For such a time as this

________________________________________________________

A division.  A delineation of space and time.  One one side of the line: The life I knew and loved.  Wife, mother, homemaker, helpmeet, teacher, lover, caregiver, steward.  On the other side: A new and undefined life with all the previous roles eliminated or deeply, permanently changed.

I am still a wife and  helpmeet, yet enduring a painful and extended separation.  This adjustment is critical, difficult, heart-breaking, but also rich with spiritual growth and blessing, and abounding in love.

I am still a mother, yet my child is pursuing a course of independence that I am passionately opposed to and fear will do deep and permanent damage, not only to our relationship but to her own life as well.  And yet, the Lord is blessing me with peace, solitude, healing grace, affirmation and validation as I entrust her fully to His care and purpose.

I am still a homemaker in that I still have a home to manage, yet with no one to serve it looses both it’s urgency and power.  I understand, however, the call from Titus 2 for older women to teach the younger ones.  My skill and knowledge in this area will not be wasted and in time God will grant opportunity for it to be passed on. 

I am still a teacher, yet no longer a homeschool mom.  God has gifted me with the ability to teach, as well as the desire to do so.  In this season of refining, I am in the place of the student under the Master Tutor.  I am grateful that the student becomes like the master, as my Master is great.  Some of the lessons have become clear, still others are clouded in mystery.  Yet I know this preparation will bear fruit in its season.

I am still a lover – of my Lord, my husband, my family, my friends.  The expressions of love have changed, as have the fundamental natures of some of these relationships, yet love endures.

I am still a caregiver in that God has given me ministry to the hearts of hurting people that, once again, surprises me.  Simple expressions of love and encouragement to families of inmates have been repaid by deep gratitude; encouraging the heart of my husband as he makes a painful adjustment and transition to a new and frightening life has yielded miraculous fruit; the testimony of love and faithfulness that is touching lives I was unaware of just a few months ago – all of these things have God’s hand print all over them.

I am still, and now more than ever, a steward.  In fact, I have been promoted to head steward – all that has been instrusted to my husband and me now falls solely to me.  I am diving deeply into Proverbs 31 yet again to understand what God has for me as His steward and I am determined to be faithful for so long as it is my position.

This is a harder loss and reality for me than for anyone impacted by it, yet at the same time I think it is easier for me.  I see God’s miraculous work, even as some things become more bitter and wrenching.  I see the transformational healing, repentance, restoration and renewing of relationship.  I see God moving in His people and providing for me in the most loving and generous ways.  I am in the blazing furnace, yet I sense that there is not even the scent of smoke on me because the Spirit of the Lord is there with me.

So across the line I step, eyes open to the future, scanning the horizon for any sign of what’s to come.  Letting go of everything, every dream, expectation, and past hope, and laughing at the future, as did the Proverbs 31 woman, secure not in my own capacity, but in the might and mercy of my King.  Ahead of me a vast expanse of shimmering sand with not a footprint upon it, save one.  My first step.  I am a sojourner venturing into a new and miraculous life. 

Lord, help me to be fearless.

Imagine a love so deep it takes your breath away.  Two people woven together in one flesh – that is the mystery of covenant marriage.  It’s surprising really.  Day by day you don’t even realize it’s taking place, through the routines, the romantic nights, the bitter disputes.  Then one day it is tested – stretched – proved.  I am surprised at how completely that one-ness has crept up on me and my husband.

So then imagine what it might be like to look your beloved in the eye and tell him, No.  No to life, no to freedom.  Through his begging, weeping, pleading for help and mercy, knowing his guilt, yet so desparate to make it right, to try to repair what he has broken.  With compassionate resolve – compassion for his fear and devastation, resolve in what I must (and must not) do – to tell him I will not bail him out of jail, I will not live a fugitive’s life.

In a recent letter to my beloved, I tried to explain it this way: 

“I desire to live an honorable life.  I want to look people in the eye, to be real and transparent, to honor God with my integrity and trustworthiness, with my character.  Sounds crazy considering what some people seem to be saying about me, but I know me.  My great crime is that I drive too fast…All I have is my name and my word, and those have to mean something.  They mean just about everything. 

