"My Grace Is Sufficient"

2 Corrinthians 12:9
  "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee:  for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."




I'm doing a study on "Grace" as it applies to my struggle with my recovery.  A few weeks ago I had an uncomfortable (word used loosely) meeting with my bishop.  It was evident as we spoke that he was clueless as to the effect this addiction has on the wife.  When he looked me in the eye and asked "why are you still struggling?," I wanted to run and hide.  I still feel so triggered by that experience.  Truly he does NOT get it.

"Christ's grace is sufficient to transform us" (Brad Wilcox)

This line alone,  in all my study,  comes as close as I'm going to get for why I need grace and what it is to me as a recovering wife of a sex addict.

It is to transform me.

I'm looking for a transformation right now.

A way free from the bonds of this trial.

Not a way out, but a way through what traps me and keeps me mired in the pain and the despair.  I recognize growth will come from it -- eventually, but what do you do in the meantime.  Because, unlike what my bishop knows or thinks -- this is a journey through a personal hell unlike anything that anyone can experience or compare.   A journey that can be long and convoluted depending on the depth of the spouses addiction.  The deeper the spouse gets in the ugliness of this -- the more pain and hurt is heaped on the heart of the wife that she will live with and need to process through.

I love the word "Grace" so much that I have it in a charm locket I wear frequently.



I bought this charm because of the significance of the word as it applies to how I want to see and treat others.  What I forget, is that I needed so desperately to gift it to myself as well.  Not just the charm, but the application of the word and all that it implies.

If grace is as Brad Wilcox says; to transform or to change -- then grace is such a needful part of the self-care that I need to do for myself as I change and transform.

I have done a lot of recovery work in the last year or so.  I started with Addo Recovery (http://addorecovery.com) initially learning about betrayal trauma and how that has impacted my life all these years.  Finding Addo was my 'balm in Gilead.'  Truly it was the salve that my heart was desperate for these many years.  From Addo I learned the terms, the whys, the explanation for what was really happening to me.  Without all this information -- there was no grace to give myself.   Prior to Addo, I was like my bishop, always wondering why I was struggling or why I couldn't just 'get over it'.

As I continued my recovery I knew that just as my head needed healing, my soul would too -- in a different way.  A friend in my Addo group lead me to the Healing Through Christ program (http://www.healingthroughchrist.org).

I never worked a 12-step program in my life before HTC.  I never thought I would ever have a need for one.  Wouldn't being active in the church protect me from that?  (Talk about a faulty belief.)  Still, I had the subconscious belief that I would some how skate past a need for 12-step type healing because of my testimony, my faith, my principled belief system.  Now, I can't see how I survived without it.  The faith I have built, the tools I have learned have been incomparable to any class or forum of gospel learning.  My HTC group is a sweet spot in my life.

Working a recovery program  is a crucial piece of my healing process, but it cannot be accomplished without the offering of grace, without the understanding of what grace really is as a gift from the Savior.

As I sat at my desk this afternoon with my phone and computer dialed in to my weekly 12-step meeting reviewing step 11 ("Seek through prayer, scripture study and meditation to know the Lord's will and to have the power to carry it out) I had the sweet witness of the Spirit that what I am learning and doing is 'nourishing me by the good word of God' and that I need to just keep on this path.  This is the path the Lord wants me on.  This recovery program will get me -- in the Lord's time, to where the Lord wants me to go.  I need to be patient with myself while I work to get there.

And be patient with a bishop who does not get this trial.


"Grace is not the absence of God's high expectations.   Grace is the presence of God's power."  (Brad Wilcox)




Christ's grace is sufficient to change me.






7/11/2014 -- Additional thoughts:
When I study a word, concept or principle, I'm also talking it up to anyone who will listen and walk with me while I think it through.  I love that I have friends that are there for me while I wallow in places I am not managing well.  

These two additional points, I hope, add to the depth of the word grace and what it needs to be for all of us.  (Thank you my friend for pointing my heart further towards my understanding and offering of grace.)

From the book entitled, "Boundaries" by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend (pg 47) we gain this insight:  "Not confronting our fear denies the grace of God and insults both his giving the gift and his grace to sustain us as we are learning."

From Glennon Melton; "When we lie, we steal others chance to unleash the power of grace into our lives and into the world.  When we lie, we smother grace."