Arrested

  If I wasn't at home those first few months then it seemed like I was at the Family Justice Center. I had all kinds of appointments there : case management (which is basically checking in to make sure you're okay) and a lot of appointments with the detectives. One of the final times I went there was to turn in the recording I had gotten of Nic's confession. It was so weird to hand over a confession that I knew would be the nail in his coffin. I needed to protect my kids so I knew it was necessary but still it gave me a pang to turn him in. It was so surreal.
  Now that they had proof they were able to issue a warrant for his arrest. What most people don't realize is that it doesn't happen quickly like on TV. It took a couple of weeks to get the warrant. Those weeks were so long! I was on pins and needles wondering when it would happen. Finally the day came. On March 25th Nic was arrested, a little over two months since I found out about the accusations. I'm going to share my journal entry from that night.
  
   " About an hour ago, so 11:30 pm, I was getting ready for bed when someone rang my doorbell. I froze and my adrenaline instantly spiked. Who would be at my door at 11:30 pm? I called my close friend Jaynee and told her someone was at my door. She lives in my neighborhood and I knew she could be over quickly if I needed her. As I was talking to her they started knocking on the door. I peaked out the top window and saw a police officer. Jaynee still on the phone, I answered the door. They were looking for Nic. I informed them that Nic didn't live here and they said they were on their way to go talk to him, which I knew meant arrest him. They said I shouldn't call him or his family and let them know they were coming.
   So here I am an hour later wondering if he's already been arrested. Blah! I hate everything about this situation! I have so many mixed feelings. Relief that he's finally paying some legal consequences and the process is moving forward. Anxiety for reasons I can't explain. Sadness for the point this has come to. Fear for what will happen to him and how he'll be treated. Fear for my kids and how this is going to affect them one day. Guilt for feeling bad for him. Should I feel bad when he did what he did? But mostly I feel sadness. Sadness that someone I truly loved and really saw eternity with is now being arrested for hurting our daughter.
  I had a flashback to a memory of another night when someone rang my doorbell and knocked on the door late at night and I was frightened. It was April 2009 and I was nine months pregnant with our second baby. Nic was working in Iraq at the time and I hadn't seen him for 6 months. I was afraid I was going to have the baby without him. I was on the phone that time too when the knock came. I was talking on the phone to Nic and when I opened my front door there he was on my porch! He had flown home early to surprise me so he didn't miss the birth of our son. Never in my life have I had such a wonderful surprise! These two nights are so similar but with very different endings. How ironic that that memory came to mind tonight.
  My heart truly grieves what we had and what we lost. My marriage to him was mostly hard but there were some sweet times and I truly believe he loved me. He was just so broken and could never love me and the kids the right way. How heartbreaking everything is."

   I didn't sleep at all that night.

  It has been a very heartbreaking thing to endure. I have often thought back to that night that Nic surprised me from Iraq. How did we go from that to this? When did he stop sliding down the hill and actually drop off the cliff? Satan is sneaky. He kept Nic in a position where he was right on the line. He knew exactly what to tell Nic to get him to justify his sins. Gradually he added in worse and worse temptations, one at a time, until eventually he got him to commit a horrible sin. At which point Nic fell off of the cliff. I imagine it just like hiking a steep mountain and you step on some loose rock and lose your balance and slide down the mountain a little bit. You can stop and catch yourself but if you're not careful and you don't watch your step you will step on loose rock again and continue to slide. Eventually if you keep making the same mistake as to not pay attention to where you're stepping you will slide to the bottom or even fall down the mountain. Here's where the Atonement comes in : you can always climb back up that mountain! It's so much harder to climb it with an injury but you can climb it. Going up is always more work than coming down. You have to exert more energy to go up whereas coming down is always easier with gravity on your side. The secret is that the view is always better from the top! How much better and sweeter is that view when you've had to work so hard to see it? My hope is that Nic, and anyone who's lost their footing, will find the courage and strength to accept the Atonement in their lives and climb the mountain again no matter how difficult it may be or how long it takes.