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Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Sister Stories

Sisters Stories: Redemption from Addiction

December 19, 2013 by Gindi 4 Comments

sistersforgindi

Yesterday, you met Kate.  My blogger friend struggling with self-righteousness, a marriage in turmoil, and an alcoholic husband.  She asked him to leave.  He asked to stay.  Today she shares the rest of her journey.

He always said he never drank to hurt me.  He drank because he didn’t know how to deal with what was going on inside of him.  He struggled with fear and anxiety, and the alcohol numbed those feelings.  Yes, he was addicted, but he didn’t become that way to intentionally cause me pain.

I’d just not seen it that way.

But God.

I love how God can take our darkest moments, our deepest wounds, and turn them into something glorious.  Even in spite of us, He can work miracles!

We had been seeing a counselor on and off for years.

We would go in when things were terrible and he would tell us what to do.  We would ignore him and go on doing what we had in the past.

My husband asked if he could go in again, if that would change my mind.  I think I said “do whatever you have to do, but I am done.”

He knew that things had spiraled out of control.  He knew something needed to change, but he wasn’t sure what to do.  He had tried AA, tried a counselor and a treatment program, tried church and God, but nothing had worked.

He’d hit bottom.  He was willing to ask God for guidance, and do whatever it would take, and God stepped in and grabbed his heart.

The changes I saw happened almost immediately.

He came home that night with a fire in his voice – almost a giddy excitement.  He attended a local AA meeting and a man volunteered to be his sponsor.  He felt like something was different.

I didn’t buy it.  I was angry and bitter after years of getting my hopes up only to be let down.  I was convinced he was beyond saving.

He kept attending meetings and even invited me to come with him.  I couldn’t let him go and manage this on his own, so I went along.  These were speaker meetings, so someone living in active sobriety would come and share their story.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

Here stood men and women telling our story.  Our hurts, our drama, our fights, and yet they were living in long-term sobriety.  I started seeing that there might be hope.  For the first time I thought that maybe my husband wasn’t the monster I made him out to be.

With the guidance of his sponsor, we started praying together as a family.  Every morning, on our knees, reciting a prayer he learned.

But I would pray and then get up and mutter something about him being a hypocrite. I would go right back to being horrible even though he had been sober longer than ever.

One morning he must have had enough and asked me, “What have I done to you this morning to make you so angry?”

I didn’t have an answer.  I said, “I don’t know, but I hate you and I hate my life.”  He told me that I too needed to seek help.  While I didn’t have a drinking problem, I certainly had a problem of perspective.

And so began my journey of finding God.

It was a slow and painful process.

I had years of bad habits.  Blame and anger had built up.  I had to look critically in places I had never taken responsibility.  I had also caused so much hurt and damage, and I had been sober!

What was my excuse?

God placed a wonderful woman in my life that walked this path to serenity with me.  She shared her stories, told me there wasn’t anything I could tell her that she hadn’t already heard.  She didn’t shame me.  She was patient and encouraging and let me slowly see how I needed to take responsibility for my actions. She was God in the flesh, and I will be forever grateful for her.

Our marriage didn’t recover overnight.

Ten years’ worth of pain doesn’t go away in a few weeks.  But we started to see the changes in one another.  Our relationships with our extended families started to heal.  He and I began sharing our story at local treatment centers. We saw that we could offer hope even if we didn’t have it all together.

Laughter returned to our home. Communication returned and walls came down.

Today we are living in our seventh year of continuous sobriety! Praise God for that blessing!

We have had two more children in sobriety. Children that, God willing, won’t ever know the pain of that past life.  Today my husband and I work together in his successful business that is itself a reflection of God’s blessing on our lives.

But we can’t get the credit.

Only God can get the glory.

He restores.  He heals and He blesses.  We are living proof of that miracle.

Alcoholism is prevalent and carries a terrible stigma.  My prayer in sharing our story is to break down some of those walls and to offer hope. God can heal what seems beyond fixing if we reach for Him and are willing to act.

I also want to share that we still don’t have it all together.  We fight.  The old nature comes back and we say mean things or ignore each other and want to give up.  Being sober doesn’t mean having a flawless marriage.  But God’s still in this.  And the restoration is still a work in progress.  I believe we have to hang in there and keep working.

 

Filed Under: Sister Stories

Sisters Stories: Walking Through Addiction

December 18, 2013 by Gindi 3 Comments

sistersforgindi

This week is the only time I’ve featured a fellow blogger’s story.  She hasn’t shared it yet with her audience but it needs to be told.  As she is a writer, I asked her to tell her story directly to you:

Ours isn’t a typical love story.

