I have been reflecting a lot on my own shortcomings as a person. Andy has mentioned for me several times how my 'character' is bad and it has me reflecting on what character truly is.
The quality of our character is found in times of difficulty, I believe. Character is who you are when no one is watching.
We tend to care so much about what people think and about appearances. We value, to some degree, fakeness. That is not who I am. I believe I am generally and open and transparent person. I have some character flaws, but I have integrity and good morals.
In the Army we have 'character' building programs. An interesting name for the youth programs. I grew up through all of those character building programs. I think it helped to make me a better person.
In thinking about character I come a lot to honesty. Andy thinks I am a dishonest person and I do not know why. I have been honest with him about many things. He has created a narrative that is different from my experience of us together and cannot allow me to discuss the discrepancies with the narrative he has re-constructed. He thinks I need to defend myself or something. I am defenseless. There is nothing left for me to lose with him at this point as our marriage is ending, but he cannot accept my being honest with him. I do not know why and I will probably never have answers. He is closed off to any kind of connection from me. I think he is trying to survive in his own way and does not see how incredibly wounded we both are.
In some notes that I have I found this phrase: 'sin begins with the distrust of the CHARACTER of God.' This leads to unbelief and withdraw (fear, protect, escape, hide), ungodliness and then wickedness (not trusting His goodness). Lack of trust is what kept the Israelites out of the Promised Land.
Disobedience, then, is the secondary behavioral result.
Trust= obedience
Distrust= disobedience
As I ponder this and the sin in my own life, I believe it began with the distrust of the character of God. But how? Why? Too many distractions, too little faith....lack of a community of support of believers? Issues with my character?
And now I am left with the broken pieces of sin. Sin always causes chaos. I am living in this pain as a result of sin in our marriage--on both parts. I believe we got to this point together. The character of our marriage was flawed only we did not know it.
I had a vision where I was holding a coffee mug and trying to keep it from falling out of my hand. Andy was watching me but did not care enough to help. The mug finally fell and broke into several little pieces. I was on my hands and knees trying to clean it up as Andy looked down at me on the floor. I looked up at him and he stepped on my hand and on the glass.
Today I trust in God and in His character. God's character is a vast topic and I am going to reflect on it more.
