Chapter One: The Bargain with God
Obedience is God’s answer to your problem.
My daughter tilted her head, scrunched her nose and gave a faint sigh. “I’m so confused." I knew what would come next. "What do you think about all this, Mom?"
With an eye on her one-year old son picking at his scrambled egg, Amy sat at my kitchen table asking for my opinion—give her husband another chance, or not.
My lips refused to
move as if they were fused with of Super Glue©.
How could I say what was in my mother's heart? Don't go back to him. You deserve better than what you’ve had with
him.
For once, I was glad to be speechless.
"You okay, Mom?” She lifted Andrew out of the high chair and turned to me.
"Just pondering…" And inwardly sneering at the thought of her reconciling with Jesse now.
Three months prior to this kitchen conversation, Amy called in desperation, "I can't take it anymore.” For months, she’d been telling me all about it; the angry exchanges, the ugly words. At first, I offered strategies for her to try—honest—but finally Jesse lost control and hit her.
My maternal hinges came undone.
"That's it. We have to get her out of there," I urged—okay, demanded—to my husband, Carl. In our short fifteen months of marriage, he had not seen me dig in my heels and insist on my way. We were still honeymooning.
At my sudden assertiveness, Carl raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure it's the right thing?” Carl is always tossing that statement at me, and frankly, I had no concern for rightness at that moment. To appease him, I consulted our pastor. He agreed that if Amy were in a potentially dangerous situation, we should rescue her from it, so off to Southern California we went.
I had 386 miles of desolate freeway to think. I tried every diversion; the oldies station on the radio, scanning magazines, shooting off Trivial Pursuit card questions to Carl, but nothing worked. I wrestled with the old enemy propaganda that always hits me when I’m weak: "If only." If only my marriage hadn’t failed, and her dad would have stuck around. If only I’d agreed to let my prodigal daughter back home the last time, she begged me for another chance instead on insisting she enter another program. If only I'd done this or that, and not the other thing.
Before she ran away to Southern California with Jesse.
There’s nothing like miles of nothingness to mull over our should-haves and could-haves. They grind so finely into guilt.
Amy never consulted me about getting married. At the tail end of her rebellious period, she was beginning to let down her defensive walls. God had begun to soften her bruised heart after her father’s abandonment. She and Jesse were two troubled kids seeking solutions to their pain and problems in the arms of each other.
Both had made decisions for Christ in their youth, and since Jesse’s brother just happened to be the pastor of a church in town, they felt convicted about their living arrangement and asked for a quick ceremony following the church service. They told me after the fact.
Another reason to be peeved at Jesse. How could he leave me out of my daughter’s wedding day? (As if Amy was not a party to it)
The marriage was a disaster from the start. A foundation built on sinking sand. No surprise to me.
Now Amy was home, with me and Carl, a man who values my daughters more than their long absent father does. Her head began to clear, and she grew more confident, more settled. She began sifting through her past, examining the her foolish choices and allowing God to mend the broken places.
God loved her and had a purpose for her life; it was enough to cling to for now. Just take it day by day, she echoed to herself.
That morning she thanked me for paying for counseling sessions. "Carol is helping me understand about personal boundaries. I've never had any, never felt worthy enough. I’m beginning to see that God accepts me despite of all the yucky things I’ve done. I have value and he loves me just as I am."
My heart ached for way her young life had been ravaged, her innocent youth wasted on disastrous choices. From age fifteen she was gone from the house so much, her room became the guest quarters.
So many missed years with my daughter, but now she was home with me again. For the first time, we began to talk as friends. We could make up for lost time and have so much fun together now.
What do you think, Mom, should I give my marriage another try? "I have no feelings left for him anymore,” she admitted, “but he seems so different now. He is listening, hearing what I say to him. Last night he asked forgiveness for his anger. He’s determined to get to the root of it and heal. He wants another chance. And, he is—my husband.”
“Yes...” Unfortunately.
