In a Tizzy....

I don't know what exactly a "tizzy" is, but if it means anything like being kicked in the stomach and having your insides ripped out your throat and thrown in my lap and left to put everything back together by myself, then that's the word to describe how I feel right now.

Somehow I got sucked into the "MySpace" phenomenon. And just like anyone else would, I was searching for old high school buddies. Well, long story short. I stumbled upon a picture of my first boyfriend. For those of you who don't know the story, here's a quick recap:

I was 14, he was 18. I think we went out for a total of six weeks between Thanksgiving and the beginning of the year. He decided for whatever reason, he wanted to have sex with me. I was 14. The ONLY thing I knew about sex was from the 12 page book my mother had given me for my birthday the year before. And believe me, it wasn't much of anything. He committed the equivalent of sexual assault (though it was closer to attempted rape). By God's grace, my mother came home from work. By the Enemy's hand, her first and only question was, "What did you do to make him think he was free to do that?" Nothing more. That threw the relationship in the toilet. What broke it up was that my close friend Denise (16) showed up at school one day with his class ring around her neck. She told me that he asked her to hold it for him during a swim meet the day before. Tim and Denise are married now with two children. And as far as I can tell, they live around the corner from where Ben and I live.

Here's where the tizzy comes in. They're happy. He has a killer job, she's a mom of two kids, took the family on a cruise last summer. It's been 18 years...they probably don't even remember me. I, on the other hand, have a wonderful husband with a great job, and a little angel of a daughter. And I cringe every time my husband even looks like he's going to touch me. It's not his fault. I've lived every day of my life with the shame of what he did to me...or what I allowed him to do because I was too scared and confused to push him away.

How is this fair? I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God does not allow things into our lives that He cannot use for our good and His glory. Except this. This is the one thing in my life where I've spend almost half of my life trying to figure out why it happened and what good can come of it. I can even find good in my abused and forgotten childhood. But not this. I don't want much. Just a good marriage and a family to take care of. I have them both. I have my dream of dreams. Only when things are supposed to be the most magical, at times it turns into a nightmare. How can my marriage (and ME!!!) thrive in that?

posted by Brandi at 10:02 AM