Integrity, trustworthiness, faithfulness, loyalty, courage – these are more than buzzwords to me.  At the end of my life, whenever that might be, I want these to be the words that come to the minds of people who will miss me.  There are no children to carry on a piece of me; the only legacy I will ever have is my life and how I live it.  And I choose to live it honorably and, I hope, in a way that pleases my savior.

I alone must stand before God for the judgment of my actions and the excuse of “I sinned because someone asked me to” isn’t going to fly.

This has been an unimaginable battle, made harder by many of the people around me.  There are so many passionate views.  Two friends who were both abused as children – one is still so angry at her own wounds and communicates her frustration at my response, the other agrees so strongly.  Interesting.

What is curious to me are the snipets of comments that come back to me – far fewer these days as I’ve put considerable distance between me and them.  It occurred to me the other day that if any of those individuals could step inside my life, my heart, my head, even for a day, to see the truth, I think they would be very ashamed. 

I am abundantly grateful for those faithful, loving people who have surrounded me, prayed for and with me, stood in the gap with me as I’ve been buffeted by this storm. Seeto’s, Coppages, Whipples, Leah, Jodene, Danette.  Mom and Dad.  And others.  May God pour out blessings for the comfort and support you have given.

It is a difficult and bloody thing to know you hold someone’s life in your hand and to know that the right thing to do is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.  I hope none of you ever, ever has to experience this.

I haven’t been here for a while.  I’ve been in the center of a storm – and not the calm center but the devastating vortex of a tornado. 

I learned three months ago that my husband had done the unthinkable.  And I responded, immediately, decisively, knowing that anything I did was going to mean the end of my life as I knew, the end of my future and my husband’s.

I did it right – everything I was supposed to do.  I even went so far as to provide some of the evidence that will put my beloved in prison for a very, very long time. 

Yet, the response to me has been indescribable.  I have been threatened, rejected, humiliated, accused.  My daughter, for whom I sacrificed my life, has moved out and is saying things that I can’t even believe.  I’ve been rejected by my church, and told I am unstable and an unfit parent.

When the events that come up in life defy all logic and reason, when the insanity around you becomes absolutely absurd, you have to wonder what’s at work behind it all. 

But, God…He has been faithful to bring a few precious people along side me.  People who know me, who see me day after day, and see the truth; prayer warriors who lift me up constantly.  I am so grateful.  He has given me a wonderful companion in my new puppy, Shep.  Very adorable little guy – who really isn’t so little at 4 months old.  And He is providing for me gently, graciously, generously.

So here I am.  Alone.  Facing a future at mid-life that is unlike anything I ever imagined, even in my most horrific nightmares.  All the love and sacrifice and devotion I have poured into my family for so many years seems to have been for naught.  I hope I am wrong.  Time will tell. 

I wonder if I should hold a funeral service for the death of my life.  Bury my dreams and hopes and all the possibilities that I’ve held onto for so many years.  Build a monument, scatter some ashes, plant a tree.  There’s something to that idea.

Although everything about the life that I loved is gone, I’m still here.  There is a song that I was introduced to recently by Jill Phillips.  This is the chorus:

I feel the pain but it still doesn’t change who You are
Nothing I feel is outside of the reach of Your arms
My whole world has crumbled and all of the pieces remain
In Your hands they are waiting to put them together again.

I’m too close to the rubble of my life to see beyond the edge of this impact crater.  But the slate is empty.  And I wonder how He will fill it up.

I saw kite-surfers the other day soaring over the waves on the mighty Pacific.  Perhaps I’ll start by learning to fly.

