A Much Better Place

“The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them”                       Bernard M. Baruch

I am breathing easy this morning. As I look back over the last ten days to two weeks I am amazed by all the goodness that has come into my life despite all the turmoil.  From a massive rain event (13 inches) that flooded my garage, enclosed back porch as well as my car, to overwhelming stress and a job I was extremely unhappy with to starting therapy, I think the image I selected kind of says it all. Everything perhaps, except how much I would really like to be there!

Let me take these one at a time. I am Blessed, I mean well and truly Blessed!  While the remnants of Matthew may have flooded the garage and back porch (both of which really needed to be cleaned out) no water entered our living space. This in a neighborhood that was devastated by the flood.  By my estimate 9 of every 10 homes got flooded in their  living spaces. Dumpsters now occupy the driveways instead of cars. House after house on the streets leading to my court had their entire contents, sofas, dressers, mattresses, clothing, in piles on the lawns or at the curb. It was tremendously sad and for a period of several days I felt an overwhelming sense of guilt. When we checked our Flood Insurance coverage we were shocked to discover we had no, I mean zero coverage on contents. We had dropped it years back to reduce the premium when I was out of work. Yup. We are Blessed! As a side note my garage is really, really clean! Still working on the back porch. Oh, I didn’t tell you, when I checked our Flood Insurance I discovered we had zero coverage for contents.

                  This was a common sight, this photo taken more than a week later.

On the job front, after having an anxiety attack I finally came to the realization that my recovery and marriage are much more important than a specific job, so I made the decision to leave the transit company. The very next day I was offered a job driving a dump truck. I will hopefully start next week. I know it doesn’t sound like much but I’m happy, regular hours for the most part.  No problems attending my group meetings, or church men’s group and during down time waiting in the truck I can blog. I shared my reason for leaving HRT with the owner and my need to attend the group meetings and he was very supportive. I cannot begin to tell you how much my stress level dropped.

On the topic of being real I want to publicly thank Blue of A Broken Blue Sky for finding the courage and calling me out on a comment I made to one of her recent posts.  Blue I can’t thank you enough for calling me on the carpet. I was out of line and I have learned that I don’t learn squat from someone who isn’t honest with me.  As a result I have started searching and following some blogs written by the wives of sex addicts so I can learn more about how my actions have affected my wife. Thank you Blue, keep it real! In addition I’m going to stick my neck out even further and ask all of my online WP friends to keep me straight.  If you aren’t comfortable doing it in a public with a comment just shoot me an email.  I truly value your opinion.

Yesterdays appointment with my therapist went very well. I got a good feeling from him within just a few minutes. We didn’t do much more than review all the paperwork I filled out, review all my medications, and talk about all the feelings I had been experiencing both positive and negative. We will start the real work next time which happens to be tomorrow due to a cancellation.  I am happy to say that the worst of my nerves were put to rest. The type of therapy I will be going through is not traditional, in fact it is prayer facilitated in this case by a licensed therapist. It is called Transformational prayer ministry, formerly known as Theophostic Prayer ministry,  Theophostic being derived from two Greek words that together mean “the light of God.” Instead of using hypnosis to help you remember traumatic events and associated emotions, Theophostic Prayer ministry is focused on identifying the lie-based core belief that we harbor and seeking the Lord Jesus in prayer to receive his counsel through the presence of the Holy Spirit. I have included a link to an article written by my therapist, Frank Meadows, for the Christian Broadcasting Network. It is very informative and explains the process a whole lot better then I ever could. I just read the article and others and I can’t wait for tomorrow!

http://www1.cbn.com/prayer/theophostic-healing-prayer

Blessings to You, Barney