Over the Memorial Day weekend of 2015, the quiet hill country community of Wimberley, Texas experienced massive flash flooding. Some of the locals even talked about the massiveness of the experience as a 500-year flood. Referring to the event using terms like “500-year flood” is descriptive, yet hard to grasp.
I mention this in relation to affairs, since there are lessons from the flood that apply to affairs. When the massive wall of water was approaching local authorities went house to house warning those living near the river of the coming flood.
In some cases, those living along the river had less than 30 minutes between the warning and the flood waters rushing through doors and windows into their bedrooms. Some families had no warning prior to the water hitting and surrounding their homes.
Affairs happen with little or no warning to your family. In some cases, you may see the warning signs before things hit, in other cases, there is no warning before you have to face the impact of the affair in your life.
In one families situation, they started their vehicle to escape, and returned to the house to load everyone up. Before they could get out of the house, the tremendous power of the flood waters swept the house away with them in it.
It is not by accident that old song writers often used the metaphor of floods when describing troubles when they arrive. Troubles often arrive quickly and powerfully.
In each case, you are suddenly surrounded by forces outside of your control. Those forces turn things upside down and soil everything they touch, leaving behind a dirty mess.
In each case, you may be sleeping soundly in your bed one minute and then find yourself suddenly surrounded by trouble that arrives and keeps on rising higher and higher.
When situations like that happen, you have to act fast. When affairs happen, you also have to act quickly, with the focus on saving yourself and family before you try saving your possessions or stopping the flood. When the troubled waters of affairs are surrounding you, it is not time to figure where they came from, or analyze what kind of affair it is!
You need to save you and your family first, then comes the clean-up, and figuring things out afterwards. When you are standing in the middle of rising troubled waters, it is not the time to analyze the situation, it is time to get out of the threat.
Too many times, spouses are sucked into the turmoil due to them trying to figure out where the lover come from, why it happened, or some other question, when they should have been saving their life and their families life.
When an affair hits, immediate action is needed. Rather than sign up for a workshop or schedule a session with your local counselor at their next available time, you need immediate action.
You may not have time to escape the chaos with the next scheduled class or available time in someone else’s schedule. Your marriage and family are at stake. When the sudden crisis hits, you need action rather than an appointment.
The person who you called to rescue you may be one of the best, or someone you would trust with your life, but when they can’t see you until next month, you are out of luck.
When the sudden troubled flood of an affair hits, the next door neighbor who is there to help in your time of need is more important that the world’s best EMS that is an hour or so away. When your marriage and family is in crisis, each minute counts.
Best Regards,
Jeff
