Through the Storm

Sin Storms

Sin storms are my term for the havoc that is created when the weaknesses and struggles in our lives get magnified in our marriage and families. Sin storms enter our home when one or both spouses engage in sinful desires and allow something to come before their Creator and their spouse.

Storms can sweep through our lives just like the thunderstorm that wakes you up from a peaceful sleep. You may have had a warning, or you could have never seen this coming. Sin storm stories are all around us. Stories of storms that your friends, family, and even your own household have been through. Storms of sexual immorality, a pornography struggle, substance abuse addiction, hurtful anger, gambling, emotional or physical abuse, neglect, or any other form of unfaithfulness that surfaces in the home. When you go through a sin storm, the walls that were built for protection will become filled with rain clouds. Immediately, the hurt and hate you feel will bring winds into the house that could knock you both over. Within an instant, everything will feel like you are living in a dream.

Sin storms will create an experience in your home that will leave all family members feeling like they are swirling in some sort of tornado. When you are the spouse who has something to hide, exposed shame will hit your fantasy world like a ton of bricks. You begin to see your web of lies and now feel stuck in a mess you’ve created. When you are the spouse who is shocked with decisions made right under your nose, your world feels like it no longer makes sense and your sense of security feels like it just flew out the window with the storm.

All this chaos disrupts the very foundation of your home. You both feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz being taken off to a distant land while longing and clicking your heels to just get back home. Your home. The home that as you both unpacked boxes you were declaring was your safe place from a scary world. But when these sin storms happen in your home, it doesn’t matter if there was a forecast warning or not. You will both feel crushed, and home won’t feel as safe anymore.

We have all gone through storms. We might give varying definitions on what a category 2 versus a category 5 hurricane may look like in our house, but most of us have felt one, and know too well the scary reality of walking through and standing next to an unpredictable storm.

Marital Storms

Wherever you are today, whatever area you live in, and whatever season you are going through, one thing we have in common is that we share the same weather forecast. It just hits at different points in our lives, and the impact may look different in yours than it does in mine.

For the sake of these pages, and for the place you are at right now in your life, we are going to focus on the storms related to your marital relationship. You may be bracing for impact, buying the store out of milk and bread so that you can make it through the marital storm you are in.

The marriage you are sitting in right now that may contain tornadoes of yelling. The marital storm that has you questioning whether you both should just evacuate. The marital lightning-bolts of lying, swarms of secrets, infidelity, abuse, isolation, and addiction, are shaking the foundation of everything you once thought was stable and secure.

You are in a storm, and you know you can’t live like this any longer.

So much is happening, so much that you are almost speechless, feeling formless, and unable to think without clarity. These storms are consuming, suffocating, and emotionally heartbreaking to the fiber of your being.

We all have a Storm Story

I talk about storms with familiarity because I have the scars of walking through them and my husband and I have the story of strength and hope of persevering through some of the scariest circumstances we wouldn’t wish anyone had to experience. But others do, I have heard their stories. I have listened to the heartbreaking stories of the pieces people don’t like to talk about. There is so much sadness, but I see hope and strength in every crevice that sadness attempts to surface. The stories I hear of people opening up with a courageous vulnerability show me that every person has a story much like each finger has a unique print, and every storm has a unique effect.

A sin storm can tear your personal world apart, and with greater influence is the effects your sinful decisions will have on the life of your entire family. In a marriage, we see the beauty of blending two people together, but when a storm enters that marriage, it aims to destroy what was meant to be brought together.

As we go forward, we will uncover how to walk through a marital storm, how to survive the darkest days where you see no end in the marriage that presently feels hopeless, and how to look in the mirror again and see someone that has value. We will uncover the reality of a tomorrow that seems impossible to even fathom at this point. There is a tomorrow coming, this storm will have an end, and with intentionality, there will be a purpose to this storm as it turns into a part of your story instead of the identity of your life.