I first met my husband in 10th grade –  I had a crush and he had no idea I was alive!  Years later, in college, we both ended up as transfers in a new school. We lived in the same dorm, had classes together and eventually started studying together.

It didn’t take long for me to fall head over heels.  He stole my heart and wasn’t even trying.  I wasn’t a “party girl,” but went to parties with him. There was drinking involved, but I figured that is just the college thing.

In time, we slept together, and wouldn’t you know I got pregnant.  I was completely unprepared for what this meant for us and was terrified at what he would say.  He was probably in shock as well but said abortion or adoption weren’t options.  He wanted to take responsibility and said we should get married.

There were no roses and candlelight.  No one knee proposal and diamond ring.  Just a statement and commitment that he would be a dad to our baby and do his best love me as his wife.

My parents were less than pleased.  I had destroyed their dreams for my life and they encouraged me not to get married.  But we were stubborn and committed to pressing on with or without their support. Eventually they said they wanted us married in a church and helped us plan our big day.

Three weeks before we were married my then-fiancé turned 21.  His best friend and a few others took him out for a big hurrah. It was a rough night apparently, but again I assumed that was what most people did when they turned 21….

I knew that once our child was born my husband would be the best husband and daddy ever.  He would take his new role of father so seriously that the alcohol would take a back seat.

And then it didn’t.

A large jug of Southern Comfort nestled next to the milk in our refrigerator.  After work, he would come home and have a couple of drinks.

As time passed, I started getting worried.  Then I got angry.  I believed that if he just loved me enough, he would stop.  I nagged at him about his drunken episodes.  He justified his actions by saying at least he was holding down a job.  There wasn’t a problem – I was the problem.

Something changed in me.  I made his drinking personal. And every time I would hear the ice clinking in the glass it was “on.”  I was a terrible fighter.  Mean and nasty and out of control.  Most of the time you would think I was the one impaired.  He used to say I didn’t just cross the line with our arguments but took a running leap over it.

I wanted him to hurt like I hurt.  Because I believed he must not love me, I wanted him to feel that same hurt.  So I made our fights personal.  I called him terrible names.  I degraded him as a father and a lover. Anything that might strip away the security of a man, I used.

I threatened divorce, too many times to count.  I called his parents in rages forcing them to talk to their “drunk son.”   I ran away to my parents’ house only to return the next day.

I knew in my heart that HE was the problem and if HE just stopped drinking everything would be ok.  I never once took responsibility for my behavior because I always felt he had “caused” it.   If HE hadn’t been drinking then I wouldn’t have……insert just about anything in there.

There were times of “sanity.”  Times that he didn’t drink and I wasn’t awful.  But something always happened to get us back to crazy.

I think that in the darkest parts of my heart I liked the drama.

I was in control (or so I thought).  I had control of the money, the affection and intimacy in our marriage, the kids….he better start behaving or else or I could take it away!

As time went on this self-righteous behavior escalated.  I felt I could and was doing no wrong.  I like to say I was polishing my halo….I had an interesting relationship with God at the time.

I became a Christian in childhood. I could never figure out why I still had problems (like Christians are immune…).  During our darkest times, I felt God was punishing me for getting pregnant.  Still I was “Holy” and he was the “drunk loser.”   Right?

This cycle continued for almost 10 years.

It was painful and frustrating for both of us, wounds were caused that cut deep. When our two boys were 10 and 3, I had no more fight in me.  I was convinced things would never change and I just wanted to be done.

While I knew that God didn’t love divorce, I also knew that our relationship wasn’t healthy for any of us, and I was ready to walk away.  I asked him to leave after a particularly bad weekend. He begged to stay.

Filed Under: Sister Stories

Tribute

December 16, 2013 by Gindi Leave a Comment

I can not believe this is the last week of this Sisters Stories series.  I am incredibly grateful for every woman who bravely shared her journey honestly so that others could see what God can do.

This is also the last week through Priscilla Shirer’s book, God is Able, which walked us through each portion of Ephesians 3:20 as our Sisters Stories weekly opener.

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

This week, we pay TRIBUTE. To Him Be The Glory. And this sister story has no shortage of honoring God for His miraculous work.

