At our Stake Conference recently I felt the Holy Ghost confirm to me that to honor my covenants, to truly consecrate myself to the Lord, I need to give Him this as well. This hard thing I've hidden for so many years. I need to give Him all I've learned from dealing with my husband's addiction.
One of those lessons is how to look addiction in the face and see it for what it is. There's freedom in that I suppose. To see something clearly allows you to build on solid ground without the fog of confusion, denial, or false hope. I see that once a behavior becomes addiction, it is a disease.. not a choice. This knowledge helps me see him more clearly, blame him less, and support him more. In seeing this I can also find hope. Addiction may be our teacher for our entire life together, but we can learn to manage the symptoms of this disease together. He may always have a weakness for pornography, but by turning to the Lord daily, he can live symptom free. Does this qualify as healing? I believe that it does.
I think about Paul in the New Testament and his "thorn in the flesh". There was something he struggled with, prayed with all his heart to be free of, and yet the Lord didn't take it away. I can only guess at the reasons behind this. Maybe it kept Paul humble? Or helped him turn to the Lord with his whole heart every day like only adversity can. Is this the role my husband's addiction will play in my life? Is this the role his addiction will play for him?
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