Everyone deserves a second chance.

So let people have it.

You know exactly who I’m talking about because someone just popped up into your mind.

The former drug-addict that slips in the back of church and sits in the back row until the service is almost over and then slips out again. She deserves it.

The father who wounded you, who didn’t know how to be a good example of God to you, but who is a different man now. He deserves it.

The friend who rejected you and betrayed you but who has called and texted but you won’t answer.  She deserves it.

The woman who committed adultery but is humbled, has accepted God’s grace and is living a different life. She deserves it.

They deserve YOUR grace.

The black and white fact is that everyone of us has been given a second chance. And in all reality, a third, a fourth and a fifth chance. Even if we aren’t drug addicts or adulterers.  Every one of us has been allowed to make huge mistakes and then have been accepted, loved, coddled back into grace.

Grace changes people: hardened ears, solidified hearts and broken people are softened by the grace that you and I can give.

I know you are thinking of someone right now.  They haven’t been able to leave your head since you started reading this post.

Who is it?  Give them grace.

And, yes you might get hurt.  Giving people a second chance exposes you and at the same time it strengthens you.

But as a living recipient of thousands of second chances, I promise you it will be worth it.

Do you need to give grace today? Do you need a second chance?

I drive the speed limit.

And I don’t like opening a package of crackers in the supermarket to feed my kids.  There is something in me that needs to pay for them first.

I’m a rule follower. I think it was bred into me.  Which is why my three years of breaking all the rules were so out of character for me.  At least for my personality.

I’d begun to press against the rules that I’d been raised with and in my blindness, seeing no immediate consequences, I questioned the validity of the rules.

Don’t drink.

Don’t flirt with men who aren’t my husband.

Don’t lie.

Don’t…

Nothing horrible was happening (yet) so what was the big deal?

The rule follower in me didn’t become a rule-breaker; she became a rule-questioner.  I wasn’t breaking anything if there wasn’t anything real to break because the rule only seemed real if their was a consequence.  My Evangelical upbringing had taught me that doing things like drugs or having sex before I was married would land me somewhere between hell and a really crappy life.  Here I was married and having an adulterous affair and nothing really bad was happening.  The consequences I thought would fall like an executioner’s axe weren’t falling.

What I’d failed to realize was that I shouldn’t do those things NOT because of the consequences (because in all truth, much of our life is lived without physical consequences) but because doing what was wrong would break relationship with God, and then eventually others.

It was about relationship.  Not about the rules. Because in the right relationship a person doesn’t really need rules.

Let’s just call it the rule of Love.  Jesus called it the Greatest Commandment.

If I love God and if I’m concerned about my intimacy with Him, then the more I want to please Him.  The more my life will look like a person who is in Love with their Creator.  And the more I will live in ways that are righteous and are in line with what we consider “rules”.  I’ll need the rules less as a rigid law because I’m focused on pleasing Him (and running everything through that filter). I will begin to do those things naturally that bring me closer to Him.

The same goes with my husband.  The more I love him, the more I want to be the right kind of wife and all the rules of submission and boundaries we’ve put in place (although important) begin to fade in light of my love for him. They aren’t nearly as important as how much I want to show him how much I love him today.

Rules? All of the other rules hang like a hat on a hook of the rule of Love.

What do you think? Are you a rule follower or a rule breaker?

I used to be afraid of healing.

What it would cost.

What it would mean.

What it would require of me.

Years ago, trying to function in my marriage while having an affair was like trying to run a marathon on a broken leg.  It just wasn’t working and there was something really, really wrong.

I knew things had to change and part of that included my healing, but I was worried about what that mending would cost.

What would it take to stitch up my heart, to make it pliable again when it had become so hard?  As if the pain from the healing would be worse than the pain in my current state.

Healing takes time I wasn’t wiling to give and energy I didn’t have.  It also takes a submission to the Healer that I was reluctant to begin.