The ancient city of Corinth was a wealthy trading center, located between major shipping lanes of the Corinthian Gulf and the Saronic Gulf.  It was also known throughout the Roman Empire as a wicked, immoral city.  Consequently the young church in Corinth struggled with worldliness and sin.  In Paul’s first letter to the church, he addresses one particular sinner:

It is actually reported that there is immorality (sexual sin) among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife (or insert the sexual sin of your choice).  You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.  For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present…I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.  (1 Cor 5:1-5)

But later, in his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul addresses the issue of this same man:

For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you.  But if any (the immoral man) has caused sorrow…Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.  Wherefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him.  For to this end also I wrote, so that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things.  But one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ, so that no advantage may be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes.  (2 Cor 2:4-11)

What are we to do?  Confront the sinner, put him out of fellowship, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh – not of his life, but the enslavement to the flesh that yields the fruit of the flesh (See Gal 5:19-21).  But why?  That his spirit may be saved.  And then what?  With great love and compassion, acknowledging that the removal and turning over to Satan is “sufficient.”  It is enough!   No more hurt or abuse or punishment or rejection is warranted.  On the contrary, you should forgive, comfort, reaffirm your love to such a one.  Why?  So he will not be overwhelmed with excessive grief.  Again why?  So our obedience to the command of forgiveness might be tested.  And so that Satan can find no advantage against us.

Of all the so-called advice I’ve received, precious little has passed the test of Scripture.  Instead, most of it has, according to this passage, fallen right into Satan’s hands:  Anger, vengeance, fear, selfishness, punishment, self-righteousness, unforgiveness.  Our anger and unforgiveness is simply a door that allows Satan entry into our lives.  He uses our self-righteousness against us, as is frequently evident. 

These passages best describe my response to my husband.  That I should rather forgive and love and comfort, such as I can, than to punish or hate or cast aside.  I fear for those whose arrogance – like the pharisee who, referring to the ’sinner’, proudly prayed, ‘Thank you God that I am not like one of them‘ – makes them think they are somehow better.  It will be their undoing.

I want wholeness, healing, redemption, restoration, unity.  I know that is the heart of God as well.  I realize it is up to Him; I am powerless but to plead mercy and pray, and hope that God hears my cries and the groanings in my spirit.  What hope there is in this life rests in God alone. 

I see God at work daily in my husband; I see repentence, healing, renewing of life and washing with the Word.  I see the glorious tranformation beginning in him – the same transformation I myself have experienced.  But I am the only one who sees it as I am the only one, it seems, obedient to the command of forgiveness, love and comfort.  That’s not pride talking, that’s simply reality.  I know there are others who claim forgiveness, but do they live it out according to God’s Word?

My despair is so complete, my isolation absolute – I feel utterly forsaken by friend and God himself.  I know His promise is that He will not leave me nor forsake me.  Oh, that I could feel that promise now.

This is for all the people who claim to care about me, who claim to be Christ followers, friends and family members who continually, repeatedly, and painfully heap stones and injury and insult on me in addition to all that I’m already facing.  Enough!  It is the people closest to me who are causing me the most hurt and stealing away what precious little comfort I’m able to glean from these horrifying circumstances.

My marriage was never a mistake!  I am confident in God’s sovereignty over that decision in my life.  Through my marriage I have my children and grandchildren, I have experienced great blessing, and yes great sorrow, prosperity, ministry, love, friendship, more goodness than I can list.  The riches that God has bestowed on me through my marriage are my greatest treasures and NOT ONE MOMENT OF IT was a mistake.

My husband was and is my best friend.  If we were nothing else to each other, we have been friends, constant companions, partners.  We have planned and prospered together, dreamed and built and worked side-by-side to create some wonderful, blessing-filled things.  He has created this mess and, ironically, he has been the only person I’ve been consistently able to work through my grief with without being insulted, talked down to, or treated with careless contempt.  What does that say about the “caring people” around me that the accused is more a friend than they?

