Acceptance has been a difficult concept for me to grasp.

As a Christian woman, I struggled for a long time learning which were my conditions of living that I would have to accept, which were unacceptable, and therefore my responsibility to change, and which of my battles belonged to the Lord.

My dilemma was whether I should stay in my marriage or not, causing deep conflict within me. I wanted to please God, to be an example of faithfulness to Him and to my husband. Though our relationship was full of turbulence, I believed miracles would happen to restore our marriage to the glory of God. I wanted to please the church which seemed to only ever point to one resolution of every kind of marital madness – keep staying married, no matter what.

But there was a problem with that – I was the only person in our marriage who had adopted this mindset. I had taken doing all the work on my shoulders, expecting I’d have this wonderful testimony of how my faith was the game changer that turned things around for us. I’d be the hero. Angels would be applauding me in the halls of heaven for all the faith I’d had. So I prayed and I stayed. And yet, nothing got any better.

In fact, it got desperately worse.