Can I stop running now?

I haven't stopped running, kids in tow, since I closed the door to my home and everything I knew on March 25th. 4 bags, $25 and three kids.

Everything has taken a million steps. Making a new life is so complicated and exhausting. Everytime I figure something out (daycare, work, legal, budget, etc) one of the peices of the chain pops out and I have to rework life all over again.

Most difficult has been the work and daycare. I am so thankful for my nursing license and the ability to get work when a lot of people can't. I'm also grateful for the shot in the arm of "You can do this!" that this job has given me, BUT..... the 16 hours shifts and night jobs doesn't allow us to get close to anything stable or normal. The kids get woken up at 5 only to spend an hour and a half in the car, get dropped off at the babysitter and then stay there until 10 pm, only to make the drive back home again. It's tiring, eats away the kids time with their one parent left and hasn't allowed me to get involved in church or Divorce Recovery.

But alas! A new job has come! I got the job I have been praying for! It's 12 hours, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and close to home. The pay is better and the hours allow me to put the kids in a regular preschool and then have dinner, bathtime and prayers at night. I'm hoping that this will help me to transition from survival mode to creating a new family normal.

Thank you God for my new job and the new preschool the kids will be at!

Christmas Eve will be 10 months.

Doomed to adultery?

At Bible study Wednesday night, a heading caught my eye "Divorce". Our study wasn't even on that. It was on the equally painful subject of forgiveness, but I was side tracked for a while reading and rereading the following passage:

Mathew 5:32

I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

Does that mean that if Wasband hadn't cheated on me the day after I left I wouldn't have biblical grounds for divorce? Does that also mean I was wrong for leaving him before adultery occurred, even though he was abusing me? Is sexual unfaithfulness the only permissible exit as far as God is concerned?

My gut says no. I know God loves me and the kids and wants us to be safe. I feel I was right to leave him and even file for divorce before I ever found out about the cheating.

Wasband was abusive for years, and was becoming more so. I had tried reconciliation. I tried to work things out. But is that enough as far as God is concerned? He wants us to turn the other cheek. Forgive without a number attached to how many times.

I've tried doing topical studies and am coming up empty. The divorce is happening, that isn't going to change, but according to the scriptures I've found, I cannot get married again without sinning. Is that true?

Fret

to agitate, wear away, consume, erode peace, gnaw away like acid...

...This new life is filled with so many things that can get me walking around looking like my cheeks are getting sucked into my face.

Inconsistent childcare, no child support, loss of an entire family, 16 hour work days, embarassment on not being able to afford presents, rushing around and never doing anything to the quality that I once did...on and on.

Yet God tells me not to fret. So I won't. Instead, I'll focus on the ways that I see Him providing and loving on us.