And the worst of it, mending requires introspection. Looking at myself, at a blackened heart, is ugly.  I didn’t want to see it and I didn’t want anyone else to see it either.

Wounds need time for the air to purify and clean them.  Tendons and relationships need to grow back together where they have been severed.  Bones and trust need time to form new bonds and new connections.

When the pain in me became to great to  bear and the current state of me was uglier than I knew I could repair on my own, I broke in half.

Bones shattering, tendons ripping, ribs cracking, muscles tearing: the ugliness of breaking was almost as great as the carrying of the sin itself.

This is why healing is scary.  This is why people stay where they are — filled up with the hurt and the loss and the wrong — because it feels so much safer.  The pain we know is easier to medicate the pain we don’t know.  And I won’t lie; the tearing hurts.

But this pain was different.  It had a purpose.  Break in order to mend.

Because it doesn’t end there:  in the breaking.  The breaking is only the beginning. The Healer breaks, and then He mends.

Now I know that mending, even though it costs energy and time, even though it requires me to be silent and wait, even though it means looking closely at my broken places and ugly scars, is the only way to peace.

Peace with God.

Peace with myself.

And there is no fear in that.

Why do YOU think healing is so difficult and scary?

Because you will be tempted.

Someone will look at you in that way the same morning your husband didn’t thank you for getting up in the middle of the night with the kids.

Somebody will share their heart in a way that tugs at you and you’ll want to respond in kind.

You won’t always be in love with your husband.

You will get distracted with good things like kids and church and blogging.

You will be tempted.

And this title is a little misleading because I don’t really think you can affair-proof your marriage.  Not really.  By now, I hope you all know that we are fallible and vulnerable at times. It’s not like baby-proofing (because we all know babies who can climb over the gate at the bottom of the stairs) or fire-proofing (at a high enough temperature, something will burn or melt).

We all are capable.

All the boundaries are good things. They are what keep you from walking down a path toward someone else or another kind of life you think you want.  But boundaries are merely safeguards, not free rides to fidelity.  It is the heart is that truly matters.

So forgive me if any of you have given sermons or written books about 10 ways to affair-proof your marriage or the 5 things to keep your husband faithful to you. I’m sure there are some beneficial pieces of advice there.  But in all honesty I think it all boils down to one thing.

Follow close to Christ daily.

That’s it.  That’s the mystery.

Both of you. If you both are walking in close relationship to God, you will be in close relationship to each other.  If you are closely following Christ, attempting to allow Him to transform you on a day by day basis, you won’t want to be unfaithful to each other. There will be no need for it because Christ will be filling the needs you have and your spouse will be right there with you.  Daily dying to self and becoming alive in Christ is what does it.

Your desires become God’s desires. And you won’t commit adultery.

You can live your whole life trying to safeguard your marriage. You can do all the good and right things, but there will be someone someday (if it hasn’t already happened) who will think you are attractive and tell you so.  There will be someone who seems to know you better and listen in a different way.  There will be a need that your husband cannot fulfill in you and it will seem like someone else can.

When the boundaries that you’ve carefully placed become habits and the fences you’ve built become the necessary routine of your life, these temptations become easier and easier to combat.

But nothing takes the place of a living, breathing daily relationship with Christ. This relationship, this following hard after Him under girds all the boundaries you’ve put into practice. The boundaries are tools to a healthy marriage; they aren’t the heart of a healthy marriage.  Truly living for Christ is the only way to “affair-proof” your relationship.

All the boundaries, all the rules, are important. But love (for the two biggies: God and others) is the real rule.  Love God and you will do what is right for your marriage.

What do you think?  Do you agree?  Do you disagree? Why?

Let’s have a discussion today.

I’ve been busy lately writing in a couple other places than here.

So take a look at the short article I wrote for The Worship Community this morning.  I’m not a worship leader, but my husband has been for as long as I’ve known him, and even so, I write for the WC once in awhile.

Sitting Down (For the Record)

During worship, I sometimes sit.

