Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Write in the MYSTERY genre (04/05/07)
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TITLE: THE HIDDEN E-MAILS | Previous Challenge Entry
By Yulanda Ridge
04/11/07 -
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His eyes blazed, continuing the search …
With shaky fingers he maneuvered the imbedded computer mouse to discover more of what he really didn’t want to see, her laptop cradled on his thighs.
Private emails… hundreds of them, all to and from his wife and one of their friends who had moved away years ago… This had been going on right under his nose and he had no idea! He felt utterly insulted, humiliated and deeply wounded…
He looked at her as she returned from tucking the children in for the night. She looked lovely. Was he now seeing her through someone else's eyes? He had been taking her for granted – and here she was being appreciated by another man…
For the next difficult few days he kept his secret discovery so that he could read more, uninterrupted… At the same time he felt a painful tenderness towards her… He could see the questions in her eyes – wondering at the sudden affection… She responded tenderly. Wasn’t this what she had been longing for…?
Endless questions plagued his thoughts… Regret and remorse for wasted years, countless loveless moments, unable to be repeated or corrected. Replaying in his mind were distant memories of his wife ‘pleading’ for affection, which he mostly just shrugged off and discarded like an old, worn-out jacket. Now he’d been jolted wide awake through reading these heart-to-heart emails, secretly hidden in a separate folder...
Then he saw it – the most recent, final email dated a week ago. She had written to this ‘friend’, saying that although this was so incredibly difficult for her to do, she was going to let him go… The years they’d spent intermittently writing to each other were finally going to stop, because, even though she was living in a mostly loveless marriage, she should even be willing to live in a desert for God. This was all wrong. There was no excuse. Her tears flowed freely as she had said her final goodbye to her heart-friend.
They had never written about sexual matters, had never been physically intimate even when he had lived close by. Theirs was an affair of the heart, but immoral none the less. They were adulterers, coveting what they could not have… Now she was putting to death this part of herself, but she prayed that her soul would live again if God would forgive her for bonding with this man who could make her feel so special with his words…
The timing seemed orchestrated by a loving Father Himself… The breaking-up letter written from her heart when there was no ‘reason’ to break up, and her husband’s discovery of this penned love affair…
.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
It was time... He was having real difficulty getting anything done in the office. The emails were all he could think about. So he made the call.
“Honey, we need to talk. NO interruptions. I’ll be home in half an hour…”
What was this??? He sounded so serious…
Then cold dread filled her being……
The emails… Had he found the emails????
Deep inside she had always known this day of reckoning would come. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out…’ Frightened tears came unbidden. She felt cornered… very afraid of what lay ahead… “Oh God, please help? You know everything…”
His car pulled up the drive in what seemed like an eternity, yet all too soon at the same time. He led her to their bed where they sat facing each other.
He looked at her though brimming, pain-filled eyes. He started to explain what he’d found and how his heart was totally ripped out…
They sat this way for hours, the rest of the day forgotten, talking of all their lost dreams, longings, expectations, hopes. She had ever only wanted it to be him, but she’d been so lonely… Even so, there was no excuse. Could he ever forgive her? And would she forgive him?
Months later it was still the same: she could not drive anywhere without grateful, humble tears streaming down her face as she considered how God was mercifully taking what the evil one had intended for destruction, and turning it into something beautiful... He was healing their marriage…
This is the mystery of the Messiah and His bride, and how He has shown Himself faithful in forgiving when we are faithless…
HalleluYah!
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