Amy offered Andrew a grape, and with moistness in her eyes she said, “I know God hates divorce.”
In my mother/parrot
fashion, I’d reminded both my girls of this time and again—marriage is for life.
“What would you do, Mom?”
Ask me anything but that, please. I like thinking your marriage never happened. Sometimes I hate reality.
What would I do?
When her father had begged me for another chance, I’d given in over and over. Yes, let’s start anew. Of course, I’ll
forgive the infidelity. You’re my husband, my mate. Together we’ll find out
what’s making you do this.
In the end, he dumped me for another woman, had two more children and faded out of our lives, as if we never existed.
What if it she were one of my friends asking me this question and not my daughter? A friend who finally stood her ground and it shook her husband up so that he came to his knees and saw the light. She saw a glimmer of hope that the marriage could be restored.
How would I advise this friend? Especially if she felt the tug on her heart from God to trust him again, and saw his genuine concern to preserve the family, to try and become the husband he should be? If he was ready and willing to do it God’s way.
Would you stammer for an answer, Jan?
No. I would gladly blurt out with confidence: Be obedient. It’s been my standard response, my tried and true answer, life tested. God blesses our obedience. God always blesses obedience.
But I couldn’t cough up those words for Amy. (Maybe I had more Super Glue on my lips than I thought.) They wouldn’t squeak out, not with the Taekwando going on in me, the skirmish between the right answer—the godly answer—and what my mother’s heart cried out to say.
Don't do it. He's not sincere. I wish I'd
have left your father after he hurt me so much, but I stayed in the marriage. I
believed him when he apologized and asked for another chance. I gave him my
heart, my life and he left us anyway. Your marriage was a mistake. You deserve
better than this. Just walk away. I'll help you begin again.
Just then the phone rang and saved me for the moment. It was Jesse wanting to talk with little Andrew.
***
Have you ever had a brush with God over doing the right thing? Join the club. My experience is not that unique—the questions, the struggles, the testing. We are constantly wrestling with putting God’s purposes ahead of our own.
A few months ago, Carl charged through the back door after an elder board meeting. "Got a minute? I want to share what happened today." Those who know him best call Carl, Mr. Reserved, so when he comes bouncing in it’s my cue to sit down and be quiet. I might learn something.
"Ken Pense came to the meeting today," he told me between gasps. Ken is a Christian counselor in town and the elders asked him to enlighten them on some issues Christians are facing today.
"People come to me with marriages about to break up, addictions they can't conquer, bitterness issues," Ken reported. "I always start out with the same question: Where are you in your relationship with God? They say they know the Lord, they have the assurance of Heaven, but they are burned out trying to make life work. When we get down to the root issues, what is required of them, they don’t want to hear it. Our churches are of full of people whose faith doesn’t translate to their lives."
For weeks my husband chattered about this. "It's not about just changing behavior," he said. "It's about renewing your mind. It's about loving God enough to follow him, to do his will, no matter what."
"Sounds like a new book to me," I quipped, and it got me reminiscing about my obedience journey.
It started when my unexpected—by me—divorce devoured my dreams like a swarm of insects, and I turned to Christ. (You can read the story in my first book After the Locusts.) Soon after I found myself in a counselor’s office trying to sort through the mess of my life—compounded by the pursuit of an antidote for the pain. A new man.
Mike’s attention helped restore my worth as a woman. My heart cried out for love, my body yearned for sexual fulfillment, and my mind for directives to a secure future. "He" seemed the perfect solution.
Except for my recurring state of misery because we’d stepped over the line into sexual sin. No matter how I tried to excuse it—we were in love, etc—it felt wrong. He suggested marriage to resolve the issue, and I pressed the panic button. The counselor would surely have some strategies for me.
Not so. No advice—or
condemnation—only one revolutionary sentence: Obedience is God's answer to your problem.
Obedience? For this I’m shelling out seventy-five dollars an hour?