Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. Things are very difficult.
I am struggling with believing lies and I feel like I am under spiritual attack. I have been having nightmares every time I sleep since the day I told you my therapist thought I was under spiritual attack and had you pray. I wake up stressed out, terrified, depressed...from disturbing dreams.
I admitted to my therapist what I had been feeling since my husband told me he wanted to divorce me - the awful feeling that led me to attempt suicide on New Years Eve. I feel like my life is not worth living without my husband, He was the first person to make me feel loved (because of traumatic childhood) and safe. For the first time in my life I did not feel lonely and alone. My therapist said that as long as I believe my life is not worth living without him in it, that I will not get better from my depression and I will be stuck in grief.
I am struggling so much with this belief - I guess I know it is a wrong way to think, but I do not know how to change it. My husband meant everything to me... He was a huge support for me during graduate school and struggling with my depression. He was my only and best friend. He was my comfort and my sunshine.
When I look at my future, without him, it looks dark and horrible. I see loneliness, more despair, and lack of connection. I do not see anything good there because he is not in it.
I know that is so sinful - that I believe my husband can give me hope and a future, but that God can not. I know I gave him a place above God in my life...I felt loved for the first time and I was greedy for it.
I could really use your prayers to get out of this darkness and to have the RIGHT beliefs about my future and to grieve properly.
I feel so terrible and sad. I can tell when I am under spiritual attack certain times when I cry. I feel totally out of control, I want to die, I feel completely hopeless. It is terrifying. It is hell. It makes me want pick up something and hurt myself. It is scary. Tonight was like that for several hours.
I feel hopeless about my future - getting over the depression. I am feel so stuck and trapped, like I cannot move or even see out of the pit I am in.
Please pray that I will be able to overcome the false beliefs, especially the one about believing I need my husband to have a future. I just feel hopeless about it. I miss him so much.
I will continue to pray, in fact, I am praying as I write this, I would also like to offer you this.
Our own family is deeply in grief at the moment, there are three things that are helping us deal with it.
1. a loving family we have in the church...this isn't available to everyone, as unfortunate as that is, but you have at least a small family here on the forum, allow them to encourage you and allow them to carry even a small piece of your burden for you. In fact, PM me anytime, if you feel safe, I'll be happy to carry a bit of your burden for you, I'm tired of carrying mine...
2. In the midst of deep grief, consuming grief, we found it very healing to seek God. To purpose to see God in the midst of that grief. Let me see, an example. Our grief is over suddenly loosing our 18 year old son, while our 21 year old is preparing to be target practice for the enemy in Afganastan so that another unit can come in and rescue them. As I thought about our 18 year old and how much I missed him, I remembered chasing away all his problems with a kiss. But this time, I couldn't kiss the problem away, this time a kiss didn't fix what was wrong. This time, I had to trust God to kiss him for me, to fix what was wrong with His own love, a love greater (though I can't fathom it) than my own. Looking for God and seeing HIm in the midst of such great pain, can and is very healing. Still hurts, but it's a hurt that gives you vision of something greater than the pain.
3. The third thing that we are finding that helps is to recapture our thoughts so to speak. Scripture tells us to renew our minds. To hold captive our every thoughts. For us this involves thinking about who our Jonathan was, not on the details of that day, details that still give us nightmares (though those are fading). When we think about the good, the faithfulness of God, the future with hope and promise, love that others are offering to us, it helps to push aside the bad that longs to take root and keep us from the victories that God has for us.
and 4. Keep in mind that God didn't allow this into your life to destroy you, but rather it is allowed that you might grow closer to Him, that you might know God in a deeper more abiding way than you ever thought possible.
I hope that helps, it has done wonders for us...and again, it doesn't mean that the pain all goes away, it just helps to manage the pain in a constructive way.