You’ve seen me.  But then I disappear when everyone else stands, because now I’m hiding behind the dozens of standing bodies of everybody else worshiping.  I’m still there. But I’m sitting.

When the worship leader says stand,

And he says,

Raise your hands.

Close your eyes.

Praise Him…

Sometimes I’m sitting.

I know there’s freedom in worship and for the record I’m really not trying to be a rebel (If I was, I’d show up with a scowl and come in for the sermon only after the music is done.  Or I wouldn’t come at all.)

But I sit, sometimes…

Click here to read the rest of the article and Why I Sit sometimes.

And then come back.  Because last week, I wrote a short post on healing for my dear friend Jenni Clayville (who has walked the same road I have and has been brave enough to share her story on her own blog).  She posted my post on Friday here.

Itches and Miracles

It hurts to heal.  Or at least itches.

When I was a little girl I would scrape my knee/shin/elbow like all little girls do.  After a band-aid was in place my father would tell me not to itch it.  I would think, “It doesn’t itch yet, it just hurts!”

But he was right; as soon as the wound would begin to heal, it would begin to itch and I’d want to rip off the bandage and scratch scratch scratch until it felt better.

But what I didn’t realize was the itching it would have reopened the wound.  The scrape, even if it hurt and itched, needed the environment of the bandage to heal.

And time.  And then a miracle.

It’s the same with us.  With our big stories and big wounds and I-don’t-think-it-will-ever-be-the-same situations…

Click here to read the rest of the post.  If you haven’t met Jenni yet, you’ll love her.

Healing takes time.

I’m currently seeing a chiropractor for this crazy neck thing that I have.  He keeps saying that I have an old injury in my shoulder/neck that is causing me this pain almost 15 years later.  I thought and thought and I remembered that I had injured myself skiing when I was about 20.  Incidentally, that was the first and last time I skiied.

But the remnants of that shoulder injury are still here giving me the range of motion of a 90-year-old woman.  It might take a long time to be free from it.

Healing from my affair took time also.  In some respects, much of the triage, stitch-up-the-jugular vein healing took place quickly: within the first six months.  But I think some of the healing takes place over time, bubbling with purpose under the surfaces of date nights, family dinners and pillow talk.

So be patient.  Keep moving forward, even if it’s slow.

Nothing can take the place of good solid marital counseling (which, in my opinion, can be helpful for ANY couple), but in the absence or in supplement to that, here are some books and websites that are helpful.  Some of them I’ve used myself and some have been recommended.

Books:

• Shannon Etheridge, author of Every Woman’s Battle.  I read this book in the first month of my healing and it helped immensely.  You can buy it here.
• Intimacy Ignited, by Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus.  This was integral for me in discovering (for the first time!) real intimacy with my husband.  It is a book for married couples that outlines God’s design for sex outlined by the Song of Solomon.
• The Love Dare, by Alex and Stephen Kendrick.  I read this much later, but it is very helpful.  It is a book designed to take couples on a 40 day journey of mending and melting hearts that have been separated by hurt and bitterness in marriage.
• Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Influence and Sacred Marriage.  These were given to me recently by my mentor and I am working through the first one.  They are insightful when it comes to the spiritual roles women play in the lives of their husbands.
• The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I think someone got this for us for our wedding 13 years ago and I read it once back then.  I need to read it again. If you haven’t read this book before, pick it up.  It is eye-opening.  And by the way, I am quality time and receiving gifts. My husband is physical touch.  Knowing that helps a lot.

Websites:

• Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.  Books, conferences and an interactive website.
• Gary Smalley, author of many books on marriage.  His website features books, articles and information on hot topics.
• A Chord of Three Strands.  Preparatory conferences for young engaged and married couples.
• Covenant Eyes.  Blog and web accountability software that monitors internet use and reports to people you select.
• Weekend to Remember by Familylife.com. We attended one of these conferences in our first year of healing.  Exceptional.  They hold retreats and conferences designed to help grow your marriage.  Also this website is a wealth of information regarding healthy marriages.
• XXX Church.  An online community devoted to bring awareness, openness and accountability to those affected by pornography.

