Another.

Finding a church community has always been hard, so we tend to visit a number of different churches fairly regularly. We've been going to one where my dad used to be the pastor. Very small, limited resources, extraordinarily friendly.

There's a man there incredibly talented in music, public speaking, et cetera. He's been on their leadership board for quite awhile, and used to be an ordained minister.

Week before last he announced his withdrawal from leadership, and let us know that he's

1. divorcing his wife, and
2. involved with another woman.

I know what it's like. But it's shocking and devastating nevertheless. Interestingly, we both came to the same point where we had to choose between this Other Woman whom we thought was the source of these powerful feelings, and our wives to whom we had committed ourselves. I chose my wife, though it took nearly two years of mourning to recover from the loss of the Other Woman. He, like so many, is choosing the Other Woman.

This guy is a significant key to the life of that congregation. Never mind his family. He feels (as I did) that he's been dead and trapped and going nowhere, and that breaking out of his marriage is a key to life, his very survival. Man, I can identify -- I felt very much the same way.

And yet, when I chose my family, feeling like I was tearing my own heart out and burning it to ashes, feeling like I would never have any hope of life if I gave up the Other Woman... eventually life came to me, and to my utter amazement, it was She whom I had had right before me all along.

I was so utterly deceived about what my life was, and what it lacked. What I thought I needed, I had all along. I was just believing amazing lies that crippled me.

And I think he's believing the same lies.

I understand. I empathise. If someone had quoted chapter-and-verse at me at the time, I don't know that I would have responded very well. But I did choose the path, not in faith, but in resignation. And it turned out to be better than I could have ever imagined.

How can I not at least try to communicate that?