The Worst Thing I Ever Did…

1-38pm

This blog is unexpected! And it has a bit of spice…crime, the worst thing I ever did and SUSHI! Today I received a message from Neil suggesting one of the things I talk about is accountability and among other things,  living a Bible centred life. It got me thinking back to probably the worst thing I ever did and certainly the one I most regret. I got emotionally involved with a guy online. I didn’t set out to do that, but just got sucked into befriending someone who I wouldn’t even cast a glance at in real life.

It was 1998, August to be precise.  There’s a bit of background.  The children had asked that they be allowed to go to aftercare. They were always hearing about it, so one Monday, I arranged it and they went to aftercare. As a result, I didn’t need to come home at lunchtime. Just as well. By God’s grace I did not arrive home at the usual 1pm. If I had, I would have walked into a burglary taking place at our home at that moment. As it turned out, I was at CCFm, the children were safe and at about 2pm, I received a frantic call from a neighbour to say we had been burgled.

It was a mess. I arrived home to chaos. The police already there, our bedroom ransacked as they looked for things of value. They took a stack of stuff. When they yanked a cord out of the wall, something ‘blew’ because there was black against the wall. We think that at that moment, they signalled their pick up man to come. As they were loading the kombi with our stuff, the neighbour noticed and started screaming at them. They bolted, but not before the postman had got the license plate number.  (They were caught).

We felt so violated. The children’s rooms were fine, but ours was a mess.  That night Mike stayed up and continued sorting stuff out. I went to bed, but when he came and joined me (after midnight), I woke up and couldn’t fall asleep again. That was where the online trouble began! I got up and went online. Internet chat sites were in their infancy and I went into one just to find some company and tell someone the drama of the day. I started talking to some guy in the US. We chatted away merrily and before we said ‘goodbye’, here came the first mistake – we exchanged email addresses. In hindsight, I should NEVER have done that!

The long and the short of it was that we wrote to each other and were pen friends. I mean, how bad could that be? We all used to have pen friends as children. I justified it as harmless.  But suddenly a shift happened. He started flattering me with all sorts of compliments. Both of us married, yet suddenly I was such a nice person (Oh boy, what a lie that was) and he wished his wife was like me (no he didn’t!). I was  15 years younger than I am now. My marriage to Mike has always been good, but it doesn’t do any harm (that’s another lie) to have someone else compliment you. It does do harm… more than you think. Married men: don’t compliment other married women…they take your words to heart and immediately think more of the compliment than there is.  We exchanged 100s of emails and spent hours on chat sites. It was so unhealthy. Mike would go to bed and I would get up and get online. The time different was perfect. It was sad and I felt guilty, but I couldn’t stop. Eventually, he was phoning and I just knew it had to end. So I ended it.  It was hard, and it took a bit of time, but I managed to end it all. Months passed. I had such a guilty conscience. I really felt I needed to tell Mike. So eventually, one morning (this was way before I was doing Rise and Shine every morning), before he left for work, I told him I had something to tell him.

He sat on the bed and I paced the room. Finally, I got it out. It was hard. It was intense. I am still embarrassed that it happened at all. The strength of character of my husband came to the fore. He sat me down on the bed next to him and he took my hand and he said, “Right, now we are going to pray.” And he prayed. He prayed for us and he prayed for the other guy and his wife. He prayed for the other guy! I was speechless.  I was humbled. I did not deserve this man.

Mike & both went off to work. Later I was walking into the mall. Unbeknown to me, Mike had decided to come home early. He too had gone to the shop and was walking out as I walked in.  I saw him before he saw me. The expression on his face was one of anguish and deep pain. I had hurt him. He had had time to think about it and now he was feeling the hurt. Never will I forget that expression and never do I want to ever be the cause of it again.

You learn. I learned to be very cautious.  I would never again overstep the mark with anyone. Because I am so friendly and encouraging, I want to build people up, but I am careful about how I do that. Maybe that’s why I make sure people know I am married and my husband is a giant in love and faith. My friend would say, “he’s a keeper!” Yes he is!  Like me, he is flawed, but I am a more broken pot than he. Yet God uses us both.

For years, it was difficult for me to actually talk about this. But the devil loves to use secrets to control you –  secrets are in the dark. Bringing them into the light exposes sin for what it is and the devil loses control.  I’ve spoken about it in public before. 15 years have passed, but I have never forgotten.

Be very accountable with your life. It’s not about here and now. It’s about eternity. One day we will have to give an account of all we have done.  If you are married, don’t underestimate the power of online ‘friendships’ with the opposite sex.  They are dangerous and not to be trifled with. Stop today!

 Hebrews 4:13 And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.

One way to be accountable is to have friends! What wonderful friends I have…. here’s a whole bunch of them enjoying Sushi…

Friends support you when times are tough…Leanne here from Dubai sees Mel for the first time since arriving. Mel started chemo yesterday. Leanne has walked that road and has been a huge encouragement and source of information to Mel….

Be accountable to your friends.

We really enjoyed the sushi…I didn’t have too  much…

Yum!

And now for the Wimbledon Ladies Semi-finals!

God bless you loads!

In His Grip,

Helga xx 🙂