These are only a few of the resources available for hurting and healing couples and I know I’m leaving out hundreds of amazing books and websites.

What about you?  Is there anything that has helped you that I’ve left out?  Or what are your thoughts on healing?

“My New Name” Conclusion from Sarah Markley on Vimeo.

This is who we are.

If you saw me at the park with my girls, you’d see me trying to find a spot in the shade and making sure my three-year-old doesn’t squeeze all the juice out of her juice box unintentionally. You would never know that I was a woman who committed adultery over six years ago.

If you saw Chad and me in our daily lives, you’d watch us get along much more than fight and see that we can get frustrated with each other for silly things, but that we always, always try to work it out.  It wouldn’t be obvious that we almost walked away from each other one Sunday afternoon.

So why did I do this?  Why did I invite the anger and misunderstanding that I assumed would come with telling my story?  Why did I share private things with (essentially) the entire world?

Because God did such a mighty work in me, that I cannot, will not, be ashamed of it.

I’m ashamed of the grief and heartache I caused.  Still, I am.

And I still apologize to God. To Chad.

But I will never be ashamed of the clarifying, beautifying work of the Holy Spirit in my life and in my marriage.  I know that even though I committed crimes against God, He is using it for glory even now in ways I will never understand.

I can never be ashamed of the grace.

So look around.  There are other people like me who’ve behaved poorly in the past.  There are others who have done shameful things and now they are new and different.  They show no signs of the past on their faces.

Extend grace to them.  Grace has been extended to you.

[If you subscribe by email or view in a reader, please click over to the site to view the video or click here to access it through Vimeo]

FOUNDATION

He told me that Jesus screws up everything.

My husband had been on his own journey during those 24 hours and when I met up with him the next day in the presence of our associate pastor and his wife, Chad said he had to forgive me.

He must.

Because Christ had forgiven him of so much.  He wasn’t that different than I was, in his words, and that we all equally were in need of forgiveness.  In his opinion, he didn’t want to forgive me but he had to. For the love of Christ, he forgave me.  And he did so fully. And he still loved me even though I’d hurt him and ruined everything so desperately.  Jesus in the mix screwed up his desire to hate me, to hold a grudge, to be bitter.

Each day that passed I realized my own sinfulness more, understood God’s grace more and embarked on a campaign to clean my own mind of images that used to comfort but now haunted me.  I never defended my own actions.  From the beginning I understood how my own poor choices and pride had resulted in this affair.

I was done with my old self.  I removed phone numbers from my phone, took pages out of my address book and deleted emails and voicemail messages.  I began to try to erase all that had gone before.  And God softened the hard places of my heart and brought me close.

And together as a couple we made some serious choices.   Our marriage had been diseased from the start and we were beginning to realize the gravity of that.  We poured out all of our alcohol and threw out all of the questionable movies we owned. We cut off our cable and went without television for the next two years.  We existed in an almost monk-like state for as long as it took to heal the relationship that I/we had destroyed.

The foundation that our family-house was built upon wasn’t solid. It never had been.  So metaphorically speaking, we had to tear down the walls and start over.

We immediately began attending crisis marriage counseling.

And then I fell in absolute, head-over, crazy love with this man, my husband.  Different and deeper than when I was 18.  It was a love that had been matured, beaten, broken and mended and it was better than it had ever been before.

I started to let my husband lead and he rose happily to meet that.  I backed off and practiced God-designed submission in the marriage relationship.  I started letting him make decisions and gave my own opinion when he asked for it.  And he asked for it a lot.

And it was so freeing.

I read through the Bible that first year.  Cover to cover, Genesis through Revelation.   Knowledge and spiritual gifts, that I’d suppressed for years, began to flood back to me.  God hadn’t left me, he’d just let me walk away or a long time. But he hadn’t abandoned me.

