Thank You for NOT Answering My Prayers

I never thought I would write those words. For most of my life, they would have sounded like a betrayal of my own faith.

Let me tell you what I used to pray for.

I prayed for God to heal my marriage. I prayed for Him to deliver my husband from his alcohol and sex addiction. I prayed for Him to make me a better wife. My prayers were not selfish. They were the most obvious prayers I knew how to pray.

I wasn’t perfect, but I tried to do everything right. I went to church. I studied the Bible. I meditated on the Word. My mission was to be the best wife I could possibly be. Then, I waited.

God did not answer. There was no change. No healing of my marriage. No deliverance for my husband. Just silence, year after year.

The Hardest Season

While I waited for an answer, I felt abandoned by God. Alone and confused. These were perfectly reasonable prayers, so why was He not listening?

When my father passed away, I thought, now I have two fathers in heaven watching over me. I just knew my dad would put in a good word for me. That he would get God’s attention and remind Him how long I had been waiting in line for my prayers to be answered.

But still nothing. Now I was mad at two fathers, not one. And then came the shame. My earthly father was watching me from heaven, seeing how dysfunctional my marriage was, disappointed in me. Double disappointment. From God and from Dad. This pain is too hard, I thought.

But now I see. God and Dad were in cahoots the whole time. God shared His plan with my dad and left me out of the conversation. They knew my pain would one day shine so bright on the world that it would become a beacon of hope for millions of women. And men. Because narcissistic abuse does not discriminate.

I still wish they could have given me a hint. A sign that there was a reason for all of this. But I now see that God’s plan was, and always will be, PERFECT.

The Science

For 30 years, I lost myself inside my marriage. I did not know who I was without him. I had experienced complete identity erosion. There is a reason that happens, and now I know that it is not a character flaw.

Healing did not begin when he changed. It began the day I stopped waiting for him to.

The Framework

I didn’t find a five-step method in a textbook. I lived it. These are the five stages of healing, built from my own lived experience. I now walk my clients through them. They spell the thing I was praying for all along.

THE FIVE STAGES OF HEALING

When I finally realized I am not the problem. I am not the reason my husband devalued me. And most importantly, I am not OK with this. This is not how I want to live, and I do not deserve to be treated this way.

When I learned that I can actually say no. I can set boundaries that I control, regardless of whether he accepts them or not. I do not have to keep performing, people pleasing, and caretaking. Safety became something I could give myself, instead of something I had to earn from him.

When I asked the hard question. Why was a narcissist attracted to me, and what was it about me that I was willing to endure abuse to win his love, to need his validation to feel whole? How did my childhood trauma attract someone who saw it as an opportunity? I had to look at how I was part of the pattern. It was not all about him. It never was.

When I finally found my voice. I found my SELF, and when I did, he rejected me. He literally said to me, “I don’t like the new Marcia.” The abuse increased as he tried to regain control. But by then, I had TWO fathers watching over me. He was outnumbered.

Now, years divorced, I can finally say I am living my best life. Free from his control. Free from trying to live up to expectations where the goal post constantly moved. I love ME more. I respect ME more. And I am finally being selfish, because I now know that self-respect and self-love are not selfish. I found PEACE.

The Spiritual Lens

The lesson for me was this. Until I could learn to value myself, see my worth, and protect my pearls instead of casting them before swine, I had to stay. I could not be rescued until I got the lesson. And I would not have seen the blessing without it.

This was my passage to peace, even though it felt like a journey through hell. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, I walked right out of the prison I was in. And now I lead others out of theirs.

My pain was a blessing in disguise. I would never have imagined, in a million years, that I would be thankful for 30 years of marriage to a narcissist. But I am. Because I lived in it and got through it, I am a walking testimony. And I am grateful.

T.D. Jakes says that what feels like a burial is sometimes a planting. Michael A. Singer writes that the moment we stop resisting our pain is the moment it begins to free us. I did not understand either of those truths while I was inside the suffering. I understand them now.

The only thing my pain reminds me of is my purpose.

If You Are Still Waiting

Maybe you are praying the prayers I prayed. Heal my marriage. Change this person. Make me good enough to finally be loved. Maybe the silence has gone on so long that you have started to believe God forgot you.

Here me when I say this. The silence is not absence. Sometimes the most loving answer is the one that does not come, because the thing you are begging for is smaller than the thing being prepared for you.

God was not ignoring my prayers. He was not fixing my marriage or changing my husband. He was preparing me for my purpose.

I am still writing my story. But for the first time, I am writing it as a free woman. From the prison I once lived in, to the work of leading others out of theirs. That is my passage to peace.

From surviving to thriving,

Marcia

Founder of Passage to Peace LLC