One Step Forward, two steps back...

Just when things seem to be going well, the drinking resurfaces?  Why is it necessary?  Why can't it just stop?  Why does it create such tension?  How can such negativity be ignored?  What can prevent it?  How does it create such a pull?  If the pain of it all is so evident, then why keep drinking?  It is really hard to understand sometimes.  How do I forgive something that just keeps on happening?  It is a challenge that I know I need His help with.  It is hard not to get discouraged by it.

There will be a day when all of this will pass.

Psalm 25 16-21.
Turn to me and be gracious to me,
for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷ Relieve the troubles of my heart
and free me from my anguish.
¹⁸ Look on my affliction and my distress
and take away all my sins.
¹⁹ See how numerous are my enemies
and how fiercely they hate me!

²⁰ Guard my life and rescue me;
do not let me be put to shame,
for I take refuge in you.
²¹ May integrity and uprightness protect me,
because my hope, Lord,^[c] is in you.

Please, give me a forgiving heart, Lord

New Beginnings

So I spoke to him a few weeks ago and his drinking habits have reduced significantly until yesterday, but there is now a regular glimpse of the man I fell in love with.  Praying that this is a lasting change and the move towards something better.  It seems like it.

The beginning of answered prayer I hope.  Thank ful for the firends that I have been surrounded by in the mean time.
God bless.

Finally

It happened. I worked up the nerve to have a discussion.  No commitments achieved, no admittance that there is a drinking problem, but acknowledgement that I believe we have a problem.

The truth is out and I don't know what will be next, but I cannot believe the load that seems to have been taken off. 

Thankful for wisdom, and confidence and thankful that it was  a reasonable discussion.
Thankful that it is a new beginning.

God bless,

"Treasures of Darkness"

Enough is Enough....finally arrived.  Monday night, May 21st, I was tired and looking forward to a great sleep after a long weekend. 

He drank himself to sleep and passed out on the couch.  He came to bed so drunk after midnight that he couldn't put on his sleep apnea mask and clumsily stumbled around in bed until 2:30 in the morning.

I think he tossed and turned and fumbled about which cause me to wake every 15 to 20 minutes.  I woke up exhausted.  I asked him how he slept in the morning.  He said he fell asleep downstairs.  I corrected him and suggested that he passed out down stairs and that it had to stop.  He turned his back to me and would not respond. 

Why can't he see what it is doing?  Why do I need to lay it out?  Why does he ignore the issue?  I know what has to be done.  I need to find the right time.  It is okay for him to identify mistakes, pounce on them and ridicule because of them, but drunken absent mindedness, disrespectful and in appropriate behaviour do not bear comment?

Why must the devil interfere so in my house.  I pray that God helps us all and gives me the wisdom and the timing to say the right thing.

It is not going to be easy, but it has to be done.

From May 6, Calendar,Year Unknown (Possibly as old as 1814)

"Treasures of Darkness"
"It is the factory of suffering that the Holy Spirit manufactures the article of sympathy.  The sweetest of God's children are generally those who have suffered most.  Paul's life was full of comfort to others, but it was packed with suffering to himself.  John's life was the same.  Suffering generally hardens the sinner but it softens the saint.  It is safer to pray for suffering than it is to pray for ease."

May I be a softened saint.