We created boundaries in our relationship where we’d never had them before.  I am never alone with men.  Ever.  And I tell him everything not because he asks but because I want to.

There were times when he wanted to know details of the actual affair.  And I told him all he wanted to know. That eventually subsided because anything he asked and anything I told him tortured the both of us.  Him because any more details just hurt him more during a time he was trying to heal, and me because I was trying to forget it all.  Trying to remember details just brought up everything I was attempting to forget.

The next months and years were hard, excruciatingly so at times.

But I was still a wife, his wife.  And he still wanted me, amazingly.  I was still a mother.  My daughter still loved me.  And I was still willing to do anything with my whole heart to fight for my family.

** ** **

I’m writing my book about this.  There’s more.  SO MUCH MORE.

Miracles.  Healings.  Protection.  Intimacy.  Love.  Renewal.

But I can say that it has been more than 5 ½ years since January 4, 2004. It has been 5 ½ years of restoration, God’s provision, hard work, tears.

Chad has never thrown it back in my face during an argument.

He’s never brought it up again.  And I have remained absolutely faithful.

We rarely talk about it.  But when we do, it’s with forgiveness and grace and amazement about the power of God.

Know that I am the same woman who had an affair, and at the same time I am completely new.  I am the living proof of the grace of God.

I am the woman in the dust who was caught in adultery.  I was given grace when Jesus spoke directly to me and told me to go and be different.  So I did.

He called me

Loved.

Saved.

Restored.

And these are my new names.

Maybe you hate me.  I understand if you do.

But maybe you don’t.   Maybe you see yourself in me.  Maybe you recognize warning signs in your own marriage.  Maybe you are here reading this for a reason.  Maybe you love knowing that one more person is new in Christ.  Maybe this is you and you can’t stop.  Maybe you need to stop what you are doing and get help.  Maybe you need to confess.

Maybe you understand God’s grace just a little more.

[From the beginning, read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4]

Photo by Misty Matz

CRASH

She told.

She told our pastors.

On January 4, 2004 Chad and I were invited into a room at our church.  My pastor and his wife and our associate pastor and his wife were there with us.

One of them said directly to me, “Sarah, we know that there is something that you need to tell Chad.”

And there it was, a choice. I could lie.  I was so skilled at it that no one would know I was lying.  I could say that I was drunk when I confessed.  Or I could tell the truth and it would all be over. Everything I’d been trying to hold together for so long would be done.  I hated myself so much and what I was doing to my marriage that I was willing to accept whatever consequences would fall.

I was tired, to be honest.  I was tired of hiding, of lying, of hating myself.

I asked them all to leave so I could address my husband by myself.  They agreed and waited in an adjacent room.

So I told the truth.  Finally.

Only by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, still waiting on the fringes of my life, did I have the strength to do this. I never claimed that I did this through my own power, and even at the time I recognized the way I was drawn to confess.

I told him everything.  How long.  With whom.  And he raged.  And yelled and threw things and said things even he doesn’t remember now.

And I broke in half.

I began to realize what I had actually done.  How much I’d ruined.

He left and told me to leave. He told me to go to my parent’s house and tell them what I did.

The next hours are a blank in my memory.  There are things I remember and things I don’t.

I know I was suicidal.  I know that my sister drove with me.  I know that I was without hope.  I know that I might be losing my daughter who wasn’t two yet and my husband who I’d never stopped loving.

Before I went to my mother and father’s I found myself on the living room floor of my associate pastor and his wife.  I wept and didn’t know anything else but that I wanted to be different. I didn’t want to live this life anymore, duality reigning and never knowing who I was.  I wanted to love Jesus.  I wanted to love my husband the way he deserved to be loved.  The way I had promised to love him.

She held me and prayed with me.  She told me who I was in Christ.  She helped me to the feet of Jesus and carried me like the man who had to be lowered in through the roof to be healed.  She bore my stretcher and I broke a second time.

