Things I Wish I Would Have Read Earlier!!

Last week I was doing some research online at work. (Doesn't that make me sound like I'm pursuing a PhD or something? HA! I was reading about authors. Now THAT, my friends, is how research at work should be done!)

Anyway. I was reading about Denise Hildreth Jones. She writes fiction. I've never read her books (yet) but I'm familiar with her because she'd been married (at one time) to a singer I liked. As I read down through her website, I came across this answer to an interview question:

In the summer of 07 I walked through the heartbreaking loss of my thirteen year marriage. It was painful in the deepest sense of the word. But I made some decisions in the very beginning of that journey. The first one was, the enemy may have stolen my marriage, but he wouldn’t rob another day from me through anger or bitterness. The other one was I found an amazing counselor who walked the journey out with me so well. When I first went in his office I said, “I want to do whatever I need to to get through this journey well, because I don’t want to be a year down the road still having to heal from bitter and broken places. So, I entered head first into my grief. I didn’t get to “free parking” and take a free ride back to “Go.” I stopped at every place, grieved it, yelled through it, laughed through it and experienced every part of it.

Oh how I wish I would have read those words a year ago.

I didn't lose a thirteen year marriage, but I did lose love and it did sideline me. But the minute I read that paragraph, I said to God in my heart, "That's it. The enemy may have stolen that relationship, but I'm not letting him have another day of hurt in my life. I want to run forward so that a year from now, I'm not still sitting around aching over what I lost."

Thanks, Denise, for powerful words. Thanks for letting God speak through your pain!