The Years from Hell

I am not kidding when I tell you that 2006 and 2007 were the years from hell.  There were some definite highlights, such as the cruises.
I can't believe I survived and I certainly can't believe my marriage survived.  We had been married for 7 years by now.  Y'all hold on because it's about to get real.......and I can't even believe I'm about to tell this to the world.

2006
At this point in time, I was doing Metabolic Research Center and I had lost over 50 pounds.  I was confident and felt absolutely amazing.

 I didn't feel like Josh praised me enough for what I went through to lose the weight.  That was my fault for being self absorbed.  I was relying on his praise to make myself feel better.  Feeling like that was a great opportunity for some serious demons to attack and they did.  A male co-worker of mine sent me an email to let me know what a fantastic job I had done in losing weight and how great I looked.  Email frequency increased and became more intense.  Emails turned into small talk in each others offices and "innocent" hugs to each other.  Although it didn't go "all the way", what we had done was bad enough.  I'm sure the people that knew about this back then don't believe that but I can honestly say that's the absolute truth.  An emotional affair had taken place and both of our marriages were in trouble.  His wife found out and then Josh found out.  It was gut wrenching for all of us.  Josh and I split up for 2-3 months.  He moved in with his sister and went to Jamaica for his cousin's wedding.  I had already seen a lawyer and given him an outline of how Josh and I were going to divide everything. 
It was only thru the grace of God that Josh and I reconciled and he found a way to forgive me.  He didn't have to, nor did I deserve for him to.  In his mind, we had made a promise to God when we said our vows and we were going to fix it.  (The co-worker made amends with his wife as well.)  Josh moved back in and we worked on putting our lives back together.  I knew Josh didn't trust me so I was open about absolutely everything.  If I went to the bathroom, I left my phone on the table.  I let him have passwords to anything he wanted.  Whatever I had to do to make him trust me again, I did it.  It took a LONG time but after about a year he uttered the words "I trust you".  I was stunned.  I was ecstatic but I was stunned.  I promised that I would never, ever do anything to hurt him like that again.  With my shame and humiliation came.....you guessed it......inflation.  It took a little while but from that time until today, I have gained almost exactly 100 pounds.  A lady once told me she thinks the reason I have a hard time losing weight is because I fear what happened before could happen again. Sabotaging myself. 

2007:
Josh and I were mending.  We needed to get out of town to spend some time alone.  My co-worker Misty was planning a vacation with her family and I was helping with the research.  (Something I LOVE to do!!)  In my research I came across a 5 day cruise out of Jacksonville for only $180 each.  I immediately called Josh and we booked it!  We had never been on one before so we were super excited.

As you've already read, my Granny passed away in January 2007.  Our cruise was booked to leave mid January so that actually all worked out.  We went to Key West, Florida and Nassau Bahamas.  In the Bahamas, we went snorkeling.  *sigh*  It was so amazing.  When we returned, we were telling Josh's parents about it.  They got so excited we found another cheap cruise and booked it for April 2007!!  We went the week of the E's 3rd birthday so they were completely spoiled by the crew the entire trip.  We left out of Mobile and cruised to Cozumel & Costa Maya.  We toured the Mayan ruins and went to an underground mineral pool to swim.  We also rented Jeeps and traveled in a caravan to the beach and enjoyed an authentic Mexican buffet.

In May of that year we bought a house.  It got to the point where the kids would tell us "there are monsters in our house".  At first I thought it was just a typical kid-afraid-of-the-dark kinda thing.  Then I realized, this house DOES have monsters.  For me, my sister, my brother and my mom.  I don't know how real it was but my kids felt some kind of wickedness in that house.  We left.  We bought a house in a beautiful neighborhood with lots of kids and a pond!  THIS is where my friendship with Amanda Smith came in to play.  Amanda Smith can be credited with helping to save my soul.  There are a gazillion beautiful pictures of her I could put on her, but if you know Amanda, then you know this is the real thing.

I couldn't leave her hangin' like that.  *lol*  Here's a better one!!!

So, our summer went well.  We were getting to know our new neighbors.  Josh and I were still rocky but we were hanging in there.  Then, our lives had a major shift that completely rocked our world.  Whatever Faith we thought we had was about to be tested.