The following information is an excerpt from our Hope for Healing workbook designed for the wayward spouse. The information has been edited and shortened to paint a picture of the content provided in our Hope for Healing course . It was created to help the wayward spouse find healing, clarity, and, ultimately, personal restoration. Along with the workbook, participants gain access to video lectures that expand on each week's lesson. We hope you enjoy this excerpt and consider enrolling in our next round of courses.

This week, we're exploring pride versus brokenness. Are we in the box or out of the box? Are we serious about this journey, or are we just going through the motions? Are we humble or proud? Do we honestly care how our actions have affected others, or do we feel justified in our actions?

Brokenness is a condition of rigorous humility. It's a place where we recognize that we have nothing; however, it's not a place of despair. Because in our brokenness, we're blessed with every provision we need for healthy recovery and personal restoration. This "brokenness" is actually hope in disguise; it's a place where we let go of pride, image management, and defensiveness and courageously enter a space of freedom and life.

Accepting the Gift of Failure

The only currency you have to move from the deceived self to the true self is your pride. But what does it take to finally let go of pride? Does success lead to humility? Does defeating destructive patterns lead to humility? What drives us to the place where we want to live so badly that we don't care if we die? The answer: failure.

Failure teaches what success cannot. And apart from that failure, would we ever learn anything? Until we fall flat on our face and accept that we can't do it alone, we’ll never let go. When we fail, we must accept that we:

• Can't control what's happening.
• Can't escape the consequences.
• Can't fix what we've done.
• Can't work our way out of this one.
• Are, simply put, "out of control."

Viewing Brokenness as a Positive Opportunity

Those of you going through this right now, please know that failure is not only about accepting what you've done, but it's also about confessing what you've done. Hope for Healing is a safe place to do this. The healing all starts here with your small group. Either you'll get it all out or you'll hang on to some semblance of your pride and image. Without dying to self and killing your false image, you simply can't get to a place of restoration.

Some call the space of "I can't" the bottom, while others call it the mortification of the flesh. Still others refer to it as humiliation. In this course, we call it brokenness. We believe that brokenness is actually the beginning of your journey of hope; it's a place where we let go of pride, image management, and defensiveness and courageously enter a space of freedom and life. Until you reach this state, transformation will never occur.

Who wants to die to self unless they first determine that self is of no use? Why would you let go until all of your other options are eliminated? We're born believing that we can be our own all-powerful, all-sufficient God: a perfect human being, self-sufficient, and never needing or wanting anyone. Failure is the only antidote capable of setting us free.

Honestly, what good would it do God or ourselves if we were to always succeed with our own white-knuckled efforts? Would it draw us nearer to God? Would it paint a more beautiful picture of the world around us? Would it encourage us to see God, a higher power, life, or ourselves any differently? I don't think so. For that reason, when you meet a person who seems to have very little need to prove themselves, the one thing you can be sure of is they've probably gotten there through agonizing failure. Watch the video below to see one person's example of how they took their failure and allowed it to transform them from within.

In the curriculum for this week of Hope for Healing, you'll get a tool to help you identify whether you're operating out of a mindset of pride or a mindset of brokenness. I hope you'll consider enrolling in the course. With this tool, you can begin to drop the façade and pursue healing from an infidelity-specific protocol, designed for transformation and restoration. I urge you to take this opportunity to heal and get the support you need to start building a truly extraordinary life.