I was thinking back a few months and decided I should share an experience my wife and I had in relation to my recovery from addiction and her recovery from depression.
After a relapse, my wife was understandably very upset and I was understandably very discouraged. Years of pain resulting from this addiction were burying me in hopelessness.
Fortunately, my bishop had recently directed me to an LDS ARP meeting. I was gaining new insights weekly. One of the suggestions in the ARP manual was to pray to the Father to show me life in the future if I did not repent. So I asked him one day.
That night, I dreamed that I was in a singles ward, and that I had been separated from my wife. I felt really awkward at the singles ward because I knew everyone else felt awkward that a divorced guy was in their congregation. The bishop was really kind to me, though. And he was deeply concerned about my being without a woman. Because I had been married, he believed that my emotional recovery would require being with a woman, and he set out to try to get me on a date. He said he knew a girl who was a lot like me. When he told me who she was, I remembered seeing her at church and thought she was really pretty, and was even sure that she had shown signs of liking me. I consented to go on a date with her.
The dream time-lapsed to my date with that girl. We were at a sit-down restaurant. I was sitting across the table from her and admiring her beauty. She was blonde and looked like a Hollywood star. She looked like the girls that permeate filthy entertainment everywhere. And she was really nice to me. We had a great dinner. However, there was a pervasive unhappiness underlying the whole scene. I missed the woman I had been married to (my wife).
After dinner, I took the girl I was dating to her home to drop her off. She invited me in. She wanted to be physical. I consented to a kiss, but at that point in my dream, I lost it. I couldn't bear the thought of being with this woman. I wanted the affection she had to offer, but I wanted it from my wife, not from this new girl! I began to ball hysterically. I knew I could never be happy again because I had lost my wife. I wanted so badly to love and be loved, but felt that anything I could get at this point was shallow, empty, and lacking in eternal scope. The pain was unbearable. I needed my previous marriage back and I couldn't accept anything else.
I woke up at that point, feeling that I had just been given a dream by God. I knew my prayer had been answered. Then my wife woke up and related to me that she had had a dream about our future. It turns out that, unbeknownst to me, my wife had prayed that same day that the Lord would show her what our marriage would be like if I overcame my addiction. She was worried we wouldn't be happy again.
In her dream, she saw us together with our children. She said everything was peaceful, and that I, her husband, was a perfectly happy and content man and a great husband and father. I was functional and there were no fears or worries at all regarding my addiction.
That was an amazing experience for us. The Lord showed us what our options are, and though there is definitely reason to fear my addiction, that we should have hope because happiness is what He has planned for us and his Atonement has made recovery possible.
I highly encourage struggling couples everywhere to take the advice in the ARP manual and ask the Lord to show you the consequences of repenting or not repenting. He will show you His love.
No comments:
Post a Comment