This is what Priscilla says about how this verse concludes:

We exist today for His fame.  We are examples of His patience and long-suffering.  We bear witness to what His love is like and can do.  We honor His name with our living, breathing presence.  So when we come to Him with our needs and requests, with our aches and our longings, one of the greatest reasons why we can be so confident in Him is because God is getting some glory when He acts on our behalf.

And I love this example especially this week so close to Christmas: When He sent His Son to us as a baby, it was to redeem the lost, yes, but it was also for the purpose of receiving ‘glory to God in the highest.‘ (Luke 2:14)

13Capture

So sometimes, when you stand in awe and say, “What?”  “How did that happen?”

It’s because He loves you more than you can imagine, yes.

It’s because He has, or wants, a personal relationship with you, yes.

It’s because He wants to help you put things back together, yes.

Plus. It’s also because He’s intent on receiving the glory for the work to come. And when it will come, the action, or the inaction, or whatever IT is, the timing isn’t up to us.  That’s hard.  He’s working, for us and for His glory, even when we can’t fathom what is happening.

Priscilla closes with these encouraging words:

When you and I approach God for help, filled with our cares and distresses, our prayer are not confined to this date, to this particular month and year.  What may seem to be His silence and avoidance from where you sit today is already reverberating in future places. If not right here, if not right now, you can be sure His ability is taking visible, tangible shape somewhere even if beyond the scope of your current sightline.  You and I are living right this minute on a tiny dot of time within a vast sea of God-moments.  And the ripple effect of today’s prayers, today’s faith – today’s now – spirals out in all directions for all eternity, bumping something here, affecting something there, all under God’s watchful eye and wisdom.  Each time we turn to Him, each time we trust, each time we bring our all to the surpassing greatness of His all, we find ourselves instantly connected to every future time zone where His ability lives.  We link up across generations, where He is already working, present-tense, to make His glory known. 

So join me Wednesday as I talk to Kate and hear how her story is all God’s glory.

Filed Under: Faith, Sister Stories

Sisters Stories: Praying Through A Divorce

December 12, 2013 by Gindi 8 Comments

sistersforgindi

Yesterday, you met my dear friend as she revealed the truth of an affair to her husband over a year after it ended.  I asked her how it happened; after watching my own parents’ marriage ripped apart by an affair, I’m always on alert for my own marriage.

Her response not only helped me appreciate how quickly things can unravel, but also how differently women fall into affairs.  The man she had an affair with had been an old boyfriend.  They had dated on and off and reconnected after some time.  He bemoaned the challenges in his own marriage.  She said that after a few lunches and texts, it didn’t take long.  After three months of the typical “passionate” affair most people think of, she shared that the remaining year found each of them trying to find a way out of it and trying to make sense of how something like this could have happened.  Like I couldn’t end it if it really meant nothing – if there wasn’t a reason….

Based on nothing but antidotes from those in my life, I believe men can fall into affairs for the pure physicality of it.  Women more often have an emotional connection to the person.  A past relationship.  A colleague.  A fellow soccer parent.

After sharing her dark secret with a few friends, all advised her not to tell her husband.  And yet, she wasn’t certain she could keep it from him.  The secret that had been eating her up inside finally came out in the simplest of conversations when he happened to ask, “Do you have something to hide?”

Two months later he filed for a divorce.  In response to the news, she pleaded, “How sure are you?”  His reply, “about 50 percent,” gave her hope.

Here is the rest of the story in her words.  If you pray, then join me in praying for a marriage restoration story.

While my relationship with Christ had been growing for months, it suddenly hit overdrive with my marriage in distress.  The words in Psalms rang true, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

I started reading constantly. I wasn’t sleeping or eating, so I had a lot of extra time.  Books that I’d had on my bookshelf for years, Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs and His Needs, Her Needs by Willard Harley, were read anew along with books new to me: The 5 Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman, plus lots of books on being a spiritual woman.  What I quickly learned was that I wasn’t a Godly woman, and I didn’t show love to my husband.

I embarked on The Love Dare by Stephen and Alex Kendrick.  I won’t give the ending away, but I encourage anyone to do it.  Even if you aren’t married, dare to love your children, your parents, your coworkers with God’s love as outlined in I Corinthians 13.

Through all of this reading I learned, really learned to my core, several principles of Christianity:

1)  God loves me.

2) He is faithful to forgive.  Grace is instant.  I now see friends who are so complete and instant with mercy, just like God is to me.  I long to reach that level of love.

