accept and agree with God, the one WHO DOES FORGIVE ME!
Upon the initial weeks of struggling with shame and guilt, I immediately sought God's word, His hand in what was happening, searching for an understanding of life after death, what Heaven was and where Brett was, what this meant for my girls and I. I realized that there was no way that we have these intrinsic minds, feelings, hearts, conscious, souls that just vanished upon death. I wanted to be closer to Brett, I wanted to go where He was, I wanted to understand where exactly we go upon death. I have always believed in Heaven but I truly never really was faced with the reality of death until now. As I continued to seek for those answers, God continued to show up and lead the way. I call them Godwinks, as He would continue to send me various signs throughout my days, sometimes in my dreams but mostly in the scripture and the reading that I was starting to dive into. Many times it was if He was speaking directly to me through the pages. Psalm 34:5 says "Those who look to him are radiant, their faces are never covered with shame." This passage reminds me that as long as I am looking to God and seeking His word, a relationship with Him, a life for Him, to glorify Him than Satan will never win the battle of covering me in shame. I will forever wish I could change the things I feel guilty for but I am also forever grateful for the forgiveness God has extended to me through His Son, Jesus. And I know His plan to bring others to Christ, has my story in it for a reason, and that reason I will continue to trust and seek.
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