Friday, January 9, 2009

My Thesis Statement

I think I am a perfectionist. And not the kind of perfectionist who gets things done immaculately, making others feel inadequate and sloppy. No, I'm the kind of perfectionist that is paralyzed, refusing to move forward until she sees a flawless path before her because she is so afraid to fail. It is easy to encourage--and even to expect--others (like my husband) to approach life with a bold, large faith, stepping forward in brave leadership. I have full confidence that God will honor those risk-takers with providence and protection. But when it comes to my own journey, I sometimes feel frozen, not sure where God's presence fits into the details. Like He's only good for the big stuff.

Which is why I have had such a hard time sitting down and putting my thoughts into this blog.

You see, my expectations are extremely high. I want to spit out my experience in order of how things happened, from start to finish. I want it to read like a book. In fact, when I'm done, I want it to be able to go straight to print; any editor I hire will read through it and say, "why'd you hire me?! It's perfect!"

And of course, everything I write will be exactly what every person needs to hear. Everyone will relate, and millions will be changed by my wise words and touching exposition. Like none of it has been said before. Pshh.

That's a huge burden to lay on myself.

So I decided that I needed to write a thesis statement for this blog. I Googled "thesis" and got some help from some university, because I've never been good at understanding what the thesis is all about. And here's what I came up with:

The question is: why am I writing this blog?

The answer: Because God has met me in such amazing ways as my husband recovers from his sex addiction, I want to share my side of the journey in the hopes of encouraging others who have experienced betrayal.

So there. I reserve the right to come back and modify it as needed. I'm serious about learning how to create a proper thesis statement, so if any of you have an editorial remark, by all means leave it!

Now, in light of that thesis statement, I hereby proclaim that I am just going to start jotting down things as they come to me, no perfection necessary. There will be no chronological order. One day I'll post something that just happened, some posts will be something I wrote in my journal a long time ago. So if you're looking to identify with my journey in order to know when the pain and madness will end, you probably won't find what you're looking for. But I can tell you this: there is life after betrayal. Be patient. Help and healing will find you.

I hope you enjoy my story....thanks for reading!