— Chapter Three —
I’ve got to sleep,” I admonished myself during the middle of another sleepless night. “I can’t depend on these sleeping pills.” Staring at the ceiling, I knew I would have to come to grips with my husband’s opinion of me. Trash! Someone he crumbled up and threw away.
While restlessly tossing from one side of the bed to the other I asked myself, “What did I do that was so wrong? Was I too boring? Too predictable? Should I have planned exciting get-aways? What if I had been smarter …discussed current events more frequently, read more books? Would he have respected me more?”
Unable to get comfortable, I plumped up my pillow that had dried from last night’s tears. Still more abrasive questions rubbed my emotions. Did he resent that I kept to a budget? Was I too cautious? He had been my life! I sacrificed everything for him, even my “rights” to have more time with him. He kept such a busy schedule. Ministry demanded so much time, and I had been understanding. Were those the reasons, or were there others? If there were, he never told me.
From the depths of my heart I knew I had never purposely set out to dishonor, disgrace or discredit my husband. I had no hidden agenda to destroy our marriage. A trail of deceitfulness had never been present before in our relationship. I had truly loved and cherished him and I honestly believed that he had once loved me. Yet I had no answers.
Succumbing to this sleepless night, I reached for the lamp beside my bed. Its light shone on my open Bible. It seemed as though a thousand nights had passed since I’d last picked it up. A bookmark lay in the eighteenth chapter of Psalms. My eyes were immediately drawn to these already highlighted verses:
For I have kept the ways of the
Lord,
And I have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all His ordinances were before me,
And I did not put away His statutes from me.
I was also blameless with Him,
And I kept myself from my iniquity.
Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
According to the cleanness of my hands in His eyes
(Psalm 18:21-24 NASB).
Tears blurred the words making it difficult to read. They were a soothing ointment that brought relief from those searing questions.
“Lord,” I whispered, “Thank You for telling me that You know that I didn’t wickedly depart from You. I didn’t purposely set out to do something so wrong as to cause my marriage to fail. And like the psalmist, ‘I did not put away Your statutes from me.’”
My heart melted as I read, “I was also blameless with Him.” In those sacred moments God told me through His written Word that He saw me as blameless…above reproach. With gratitude I lingered there, grasping the thought that this was how God felt about me.
And the next verse, “Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands in His eyes...”
“Oh Lord, of all the verses I could have randomly selected tonight, this is what You wanted me to know. Thank You for seeing me as having clean hands in Your eyes. Even if no one else will ever know, thank You for telling me that You know. No matter what I may have done, whether or not I am to blame, tonight I ask You to forgive me.”
With my finger I touched every word as I read them over and over again then wrote them in my journal, knowing that I would need to revisit this page many, many times.
Copyright 2001, 2004 Donna Christensen
All rights reserved.
Published Online by: The Biblical Reader
www.biblicalreader.com