Before I got married, I would often hear the phrase “marriage is hard work”. It was always said as a cautionary statement to those of us unmarried people to prepare for the difficulty that lay ahead. Whenever I heard people say this, I always assumed what they meant by the statement is that marriage is hard work because it is hard to continue to prioritize one another throughout life.

Now, I know the truth.

I’ll never forget the moment.

I had woken up and was lying in bed. During this time of my life, I was trying to be more disciplined with being on Social Media. I had recognized the many downsides and certainly didn’t love the habit of hopping onto Social Media before my feet even hit the floor.

Before I picked up my phone, I felt a gentle reminder from the Holy Spirit of my goals. Despite that, I opened my phone, checked the weather, read my daily scripture, and thought to myself, what could it hurt? Just a little peak.

To my surprise, it turned out to hurt a lot.

As I was participating in the mindless scroll of Facebook that we all know and love. (Not really, we all know and hate it, but we love it, but we hate it too. UGH!) I continued to scroll and paused to read a friend of mine’s post from the night before & I was stopped in my tracks.

Before my eyes, one of my Christian “friends” had made a post… about me.

When I was younger, I thought every relationship was created equal. Of course, as I got older, I realized not every relationship I had was a place for me to be loved, accepted, and appreciated.

For years of my life, I tried to keep track of who I could trust and who I couldn’t. If I found out you did or said something disrespectful about me, I pushed you away. If I believed I could trust you, I brought you close.

It was a constant game of trying to figure out who could be trusted. It was exhausting and left me a bit paranoid that no one could be.

I used to often feel betrayed. I was constantly surprised by the fact that people were not returning the love and effort I was giving them. It made me feel confused, angry, and resentful.

Let me explain to you something I have learned through the years…

I will never forget the very first time that I felt betrayed by God. I was twenty-two years old and something very bad happened to someone I love. Up to this point in my life, God had been a very dependable God for me.

I had heard other people talk about being betrayed by God, but not me. I had known and worshiped him since the beginning of my life and I never knew him as anything but a kind, trustworthy, reliable God. I had no reason to doubt him, but that changed in the spring of 2009.

This situation brought me to not only question God but also to feel angry with him.

I felt betrayed.