It’s been a rough few months. I don’t quite know where to begin, but I want to start sorting it out some.
About four years ago I made the commitment to God to do things His way. I know I’ve mentioned this before. It was an extremely slow and painful decision for me to submit to Him, so I don’t want to sugar coat it. What I turned over to Him was premarital sex. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, but it became something I had to do. I made a commitment to quit doing it. Which was huge for me. Hard for me. Nothing to be trivialized.
But I’m not sure it got to the heart of the issue. If was more of an “Okay, fine” moment. I drew a line in the sand and I didn’t cross it. But I walked right up to it and walked along it. The last post I wrote was about “Freaking Manna and Meat.” I came smack hard against the fact that there’s a lot more to it than just the physical act of intercourse. I finally got to the heart of the issue, instead of just toeing the line. I realized that if I was truly to follow God’s will, plan, design, I had to back the line way, way, way further back than where I had it.
And I think that’s precisely the point where I fell headlong into an extremely deep depression. I realized what I was after likely doesn’t exist in America in 2015. In 40+ year old men. So this dream, this aspiration I’ve had….. likely might lead to nothing at all. Probably very well won’t lead to anything at all. I have felt completely and totally knocked on my ass, and lacking the will to stand back up.
I sat and listened to Tom today berate someone for depression. He said, you just have to stand up. The alarm goes off and you jump out of bed and you just stand up whether you feel like it or not. And I told him, sometimes I think you just can’t stand up. I didn’t tell him I am suffering with the same issue. But I have been in a place where …. Maybe I COULD stand up. But I didn’t want to stand up. I didn’t see any point in standing up. The hope got knocked out from underneath me, and hope is what makes you get up.
"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
The silence of my house, the silence of my life, the hopelessness of the realization that this likely will never change, was swallowing me alive.
And then when I was at the bottom of the pit of this hopelessness, my church started cracking apart. My church was my foundation. When the foundation starts cracking, you’ve got real problems. And I don’t want to get into all of that right now, but it’s been a dark place I’ve been in. Dark enough that FB friends who were in person friends 20 years ago are calling and asking, “Are you okay?” Dark enough that I literally went seeking something happy to post on FB so that everyone would know I was okay. And it took me half a day to find something, because I really wasn’t.
Anyway, this post isn’t meant to be all dark and dreary, I’m just trying to give you some background. There’s a phrase I knock around in my brain a lot – “All things work together for our good.” In this darkness I’ve been in, in this pit, that seems like a mockery. How is this working together for God’s good? How is my aloneless, my fallenness, my brokenness, my misery, working together for God’s good? Is this a cruel joke?
Today we did Sunday school at the old church and then booked across church to another church for the service. I know, weird. We can talk about that later. But on the way there, I got the Edith Grill. She wanted to know how old she was when Tom and I broke up. She wanted to know if we fought before she was born. She told me she wished that we were still married. Oh, it was a hard 15 minute conversation. I tried to reassure, to offer information, to be open. I told her I understood that she wished we were still together, that it’s a natural desire to want to have your parents together. But Tom is remarried now, and where would that leave that part of her family? I told her that it was extremely unlikely that we would ever be back together, but that both he and I were committed to her, and that we had decided a few years back to be friends and amicable and even a weird sort of family, to give Edith the best family experience we possibly could, even though we are divorced.
She then asked me why I didn’t get remarried. I told her that it was not that easy. I told her, I have a desire to be remarried. But “just anyone” won’t do. I told her that 99% of the men out there were not qualified for me. I said I had a very important qualification – and she said, yes, that they love you. And I said no. Not that they love me. They need to love God and love Jesus. Because if they love God and Jesus, and obey him because they love Him, God tells them they are to love me. He takes care of all of that. I told her, Edith, I have asked God to bring me a man that loves Him first and me second. And I know He has heard me. And I just have to wait and trust Him. She asked me if I wanted another baby. I told her I would dearly love to have another baby, but I’m getting older, and again, it’s in God’s hands.
I told her how in the Disney fairy tales, a princess always has to marry a prince, right? I said, do you know you are a princess? You are the daughter of a King. And “just anyone” isn’t going to cut it. You have to wait for the prince of the King.
It was a hard conversation. But I saw – I really saw – how all things can work together for God’s good. Out of my pit of misery and depression, my daughter is seeing me live out what is not lived out in our society. First hand, I am showing her faith and trust and obedience. I don’t like it. And I’m not tooting my own horn. But I saw some purpose in my misery.
On a sidebar, I don’t know if you’ve read all of our trials and tribulations back when Edith was biting. But as I was talking to Tom today, he said, when our relationship really turned around – when we decided to quit fighting ourselves and fight for Edith, was when we were dealing with the biting. We had to come together for her sake, quit fighting, and be parents. WOW. This blew me away. I saw no purpose at all to all of that, and now four years later, in hind sight, he is completely correct. What a beautiful thing bloomed in that wreckage! Because we are excellent parents to Edith. Excellent. Our marital status is not stopping that.
Today Tom, Edith and I drove two hours in his jeep with the top down after church to deliver her to Girl Scout Camp. I kept looking back at her in the back seat, as the wind was swirling her hair around her precious face that held the biggest, happiest smile. My brain took a picture. I felt like I knew what she was so happy about – she was on her way to a real overnight camp, and her mom and her dad were taking her there, together. We were all together. While on one hand it breaks my heart for her that this is not her every day, I also rejoiced with her that this was her *this* day. And that she could recognize it, enjoy it, and let her heart sing.
I’m humbled today by God’s power. All things do work together for our good. It’s just really, really hard to see sometimes.
