A Journey to the Perfect Love: Lasting Beyond the Broken Pieces

By Hope Williams

Standing in the ruins and broken pieces of a marriage or relationship that you truly love can make you question everything you thought you knew love to be. The devastation of lies, infidelity, and broken promises cannot be what God meant when He spoke about love. Yet here we were standing in the midst of one of the biggest battles we would face, one that would last for years, not months. The impact made it hard to breathe. Was love worth fighting for? Love is truly a journey, and God does not tell you all the things you will face to fully embrace it. Yet there is a way. You will find it as you dare to journey past the pain of human imperfection to the perfect love. Pack your bags and come discover how perfect love can lead to truth, healing, renewed hope, and restoration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638852285

Book preview

Chapter 1

Resurrected or Dead

The walls around me seemed to be closing in as I sat staring with a blank look in my eyes. There were no more tears that I could cry, but my heart was still racked with pain. I can’t breathe, I thought. I don’t have the strength to fake it today. I don’t know how to get my sons dressed and ready. Heck, I can’t get myself dressed and ready. How can I face the day after this blow to my marriage? How can I look anyone in the face and they not see the mess? How hypocritical is it to go to church and pretend that everything is okay when inside I felt my life and my marriage slipping away? I looked a little while longer as the long clergy robe caught my eyes. When I put it on, others came to me for prayer. I couldn’t pray for anyone in my condition. I was in desperate need for a miracle myself. Would anyone even care enough to really notice that I was bleeding internally and in desperate need of a miracle? Lord, help me!

It seemed like one of the longest nights of my life, just a few hours earlier. It was the eve of Easter Sunday when most people were getting ready to put on their Sunday’s best. They were preparing for one of their few visits to their local church. Others were preparing meats for the grill and side dishes to go with it so that the family can come together. After the preacher completed his or her third or fourth closing of the sermon, everyone gathered for a good meal. This was typical in many churches that were predominately African American. I think it was because the preacher understood that many individuals only came to church on special holidays, and so the preacher wanted to give the Lord ample time to save their soul.

Easter was a holiday that was commercialized as if it were about a bunny and a basket full of insatiable treats. However, for anyone who grew up in the church or even near a church, especially in the African American community, we understood that Easter was about one man, Jesus Christ. It was about His humanity, His deity, and His life-giving sacrifice on the cross. It depicted a horrible death with a powerful resurrection ending. Anyone who knew about Jesus understood He was one bad boy. Who else could die, lie down for a few days, and get back up with all power in His hands? The Christian faith is based on the understanding that Jesus Christ died to set us free from eternal damnation and that He took the consequences of the sins that all the rest of us should have paid for. Who didn’t want to serve this kind of great leader? Who else would die for me even when I didn’t deserve it?

Well, right now, I wasn’t so sure if even He would be happy that He paid such a great price for me. I was not one of those individuals who went to church occasionally. Easter wasn’t just a great excuse for me to dress cute and show off my new outfit. I was one who held the responsibility of teaching others about who God is and His amazing grace, love, and mercy. My husband and I took our family to church, and we were all very active in our local church. I had been a Christian since I was a little girl and not ashamed to tell others about it. I also was a leader at my job, in my community, my home, and my church. My husband and I would celebrate fifteen years of marriage that year, and our five sons were a blessing to our lives. Our lives had not always been perfect and we had many rocky roads we’d driven down, but we never stopped driving.

This evening, however, would prove to be one of the most difficult yet that year. I felt dead and was hoping that my honesty would allow my life and my love to experience the resurrection power of Jesus Christ. I was in serious emotional and spiritual trouble, and I didn’t even know how to cry out for help except to be honest about what was troubling me. I had tried for three days to find the right time to speak quietly with my husband. Five sons often made it challenging to gain those moments alone. When they did occur, we were both so tired that we would simply fall asleep. However, this night, the night before resurrection was to be celebrated in churches around the country, I knew that something in my life was about to die.

I tried all night to find subtle ways to let Orlando know that I needed to talk with him. Like most husbands and wives, he knew me well. He could read my signals. He understood that I had something on my heart that I needed to share, and he committed to make time for us to talk. That night, as we sat on the plush caramel-colored sofa in our bedroom, he pulled me close, making me feel that this was a safe place no matter how difficult the subject. My sense of unworthiness made me wish that I could fast-forward past this part of my life story and get to the happily ever after. The time that it took me to formulate the first words felt like walking the green mile. I knew that it was highly possible that this would be the last warm embrace I would feel from this man’s arms for a very long time, so I paused a bit longer to relish it. I kept reminding myself (and Jesus) that tomorrow was Easter, resurrection Sunday; and surely, He still had the power to raise dead things. I asked Him to stay on standby because I had a feeling that my marriage was about to flatline.

