I just wanted to take the time to welcome a new member of our blog team. Cindy Beall has an amazing story of grace, redemption, and healing that she will be sharing with all of the XXXchurch readers. I am very excited to have Cindy here and even more excited to see what God does with her story.
-Brian McGinness
“My Own Personal D-Day”
No one thinks their life will resemble an episode of Jerry Springer. We don’t grow up and dream of being humiliated in front of the entire world. We know it happens to other people but never to us. But on February 19, 2002, I found myself starring in my very worst nightmare.
My husband, Chris, came home from work almost as soon as he’d gone. He’d only been in his new pastoral role at our church for six weeks so I definitely didn’t expect his presence that morning. When he walked through our front door, I was surprised. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. He asked if we could talk which really meant that he would be talking and I would be listening.
The next several minutes consisted of him confessing things to me that you only read about in books or see on TV. He bared his soul and told me that he’d been unfaithful to me with numerous women in numerous places at numerous times. As if that information wasn’t enough, he finished with the kicker: One of the women was pregnant and he was pretty sure the baby was his.
I didn’t understand how we got to this point. After sitting in a stunned silence, I asked a few questions. I finished with “why did you do this?” and he responded, “Because I’m addicted to pornography.”
That was my life. In an instant. I went from unpacking boxes in our new home to having my future altered within 60 seconds. I knew immediately that I would never be the same again. I was completely aware that my comfortable existence on earth was over. I never thought these kinds of things really happened in real life.
But they most certainly do.
Couples are being plagued with betrayal in their own marriages every single day. Infidelity is rampant. Pornography addiction is either accepted or ignored. Infidelity and pornography have been glamorized and joked about on TV and on the big screen, but there is very little about it that is funny.
I can’t even begin to tell you in one blog post all that God has done to heal, redeem, and restore my marriage over the last 9 ½ years. My first book, Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken, released just this month and is the place where I laid everything out on the line in hopes to help others who will walk this unfortunate path. Not only that, buy my prayer is that any person who reads my book will be inspired and encouraged because we serve an awesome God who still performs miracles today.
My marriage is living proof.
You can find Cindy’s book Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken here. If you as a wife are working on healing from your husbands struggle with sexual sin this is an amazing book to pick up.