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?

Believe it or not, once upon a time I used to be really in shape.

I’d spend hours (you read that correctly) in the gym not trying to lose weight (I’d already done that) but trying to build muscle and tone my body.  One hour of cardio and then one or more hours of weight lifting EVERY day.  I’d usually take one day off a week.  Let’s just say I was overtraining. But for a very short amount of time, I had great muscle definition and a low body fat percentage.

The amount of time and energy I poured into this was deafening. I’d arrange my day and my life around my gym time.   If I took time off or my schedule was interrupted for something (vacations, illness, etc) within the first week I’d notice a distinct difference in my fitness.  Mainly, my muscle tone.  I know it sounds silly, but it’s true.

And then when I got pregnant with my first daughter taking months off of the gym, was when I really began to notice the atrophy.

Atrophy: the degeneration of something from disuse.

A few months’ vacation from calf raises and squats and all of a sudden my legs felt like jello.  Some time off from curls and I couldn’t see my biceps any longer.  Triceps?  They were the first to go.  To keep it up, I would have had to spend nearly the same amount of time devoted to exercise and weight lifting for the rest of my life.

Now, I’ve settled into a routine of working out when I can, jogging a few miles a few mornings a week and squeezing in squats and lunges at the kitchen sink.  I no longer have triceps that I can see or definable quads.  I simply don’t have the time (or the motivation) to spend 14 hours a week in the gym.

Anything atrophies if we stop using it.  Including relationships.  Especially relationships.

Marriages and friendships are either getting better or getting worse.  There is no hover posture for relationships.

We are either taking steps to repair, restore and increase closeness and intimacy, or we are not.  And when we do not, it begins to atrophy. The relationship loses effectiveness and impact.

Of course there are natural times for relationships to cycle in and out of uber-excitement and crazy joy (read: my time off from the gym for pregnancy).  That’s just life.

But, I don’t want to get flabby in my friendships or my relationships with my daughters.  I don’t want to lose my intimacy with my husband.  I want to fight this. It seems like a lot of work, right? It is.  I can’t lie.  There isn’t any one-word fix for it, or “Eight Steps to Intimacy” e-book I can send you.

I can’t ignore the needs of my husband for months and expect our relationship to be at the same place it was.  I can’t.  I can’t put off my daughter’s requests for time spent with her just one-on-one and hope that our relationship will be better for it.  I need to pour time and energy, at a deafening intensity maybe, into the relationships I deem important if I want them to flourish.

Unless you don’t want them to flourish.  Unless you want to be flabby.  In which case you will be.

You won’t get fit by sitting on the couch.

How do you fight relationship atrophy?

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.