The Altar I Didn't Know I Had

There's a strange thing about idols.

No one wakes up in the morning intending to build one.

If someone had asked me a year ago whether I loved the man I married more than God, I would have immediately answered no.

Without hesitation.

I prayed.

I went to Mass.

I went to confession.

I loved Scripture.

I truly wanted God's will.

So how could he possibly have become an idol?

The answer surprised me.

Idols are rarely recognized while they're still standing.

I don't think I worshipped my husband in the obvious sense of the word.

I don't think I ever looked at him and consciously thought, "You are my god."

But somewhere along the way, I quietly began asking him to carry things that belonged only to God.

I wanted him to be my certainty.

My safety.

My reassurance.

My future.

My confirmation that I was enough.

I wanted him to choose me every day because somehow his choosing me became tangled with my believing I was lovable.

That's too much weight for any human being.

Even a good husband couldn't carry that.

Because no human being was ever created to occupy God's place.

The strange thing is that God didn't have to compete with Justin.

Reality did that on its own.

The more the man I married failed me, the more the altar began to crack.

At first I thought God was taking something away from me.

Now I wonder if He was rescuing me from something I didn't even know I had built.

I used to pray almost every day for my marriage to be restored.

Eventually my prayer changed.

Not because I stopped loving my husband.

Not because I gave up hope.

But because I slowly realized something that frightened me and comforted me at the same time.

If my peace depends on another person's choices, then my peace will always be fragile.

Only God is steady enough to hold that kind of trust.

I think that's why the First Commandment comes before every other commandment.

Not because God is insecure.

But because He knows what happens to us when we ask created things to become ultimate things.

They collapse.

Careers collapse.

Beauty fades.

Health changes.

Money disappears.

People disappoint us.

Even the people we sincerely love.

Not because they're evil.

Because they're human.

And when the altar falls, it hurts.

It hurts so much that sometimes we mistake the pain for God's absence.

But maybe...

just maybe...

the collapse of the altar is the very place where we finally see Him again.

These days I still pray for Justin.

I pray for his conversion.

I pray for God's will.

Sometimes I even pray for the impossible.

But there's something different now.

I no longer need the future to answer me today.

I don't need tomorrow's story in order to be faithful this afternoon.

Maybe that's what surrender has been all along.

Not giving up what I love.

But finally placing it back into the hands of the One who loved it first.

Looking back now, I don't think God destroyed something precious.

I think He gently showed me that what I had built—even with sincere intentions—could never hold the weight of my soul.

Only He can.

And strangely...

that realization doesn't make me feel emptier.

It makes me feel lighter.