I proceeded with caution to tell him the news that I was certain would rock his world. Like a passenger aboard a plane that had just been hijacked, I braced myself for the apparent collision about to occur. I was careful to keep a watchful eye out for signs and signals of distress as I entered with extreme caution. There was a gentleman in my space at work. He and I shared a bit of history, which will be spoken about more in a later chapter. At work, he often expressed his attraction toward me with great confidence. He always seemed available at the times I was hurting most. He showered me with compliments, no doubt with an ulterior motive. My husband knew him all too well due to past interactions. On this night, I would have to explain the acts and events that led me to sit before him with my uneasy disposition. As my husband sat and held my hand and affectionately looked me in my eyes, I began.

I stated to him that I had failed to keep our marriage vows and had an affair with another man, a man that I knew my husband despised, a man who had tried many times before to take me for a walk down this road called infidelity. This man could not compare to the husband I had. He was not physically, spiritually, educationally, or financially on the same level as the man that I already married; but he did fill the gap in some other places at the time of the affair. Affairs are rarely ever truly about the physical acts of sexual exploration. It is often much deeper than that. This affair was about my own insecurities and hurts. This affair would force me to take a closer look at my own fears and, yes, even my failure to truly forgive or properly address past hurts and pains. This was not an excuse for what I had done but revealed the threads in the fabric that I was about to lay out. They were the truths I would have to look at within myself if my marriage was going to survive this.

As I sat explaining each frame of the affair, what happened, where, when, and how, the room was so still that it seemed even the breath from my lips waited to be inhaled or exhaled. It was like the calm before the storm. Though he spoke no words, I could hear his thoughts formulating into waves of emotions carrying surfboards of words to their destination. I wasn’t sure if the waves would come crashing into my home to demolish it or if they would gently wash all the dirt away. I just continued to brace myself as I waited, pausing carefully between important statements to allow for a reaction or answer a question that was raised. This was a night of truth for me. I had held on to my secret sin for more than three weeks, and it was killing me inside. The very basis of any relationship is trust, and it is impossible to trust without walking in honesty. I knew that I could not walk in a lie with my husband. I had always asked him to live by that same standard. Now I would have to pass the test myself. So there was no question that he asked that I was not willing to answer. There was no detail that I felt I had a right to keep to myself, and without knowing for sure what the outcome of my marriage would be, I revealed all.

I knew that I could not trust that my husband would stay. I knew that this would be one of the hardest things for him to handle. He had always told me that it is a pride issue with most men to think about his woman with anyone other than himself even if it happened before him. It would enrage a man to think of it occurring while he was yet in a relationship just as it does a woman. I was certainly not a virgin when we married fifteen years earlier, so needless to say, there had been other guys in my space prior to getting married. However, I was so young and did not remain single long. I only experienced two years of relationships before marrying at age twenty-one. The majority of what I learned about love, sex, and real unrestricted intimate experiences came from my husband. He taught me or created with me most of what I knew, and no one before him had that as a claim.

Processing the fact that I shared any part of that with another man, regardless of how menial or insignificant it may have been, was going to be a difficult task. As I continued the story about phone calls made, drives taken, and moments shared with the other man, the tears continued to flood my face. I was ashamed, embarrassed, angry with myself, saddened by the hurt I had caused, and fearful that like a pistol locked and loaded, it would all bring my marriage to a sudden death. At the same time, the night began to give way to the day, and we would soon have to put on the long black clergy robes that all the ministers at our church wore on Easter Sunday. It would signify death for me, and my eyes would probably look like I had been to a funeral. I wasn’t even sure how to get up and face the next day or how to find enough peace to sleep through the night. I knew the love of my life may decide to walk out the door before I opened my eyes to see the light of day. He could very well be gone.

Next, I braced myself for the worst. I had said all that there was to say. I had told the truth and nothing but the truth. I had repented and pleaded for grace and mercy from both God and the man I loved. I would have rather been dead that night than to have to face the consequences of my wrong. I silently told God that it was okay if He wanted to open the earth up to digest me at that moment, but like all good parents, He left me there to dig through the rubble of my marriage and see if I saw any remnants of life remaining. I began the desperate search for anything that would reassure me that all was not lost. As I watched the tears stream down Orlando’s face, from the agony of it all, I could also see that he greatly wanted to see that our love was still alive, even among the ruins.

The next day would prove to be a hard one to get through. Would our marriage be dead when I awoke in the morning on Easter Sunday, or would it be resurrected like Christ? I got up the next day and realized I was still in the tomb. Life seemed to flow all around us at church. Yet we sat together in the front of the church, taking turns crying, attempting to make little to no eye contact with others, broken and in great despair. At one point in the service, our pastor seemed to look directly at us, and I was certain that God had whispered my secret in her ear. I was hurting so bad that her knowing would have come as a welcome relief so that I could get some help and advice. Yet I just continued to avoid any direct contact and hoped she would pray for us instead of asking me any questions.