I am not a mindless, brainwashed, manipulated idiot.  I am fully aware of my circumstances and the price that has been and continues to be required of me – MORE SO THAN ANY OF YOU COULD POSSIBLY IMAGINE.  I see very clearly and I’m acting in the best interest of my family, knowing that whatever I do I have already lost everything.  There is no way to escape the brokenness, the pressure, the strain of this.  We, my daughter and I especially, have no choice but to go through it.   No one but me gets to decide how I should best deal with my loss and grief.  Who among you have had to sacrifice one loved one for another?  Who has chosen to forfeit every dream they’ve ever had to preserve the safety of their child?  Then do not claim to relate or understand.  And please do not presume to advise me.

Do not tell me what is in store for my husband.  Don’t you think I know?  How do you think I, as a loving, faithful, devoted wife, can live with knowing the future my husband is facing?  It’s devastating to me and yet there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.  How is it to my benefit to hear the horrific stories or for you to add to my fear that is already crushing ?

Please people, THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.  Are the words about to come out of your mouth going to build me up, comfort or encourage me, or are you simply adding pain on top of pain?

Consider this:  I am a widow without any of the benefits.  There is no financial support, no life insurance.  There is no grief support group.  There are no understanding shoulders upon which I can cry because who has experienced this?  Of all the cases of abuse, such a small percentage are even reported and, when they are, most wives and girlfriends do not do what I have done.  I have done the right thing – and it has cost me everything.  Why then do well-meaning people keep trying to take what little is left?  Why do they add insult as if I am the guilty party?

You do not have the right to try to nullify the last 14 years of my life!  We are all guilty.  We each sin, fail, fall short.  We are each deserving of death.  Yet we each have the ability to love, to do good, to be gentle and genuine, to show compassion and generosity, to touch people’s hearts and lives in meaningful ways.  What makes you think that is not also true of my husband?  Our entire life together was not marked and made void by this.  Would you so willfully and selfishly steal my loving and wonderful memories as well?  Our end is tragic, but our whole life together has not been.  There has been awesome and genuine goodness as well.

Your anger is not my problem.  I have enough problems of my own.  I have been as compassionate and patient and gracious as I can be, but where is the compassion, patience, and grace in return?  It does not help me to hear you vent your hostility and hatred.  It does not encourage me to hear you reject, ridicule or diminish my life and love.  It does not bring me comfort to hear your suspicions or accusations – that’s too little too late and I DON’T WANT IT!

If I choose to wear my wedding ring it is because I am married, and until God in Heaven releases me from my covenant vow, so shall I remain.  If I choose to forgive, it’s because God commands it of me.  He has forgiven far greater of me than He is asking me to forgive.  If I hate the sin and its consequences, yet love the sinner deeply, faithfully, abidingly, how is that different than what Christ has done for all of us?  Have we not sinned, yet His love for us endures forever? And yet I am being judged and scorned for the that very thing that Christ himself taught us to do.

Enough!  If you are of Christ, then love as Christ, forgive as Christ, have mercy, grace, and compassion as Christ.  We are to comfort one another with the comfort we have received.  Instead I am being stoned by fellow believers and crushed by their carelessness.  You who is without sin cast the first stone.

In old testament times, grief was a public display.  Think of Mordecai in the book of Esther.  Upon learning of the great murder plotted against his people, Mordecai, cousin to the Queen of Persia and her guardian, removed his robes, put on rough sackcloth, covered himself in ashes, and wailed at the gate.  He raised such a fuss and racket that the Queen learned about it even deep within the great palace.  Elsewhere in scripture, mourners are described as gathering together and weeping, shaving their heads in their grief.  There was no mistaking.  Even professional mourners where hired!

I am grieving, deeply, in brokenness and groaning, but there is no sackcloth, nor ashes.  The occasional tear leaks out as I pick Wheat Thins off the store shelf (my husband’s favorite), my lip quivers as some bone head makes a careless comment or laughs cruelly at my sorrow. I feel ill as yet another newspaper article (front page again) pours salt into this open, festering wound.

