Rebuilding a Home After Complete Destruction
As counterintuitive as it may sound, the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to endure is witnessing my marriage transform from chaotic and traumatizing to something utterly different, something sacramental and holy. It’s surreal, to say the least. Talk about wandering into Wonderland and not being able to figure out the topsy-turvy landscape …
Isn’t this what nearly all women in abusive relationships dream of, yet so few actually achieve? My husband and I have beaten the odds, we’ve done what the secular world has told us can never happen—we’ve defeated the evil influences raging against our marriage. I should be filled with joy that my husband has traveled the Road to Damascus rather than staying on the delusional Yellow Brick Road.
And I am. Truly. But that doesn’t mean the transformation has been easy or without major bumps. It also doesn’t mean my wounds are instantly healed, that all trust has been regained without any remaining scars to show where the battle was fought.
Quite the opposite, in fact. We must travel slowly along this healing journey.
And that’s ok.
There are times when I still experience grief, confusion, anger and frustration because of everything that has happened during the course of our marriage. Now, with this unexpected turn of healing events, I feel anxious and exhausted when thinking about all the work we’ve done, and all we have yet to do.
One thing I’ve come to realize is that it’s impossible to restore something that has been utterly destroyed. The only option is building a completely new structure.
The quaint town of Thomaston, Maine boasts a grand Colonial-looking mansion called Montpelier, supposedly the home of General Henry Knox, who was a Revolutionary War hero and close friend of George Washington. Knox was General Washington’s right-hand man throughout the war for independence. He stood by Washington’s side at the crossing the Delaware; as Chief of Artillery during the war, General Knox was at Bunker Hill, Trenton, Yorktown, Brandywine, and Valley Forge. Because of his war-time heroics during the birth of our country, his mansion is now famed for both for its beauty and historical significance.