Have you ever made choices in your life that you knew were stupid? I mean you knew that right choice, but instead you chose the complete opposite of what you should do? You haven’t? Good.
Me neither….

The last two weeks or so have just been a series of bad choices. It’s not like I didn’t know better or I was confused as to what God’s standard was. I simply chose to ignore the “right” way.

Basically, this last week has been shitty (I guess my blog is no longer rated G). I’m not even 100% sure how it all started. As you know, I got the divorce papers in the mail last week. I’m pretty sure that was the catalyst for what put me into a downward spiral.
I was angry at Andrea.
I was angry at myself.
But mostly I was angry at God.

How could He let this happen to me? After all the hard work that I’ve done. After all the sacrifices I’ve made. After all I’ve done for God, don’t I deserve to have a healthy marriage again?

I was being selfish and unreasonable.

And here’s the stupid part: instead of telling Him how I felt, I chose to ignore Him. It wasn’t that I felt distant from God or felt that He had left me. It was me pushing Him away. I remember being at Sandals and feeling His presence. Feeling Him wanting me to be close to Him. And all I said was, “I have nothing to say to You.”

I didn’t want to do it God’s way. I wanted to run my life (because that’s always a good idea!). I mean, what did doing it “God’s way” ever get me?
An awesome job?
A beautiful daughter?
A place to stay with an amazing family?

Why would I ever want to do it His way? Who cares if God has big plans and amazing blessings in store for me? What if I had to wait a year before I saw any of those blessings or His plan? What if it was five years? (Remember how my core sins are greed and lust?) I don’t want to wait for Him. I want it my way and I want it now. I just wanted to have a good time. I wanted to be happy and feel good after feeling like crap for the past eight months. I guess that it came down to me being selfish and choosing worldly pleasures over what God wanted for me.

And then, because Satan likes to kick us while we’re down, he popped an idea in my head…

You see, about two weeks ago I had upgraded the hard drive in my laptop. I could have chosen to clone the old one but I wanted to start from scratch. There was a handful of applications that I knew I was going to need to install again, like Chrom, iTunes, Photoshop, etc. For everything else I had just planned on reinstalling them as I need them. But one application slipped through the cracks. It’s a quiet little app. It runs silently in the background. You’d hardly know it was there except for the email you get every week. The app I’m talking about is X3Watch. For about 10 days or so I had assumed it was still on my computer. I thought everything was still honky-dory. But that little, innocent thought of “Hey, I need to reinstall X3Watch again,” turned into “Hey, X3Watch isn’t on my computer anymore…”

It wasn’t good.

I had regressed back into my old ways. I loved being able to control the situation. And no matter what, none of the women on my computer screen will ever say no to me or leave me.

Which that reminds me of something else I’ve been struggling with: affirmation. My top two love languages are Touch and Words of Affirmation. And since I pretty much haven’t had a wife in over eight months, I haven’t had anyone to fill my “love tank” (I realize it sounds corny, but that’s how I heard it in counseling). A few weeks back I was hanging out with this woman and we were having a really great time. For the first time in a very long time, I didn’t feel guilty about being alone with someone of the opposite sex. I felt good being around her. She laughed at my jokes and I could make her smile (AFFIRMATION) Side note: those where two things that initially attracted me to Andrea. There was also physical contact when this woman would playfully hit or shove. You know, the flirty kind of stuff (TOUCH). As you can see, she was (unintentionally) filling my love tank. I was eating it up. I loved every minute of it. But it still wasn’t right. After all, according to the State of California and in the eyes of God I am still married.

We did end up talking and I explained how being around her made me feel and how I wasn’t sure if I was strong enough to resist the temptation. I hated that after so long of being emotionally drained I had to cut off this source of what was feeding me. I guess God wanted to be my source for love and affirmation. He was also developing my character. He wanted to see if I would do the right thing. Which, by the way, He had a backup plan for me that I was unaware of. So even if I made the wrong choice and sacrificed my character, I wouldn’t do something I would regret.

Moving on to last night…

Monday nights are my Men’s Group. Basically it’s anywhere form six to ten guys who can spill their guts and hold each other accountable. I wasn’t able to make it last week (see: crazy, ridiculous lighting system project) and I could feel how much I missed it and need to be around these guys. So during last night’s group I laid it all out. I explained exactly how I felt about everything. The bummer about the particular men that were at the group last night is that only one other guy is married. Nobody else there can fully understand what I’m going through on the divorce front. They can however relate to being angry at God. And when I told them how when I look into my little girl’s big, brown eyes and all she wants is a mommy and daddy who love each other, it breaks my heart. The ONE thing she wants I can’t give her. That struck a chord with a few of the guys there. But nothing anybody said really made me feel any better. That was until we split into one-on-one groups and I was really able to share everything that had been on my heart with another man. I’m not exactly sure what it was that he said or how he said it, but I feel better. Maybe it was just that I talked to somebody?

So here’s the good news:

As of this afternoon, I finally prayed to God again. I told Him I was still angry. I also told Him that I realize I’m being unreasonable about it, but at least I’ve started talking to Him again. I’ve also reinstalled X3Watch and re-added all my accountability people to it. I’m not making any promises right now about getting back into reading, although I was given some advice that I should read the book of Habakkuk. I might try that one tonight or tomorrow. I will also make an effort to pray more. I still feel like I have nothing to say, but maybe I should lead with that?

So now you’ve gotten to see a side of me that I’m not proud of and that I hate. And since the Father and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms, the next time you talk with Him, if you could please remember me. I’m not even sure what to ask for, though. It’s not like I need Him to make Himself real to me or to make His presence known to me. I feel Him. I feel His presence. I know He’s with me. I just want this whole mess to be done with.

I want to be normal and whole again.