Through God’s grace, we made it through the rest of the day. We focused on our sons and some family time. It was not a great day, and Easter 2007 would become one that I wished I could quickly forget. I would continue to question if I had terrible timing and if I should have told my husband at the time that I did or as much as I did. I was criticized as a fool by the gentleman that I had the affair with. Telling my husband was the absolute worst thing that I could have done, in his opinion. Yet my loyalties were not to him, and I knew his concern was more for himself than for me. I had to do what I knew the Word of God says is right, no matter how wrong I had been. I had to operate in truth and trust that it would make me free. I knew that somehow God would do the rest.

Chapter 2

Crashed

Life’s Collisions

Life is a journey. And in marriage, the journey can be a great adventure or a series of collisions, detours, and roadblocks. It is important to study the map before you take the trip. It’s imperative to use a current GPS system that will help you anticipate any possible roadwork ahead just in case you want to take an alternate route. If there is no alternate route possible, we must evaluate if the trip is still worth taking. Will we have enough gas to make it through the long distances of road where traffic may have us at a standstill? Can I tolerate my companion all that time? Who is driving and determining our stopping points? Was the maintenance done on the vehicle prior to getting on the road? Do we have full coverage insurance? Will we arrive at our destination safely?

These are just a few of the many questions that we ask ourselves when preparing for a trip. Well, marriage is a trip, literally and figuratively speaking. I grew up as part of the generation often referred to as Generation X. We would use phrases like he’s a trip or girl, you need to stop trippin’. We would even say life’s a trip. By that, we often meant life is full of ups and downs, twist and turns, and ins and outs. Life was simply full of the stuff that you didn’t always want to deal with that seem to slow you down. Our generation really didn’t know how true that statement was. Life is a trip, and how exciting or boring it is depends solely on the person on the trip. It can be just another trip, or it can be the journey God meant it to be.

A trip can be short or long. A journey, however, lasts a lifetime. You can plan a trip in a spur of a moment, but a journey requires careful planning and constant adjusting and adapting. You can choose different people at different times to go on a trip with you based on where you are going and what you plan on doing when you get there. A journey requires a careful selection of companions who can go the distance, stay on course, and adjust as necessary to different environments, weather conditions, and unexpected situations. A trip can have several modes of transportation: car, bus, plane, train, or boat. A journey typically has modes of transportation that will require time to get you there—a car, a boat, or your feet perhaps. When you take a trip, you know when you will be back. On a journey, all you really know is that you will eventually arrive at your destination, and you will not be the same person you were when you started. A trip will allow you to see different sites around the world. You may come back with some new and different fashion trends or experience new foods but not necessarily adopt it as your own. A journey allows you to explore how you see the world and the role you play in it. You may not adopt a new fashion, but you will gain a new perspective. You won’t just try new food. Your appetites will begin to change. Journeys are not designed for those in a hurry. They are designed for those who are willing to take their time. If you are in a hurry to get back home to your comfort zones and what is familiar, then a journey is not for you. You may as well continue through life just trippin’ because you never return to the same home after a journey, but rather, you build your home along the way. On a journey, you discover the things that no longer matter, and you get rid of things you do not need anymore. A journey is about building a new house based on what it relevant in your life now, and when it is complete, you take residence in it.

Many of us never take life’s journey to find the perfect love because we do not want to put in that kind of time or work. If we would admit it, we like being able to choose someone new each time we take a trip, and we can determine how long or short it will be. This is what we call dating. We have fun, and it can be exciting. But as soon as the road gets bumpy, we can quickly return home and go our separate ways as we say a quick catch ya later. We do learn some things on the trip, but we do not have to change permanently. We experience a new culture and never have to embrace it as our own. Marriage is a never-ending journey where you will have to adopt a new language and way of life, if it is ever to reflect God’s perfect love.

It is easy to get excited about taking a journey with the man or woman of your dreams when the road ahead has just been paved and you are driving in your dream car with a sign on the back that reads Destined for Great Things. The music is just right as all your favorite songs are bumping with just the right amount of bass. The breeze is gently blowing through your hair, and there is not a rain cloud in the sky. You have enough money, and it is just you and your honey. This is called the wedding. However, no bride keeps her dress on for years, and every groom eventually comes out of the tuxedo. We all know that no one can see the entire road ahead of them at the same time. You start out loving the smoothness of the love songs playing while you hold each other’s hands. However, you end up asking, Don’t you have something else you can play? I am tired of those same old songs. What looks smooth in the beginning may turn into a pothole-filled road which destroys your nice vehicle and rattles you to the core, or worse, causes a crash. It does not matter how great your insurance plan is. You are never really