When I was very little….I remember a song we would sing in church and everyone would hold hands. The song was “Heavenly Sunshine.” The words were beautiful…and I as a child felt very secure, very content…and very grateful to be in that place.
Not long after that song was sung…a new Pastor came along…and a new philosophy. I believe that the leadership at that time felt that they were doing what God had directed them to do…but boy did they leave a mountain of destruction sealed in hearts of many who felt that they could never achieve the perfection that God desires. The sad part of the whole story…is that God doesn’t desire or expect perfection….the most beautiful part about Him, is that He works best with the broken.
In high school I was a misfit. I had a bad attitude, I was a poor student…but I loved writing for the school paper, working with the yearbook staff…and one year I was able to even be good enough to be a cheerleader(I’m really over it I promise 😬) I was good at acting and singing and piano, but too lazy or scared, or whatever you want to say…to really go far with any of it. I graduated with no honors, a few awards…and glad I survived the most complicated years in a teens life (so it seemed).
I then went on to a university that my parents said…it’s here or nowhere ….and I’m grateful for this university.::because there is no telling what stupid choices I would have made without it…nevertheless it was filled with more heartbreak…more things to make me feel unworthy, imperfect, broken…and messed up. It is here that I found the one who would lead me down one of the saddest/yet beautiful chapters of my life.
My upbringing had made me jaded….I was conflicted. I was brought up to believe that if your doing what God wanted you to do…then life would only be a blessing….where in the world is THAT written in the Bible??? Absolutely nowhere I assure you. My husband at the time wanted to go to a contemporary church…I remember standing there…flabbergasted that people had on jeans…because…we are supposed to look our best at church…and jeans is the best you people can do? The music….the music made me feel that God himself would open the gates of hell and cast me in…I just couldn’t bear to attend this church….but back at my “familiar” church….I wasn’t comfortable anymore…rather than dive into that…I continued on…because…doing the same thing over and over again…always fixes the problem.
My husband and I would go to christian concerts…I recall leaving a Steven Curtis Chapman concert…because I felt that the music at the end was Satanic….seriously…🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️ I mean…really?
Our beautiful baby boy was was born in November of 1999….and I thought life couldn’t get any better than this…but oh could it get worse…and I had no idea.
When we become wrapped up in our own “holiness” and amazing spiritual life…we get a big slice of humble pie…and I had the biggest piece of anyone I know.
My husband left me…and was with several other women…I never knew how many…I only ever met two of them. We were separated for two years…he had nothing to do with our son…except on the rare occasion where he needed to be the “Disneyland Dad.” He was an exceptional father….when he was there…but that was the problem…he never was there. I didn’t realize it at the time…but he was dealing with his own demons. Demons that he could never share with his perfect wife…who never did anything wrong…like wear jeans to church.
His life ended tragically in August of 2002 in a car accident…it was after his death that I learned of the women he had been with, the pornography that plagued him, and the things that had been done to him as a teen. No one in christian circles ever felt it important to share those things…we are taught to hide those things…deal with them in private…bear those burdens alone. I often wonder…if I would have relented and gone to a different church, would he have received the help he desperately needed? Would our family have been able to remain whole? Those are questions…that will never be answered….because God isn’t here to answer the why…He’s here to make us new and whole and completely changed with what is.
Heartbreak comes in many forms…but the greatest heartbreak…is at the graveside…and that day will never leave me…and there I sat…with my two year old…on a sunny and beautiful August day…and I just remember thinking…how did we get here? Can I please go back?
During that time…there was lots of blame to go around…and lots of it stopped at me…and lots of questions with “why wasn’t I enough?” God whispered to me…”you are enough” even though I had stepped out and done things I wasn’t proud of, relationships I should have never been in…He is a restorer and life can start over.
Sixteen years ago…I said “I do” to a new life…and a new man…and I have made mistakes in my second marriage….
Being a step parent…is a hush word in christian circles…we don’t talk about it. We say that God doesn’t like divorce…so we shouldn’t do it…and then we just leave it…but there are many in the wake of divorce…many that wish they were not. Divorce leaves so many victims for the actions of one. In our family…five lives were affected drastically by the choices of two people…and we had to suffer all the consequences.
I wish I could tell you that I won the stepmother award…but that would be a lie…I did not. I received unwise counsel…because in the church, we aren’t sure how to handle these things called second marriages…and what works for first marriages…does not at all work for second marriages…and there…is the problem.
I can’t go back and change the stupid and mean Things I said. My frustration mainly lay with the fact that everything was out of my control. What time the kids were dropped off, when they were picked up…stupid things like lost socks and shoes (being left at the other house) would set me off.::lost coats and jackets…sweaters and backpacks…these were the things that would make me completely lose it…and my little stepdaughters paid the price. I wasn’t mad at them…I was mad at the predicament we all found ourselves in…but I made it about them…and I will forever say I’m sorry to them…and hope that someday…they can move on.
Trials don’t stop…they don’t just happen once…you can’t just quit playing…you have to change and adapt…you have to stay focused.
My husband and I find ourselves in the middle of yet another “challenge”…and somedays I feel the black cloud over my head will consume me…I can’t run away from it…it always seems to be after me…but I am learning…that we are in the beginning of something beautiful. We are being changed…pushed…and made beautiful. The end is in sight…
There are some people that they have a schedule…and they complete it…and they live predictable lives…and others…we feel that we are sometimes “off-roading.”
I will tell you…that God has asked me to be quiet…which I’m desperately trying to do…to trust in Him….again, really trying to do…and just wait. While I’m waiting…He’s asking me to do really uncomfortable things…things that are growing me…but man are they hard…
The canvas of my life is being redone…touched up…made new (whatever spin you want to put on it). Things that I used to ❤️….I find myself being turned off by it. I’m finding that new people, new experiences, new things that I never thought would bring me joy…are bringing me joy. I raise my hands in church quite often…my husband plays electric guitar, and I wear jeans quite often to church…and I have never felt closer to God…not since I was little…and holding hands at church and singing “Heavenly Sunshine.”
I will not tell you that this entire process hasn’t been without great fear and trembling..:.when your a control freak like I am…and God continues to steer you in a more complicated, louder, bigger, shouting almost kind of way…..it’s easier just to giggle and go on and do it. He will give you the strength and the ability to conquer it. I am constantly amazed at how He uses me…how things turn out well that He has asked me to do.
I sit here writing this to you…in the middle of a storm…but I can now rest…because I know He’s in control. I can laugh because I know He will do something unusual. I can smile, because He uses me uniquely. I can have joy, because He has given me a new perspective on life.
We were made to share our joys and our sorrow with one another. We were made to show our imperfections…and He will use us more abundantly…once we use and show our imperfections.
I wish I could say to you that are going through a trial…to just rest, be quiet and watch the amazing work being done…but that would be unfair…because it’s in the learning to be still and wait and watch…that the real progress is made…when we quit trying to fix it…when we realize we just can’t fix it…and He has to step in….WOW….that’s when change is made.
May you go and live in the freedom of His forgiveness of your imperfections…and be amazed at the grace that allows us to minister to those who were once in the very same circumstances as we found ourselves in.
May His name be praised.
The Reluctant Red Nose 