My grief is private, alone, unseen by most.  It’s hours of tears throughout the night, and a necessary hardening of the heart during the day.  The truth is I am, and have been deeply, completely, faithfully in love with my husband.  I have stood by him through every possible trial and hardship, from having nothing to being prosperous, from the peak of health to chronic, painful illness.  We’ve clung to each other through disaster and loss and grief.  We have dreamt together and planned and I was so looking forward to our empty nest, just us two, ’til death do us part.

I have tried to hate him – I can’t.  I am angry at sin and the consequences of sin, yet I feel God’s compassion and mercy upon His own.  Timothy was God’s gift to me for a season.  And what a gift – through him I have in my life those that I love more than life.  But now the season has come for me to return him to God’s care.  It is difficult to let go of that which we love so much, yet I must.

In my fervent prayers today, I confessed to God the deep desire of my heart – To wake up from this nightmare, to have my husband and best friend restored to me, to experience the love and wholeness in marriage that I long for, for my home to once again be a place of peace and rest and safety, for my children to be healed, and for all of us to be together again.  I told Him, I know all that is impossible.  He was very quick to correct me, reminding me that with God, all things are possible.  That gentle and true reminder brought peace and joyful expectation to my heart.  God, I don’t know how or when, but I love you and I trust you.

I do not own sackcloth.  I have plenty of ashes, but our culture wouldn’t understand that.  I have, however, cut my hair.  My husband was my covering and now he is gone.  My covering shall be the blood of the Lamb.  This small change is my public mourning.

Father in Heaven, I pray for healing, restoration, transformation, redemption, freedom, comfort.  Come quickly, Lord Jesus.  We are weary and longing for home.

Oh, I hate this feeling.  There is a reason I drink non-alcoholic beer.  I like beer.  But I hate the buzzed feeling I get after more than half a glass of good quality ale.  So I drink the lesser quality O’Douls.  They have a non-alcoholic amber ale that tastes better than swill, but still not so good as a fine artisan amber ale.  And living in Oregon, there is an abundance of good artisan beer.

But we’re talking VODKA here.  Before I lost Tim, he had been working on a batch of biodiesel.  He’d processed it, but hadn’t distilled out the methanol  yet.  So it’s been sitting in the distiller for a month.  And it’s leaking, drip by drip, into a bucket.  Biodiesel, glycerine, and methanol.  Did I mention methanol is a neurotoxin?  It’s bad.  Attacks the liver and nervous system. And what do you think the remedy is?  Alcohol.  High proof alcohol.  Oh, joy.

I was trying to pump the contents of the bucket back into the distiller tank and spilled quite a lot on my hand and on the floor.  How the heck did he get this stuff in the tank?  Hmmm.  So I came in and poured half a tumbler of vodka along with half a glass of Safeway sparkling pink lemonade.  Have you had straight vodka?  Eew!  All of this on an hours old bowl of Life cereal.

I hope I’m spelling well, because my brain is definitely slow right now and manual dexterity under the circumstances is not my forte.

So here I am, trying to work, do bookkeeping, answer the phone (I’m really exagerating my enunciation, just in case – I hope no one asks me a tough question), and stay in my chair.  I keep trying to shake my head to literally shake off this feeling, but when my head stops shaking, my body….

So it’s lunch time and, while I may not be technically drunk, I am most definitely experiencing THE BUZZ and I really hate it.  I had hoped to get so much done today.  It has been a very difficult and heart-wrenching couple of days for me and alcohol limits my ability to keep my emotions in check, not to mention what it does to my ability to think.

So to my daughters, Lauren and Charlotte, who were teasing me about having a fully stocked bar the next time they visited, not likely.  I’ll stick with beer-flavored Kool-aid whenever I can.  Love you!

What breaks my heart most in all this – beyond losing my husband and best friend, beyond my children effectively losing their father – is my grandsons.  They’ll never know their Poppa.

Ages three, two, and one, they won’t remember him as they grow.  They’ll not learn all the valuable lessons he has to teach them, have adventures in the forest, hear tales about logging, go fishing with him.  The volume of wisdom and the depth of love that has been denied is, perhaps, the greatest loss of all.

And it was all so unnecessary, so selfish.