And then I left. There were things I had to do.

I drove to my parent’s house and as I crossed the threshold of the home I’d known since I was 3 years old I told them what I’d done.  The only word I associate with that night is harbor.  For so long I had been without an anchor, but now God’s people were beginning to point me to safety.  My parents took me in and loved me.  She told me to take a shower and eat something and made up their bed for me.   Before I slept, I picked up the Bible for the first time in several years.

Psalm 51.

I didn’t know if Chad would ask me for a divorce. I didn’t know if I was going to be forgiven.  I didn’t know if he would let me see my beautiful baby anymore.  All I knew was that I was finished with my old life.  I didn’t know what my new life would look like but I was quickly becoming prepared to accept the consequences.   I knew that Jesus had forgiven me but I didn’t know if my husband would.

And somehow, miraculously, I was immediately sorrowful.  From the beginning I glimpsed the horror and the devastation I had caused. And although this was so difficult, it is what saved me.

I was ready to do anything it took to save my family and to try to revive what I’d killed.

My new names were

Forgiven.

Grace-Lended.

Found.

[PART FIVE: FOUNDATION and the conclusion of this story will be posted tomorrow.]

If you are new today, begin with Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

DRIPPING

I’m holding a colander underneath the cool running water in the sink.

The water is running through and down and around, but I can’t figure out why.

Someone who is involved in sexual sin thinks that the colander won’t leak.  Even though I knew in my brain I was holding a bowl designed to leak I saw it as intact.  I thought I could hold all the water in, but instead it just ran out all over the place.  And I’d made a horrible, devastating mess.

Everything I was doing was beginning to fall apart.

I was trying to hold together two relationships:  one given to me by God and one that I had taken.  I didn’t want to lose my husband and my daughter, but I didn’t want to end my affair.  I didn’t know HOW to end my affair.

But it all began to break down.  I lied so much sometimes I didn’t even know if I was telling the truth or not.  I began to become overly obsessed with my weight including exercising and eating habits.  I thought this other man loved me in a way that was different than my husband loved me and I thought I needed both in order to be whole.  During this time I would try to hold it all together, like water in a sieve, but it all just ran out.

Alcohol in unhealthy quantities was also a regular part of our weekends.  My husband and I would go “out” in groups (after getting overnight babysitting) dancing and drinking and doing things married people, God’s people, should not be doing.  He would be there too, along with my husband.  This was one of the ways I saw him and fulfilled my own twisted desires to steal (someone’s husband), kill (my love from my own husband),  and destroy (both relationships).  My husband and I hated being alone together during this period of time because it was “no fun”.  The truth was, we were too scared to see what would happen if the dust settled and we were forced to really look hard at each other.

So we filled up our emptiness with other things, people, trips…

And through this whole time, we’d show up to church the next day after a night of excessive drinking and act like nothing had happened.  Sometimes I’d still be drunk on Sunday mornings.  But I was great at hiding it.

I became wildly polar in my emotions.  One afternoon I’d be uncontrollably crying and that same night, I might be basking in the attention of being the life of the party.  I was depressed and I loathed myself and what I was doing.

One night, when I was out with a girlfriend and we were both very drunk, she asked me directly if I was having an affair.

I denied it, but I knew she’d seen it in my face, in my demeanor and in my actions.

She asked me again and I caved easily. I told her just enough to satisfy her incessant vodka-motivated questioning.  She told me to end it and tell my husband.

Of course I will…

But I didn’t. And a month passed and she asked me again if I’d told. And I hadn’t.  Because, namely, I didn’t know how.  I didn’t know how to tell the truth anymore.

I’d begun to know myself best as

Faithless.

Disloyal.

Untrue.

The train crash that happened next was both the worst and best thing that ever happened to me.

It maimed me.  But it also healed me.

[PART FOUR: CRASH will be posted tomorrow.  To start from the beginning, Part 1 and Part 2]