3) By seeking God first, everything else I needed would fall into place.  My husband didn’t die for me, or stay like I had hoped, but I know God did and does.

4) This life is just a moment, not eternity.  It took months of hoping for earthly relationship gain with continual disappointment to reach the point that my hope transcends this lifetime.

I still pray that my husband will return.

I hope that he will recognize this amazing transformation in my life and want to join me in living with God at the center of our marriage.  The purest picture of Christ’s love for his church is marriage.  His church commits adultery every day by worshiping gods like work and possessions above Him.  Yet His grace is instant when we fail, and His forgiveness is complete.

I pray my husband’s heart will heal, and my children will see God through this, but I no longer fear a future without him. My God is sufficient to meet all of my needs and to work for my good because I am working for His purpose.

 

My brave friend shared, at the end of our call, these words about her journey thus far:

I needed him to file for a divorce.  I was never going to be who I am today without him filing.  I have a relationship with God, a reliance upon Him, that I would have never found if he had never left.  But I still pray for restoration.  I still have hope.

Filed Under: Marriage, Sister Stories

Sister Stories: A Secret Revealed

December 11, 2013 by Gindi 2 Comments

sistersforgindi

I think spouses betray each other all the time, she said when we talked after all these years.  Mine was obvious, of course, but husbands and wives betray each other with more than just affairs.  They do it in all sorts of ways, and she listed just a handful of ways that husbands and wives fail to live up to the promises they made on their wedding day.

This is her sister story, in her words.

Many years ago I read that people going through divorce experience stress equal to losing a loved one in death. In the years since, when I’ve heard someone was going through a divorce, I’ve been quick to offer a prayer and a word of consolation, but I could never have imagined the hurt, the destruction, nor that would I experience it firsthand.

I grew up in a Christian home.  My parents read the Bible every day and we went to church three times a week.

I went to a private, Christian college, where I met my husband.  He was raised in a similar household. Sixteen years of marriage had seen the many stresses of everyday life – births, deaths, mortgages, full-time jobs.  Though we were both believers, we did not pray or read scripture as a couple.

Christ meets us where we are in our life’s circumstance to work for our good (Romans 8:28).  The sad truth is that Satan also meets us where we are to work for our destruction.

In what I would describe as a perfect storm, I started an affair with perhaps the only that could tempt me.  Despite almost constant conviction and knowing I would never leave my husband and children, I continued the affair for 18 months.  Once it ended, I kept the secret from my husband for another 18 months.

Nearly a year after the affair ended, we left our church to find a new church home.  Our reasons were purely human though they seemed spiritual.  We took our two small daughters and started visiting churches… a lot of churches.  Every message from a new minister seemed better than the week before.

Some weeks we would visit an early service at one church and the late service at another.  I loved these times.  I was reconnecting to the core of my faith and experiencing worship in a way that I hadn’t since college.  I knew that God was tugging me to get back in a relationship with Him and to make bold moves.

As that summer turned into the New Year, I made resolutions.  I am the type of person who makes resolutions with just about each new month and rarely carry them into the next month.  Two very small events occurred in January 2013 that changed my life.

A radio station issued a 30-day challenge to listen exclusively to Christian music for 30 days.  I wasn’t sure I could live without NPR, but I would show them (like “they” cared) that I could do without pop without any problem and slip right back to it.

Then my mom gave me a copy of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling.  Mom was always giving me Christian books.  I threw most of them away because she gave me so many while I read so little. This time I was more open to exploring the Bible plus the devotionals were short.  My faith grew.

Then came April.  I took my older daughter to a Mother-Daughter Retreat at a Christian camp nearby one weekend.  While the devotionals were on an 8-10 year old level, I was tremendously moved. Something dark, however, was eating me alive.

“Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you might be healed,” the Bible encourages in James 5.

Two days after the retreat, I told my husband my horrible secret.  We were a strong team. We’d been through a lot together.  I knew the road would be tough, but we’d come out stronger than ever.

He was, of course, devastated.  I gave him space while I prayed and hurt for him.  He moved his parents’ RV to a neighboring town and spent a few nights a week there for the next two months.  Then one Monday, after a particularly turbulent weekend, he called me at work to say that he’d arranged for a sitter that night so that we could talk without interruption.  I was so relieved.  Our problems were huge, but all we needed was a game plan to get through them.

“I filed for divorce today,” he informed me and his words hung in the air.

{Join us tomorrow to hear the rest of this sister story.}

Filed Under: Marriage, Sister Stories

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