When people hear I got divorced after 10 years of marriage, the question is inevitable. "Do you have kids?"
I usually purse my lips together and shake my head while I answer. "No... No kids."
And then I hold my breath.
Because nine times out of ten, the response is the same. And I catch myself bracing for it.
"That's good."
I keep my lips pressed tightly together, and slowly nod obligatorily.
I understand what they're saying. With as much as my life fell apart when my husband decided to leave with another woman, I am grateful there weren't children's hearts also so deeply wounded. So yes. That part is good.
But what most people don't realize is there is such a bittersweetness there.
I don't not have kids because I didn't want them.
I longed to have children, and we were finally at a place of attaining certain goals that would allow me to step back from working full-time so we could start a family. And the irony is that he began pushing for a baby right when he started his affair. And since I knew something was going on—even when I didn't know how bad it really was—I knew adding a baby into the mix wouldn't "fix" anything. So I'm the one who made the decision to wait. Because I needed to be sure we were okay.
And we weren't.
And we never had kids.
So while I'm glad there weren't little people dragged through the devastation of my past few years, and I'm beyond thankful I don't need to figure out an international custody arrangement, there is also a huge sense of loss for what could have been... and for what will never be.
It's an added layer of grief. Of mourning. Of letting go. Of uncertainty about ever having the opportunity again.
So yes. "That's good." But it also sucks.
Just think twice before you make a quick remark to someone. We never know the whole story. We can never comprehend the full situation. Don't presume. Don't preach. Ask.
Ask questions. Hear what the other person is thinking... feeling... saying... not saying...
The past few years of my life have been filled with untold endings.
The end of my marriage. The closing of my ministry. The loss of my home, job, community...
The endings can be so obvious that it's often easy for me to overlook the new beginnings. But they're there. When I take the time and make the choice to look for them — to dust for God's fingerprints — I see them. Plain as day.
The beginning of my heart re-awakening. The launch of a new journey. The start of a new home, job, community...
I am reminded once again that the new life of spring actually begins with the dying leaves of autumn.
While we usually picture our day starting with the sunrise, God created it to begin in the darkness of night. Though it seems like an ending, the night — with all its bleakness and uncertainty — is really just the beginning...
What endings are you experiencing right now where you need to dust for God's fingerprints of new life?
I just stumbled upon the beginnings of a blog post that's been collecting dust in my drafts folder since January.
I am the queen of unfinished ideas and unpublished posts. Sigh...
Anyway.
Back in January I attended Dream Year Weekend here in Nashville. I was wrestling through my own feelings of dreamlessness, and didn't know how to reconcile that with all the amazing stuff I was hearing at Dream Year. I had some candid conversations with a few key friends to help me sort through my own heart thoughts.
Segments of one of those conversations (a text convo at that!) have been sitting in my dusty draft blog post folder all this time.
It is amazing to see the truth and strength of the words spoken to me almost a year ago, and how they have taken shape in my life over the course of this year.
The cliff-notes version of my friend's wisdom:
You don't need to find a new vision.
Your vision, purpose, and passion are the core of who you are. You are all about influencing people to change for the better and to pursue Christ. That is your heart, and that hasn't changed.
Your ministry in Africa was the vehicle and tool you used to express that and live that out for 13 years.
Now you need to discover a different vehicle and tool to express it. But your heartbeat hasn't changed.
That's why you've continued to be an influence through your blog, your relationships, & your Twitter interactions. That is simply who you are, no matter what.
As you look forward into the future, the vehicle for living that out and expressing it will need to change. But the essence of who you are and what your passions are won't.
Let's work on discovering a new vehicle...
That was a whole lotta wisdom and a whole lotta truth. In a text conversation. That my friend probably doesn't even remember having.
You know what I titled the draft post I had those bullet-points saved in?
"Me 2.0"
And a year later, I find myself finally realizing and embracing that.
Me 2.0.
I've begun recognizing ways that my passions and heart can continue to be lived out, even though my ministry in Africa closed. Even though it looks totally different than anything I'd ever anticipated.
So as I sit here thinking through all this, and finally turning this dusty draft into a real, live post... all I keep thinking is this:
You really never know how impactful your words can be in someone's life. Even a simple text message can make a world of difference.
So, today...
Speak into your loved ones' situation. In person, on the phone, in an email, via text... whatever. Just speak life into their heart.
When my husband confessed to his affair, my world began crumbling out from under my feet.
Actually, the crumbling started almost two years before, when the infidelity and incessant lying began. With each piece that shattered, I withdrew into myself a little bit more.
When all this started, and all I had was a gut feeling and doubts and stories that didn't seem to line up, we were the leaders of a non-profit organization. I didn't know how to deal with what I feared might be going on, and I certainly didn't know who I could talk to.
So this quiet girl grew even quieter.
Then doubts gave way to undeniable proof...
And then the bombshell was dropped that he was done. With me. With ministry. With all of it.
And he walked away.
And while it didn't seem like it was even possible, I withdrew even more.
In the past few years, I have fought through divorce, depression, chronic health issues, the closing of our ministry, the loss of my home, the seeming loss of me... And while I am ashamed to admit it, I haven't had the energy, strength, time, or resolve to pour into my friendships. Not like I used to. Not like I'd want to.
I simply haven't had it in me. Leaning into people seems to demand more of me than I've had left.
So emails and Facebook messages have gone unanswered. Calls have been unreturned.
In a lot of ways, I fell off the face of the earth when it fell out from under me.
And in the process of that, I know I've hurt some people. Some people I care deeply about. People who mean very much to me. People who infused me with strength through their emails and texts and voicemails, even if I didn't know how to reach out and respond.
My lack of communication has communicated that I don't care, and that's the farthest thing from the truth.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry for any way I may have disregarded, dismissed, or ignored your gestures of love and friendship.
I'm sorry for not speaking up, even if it were only to say that I have no words.
For years I've prayed for my ex-husband’s heart to return to the Lord.
For him to feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
For the consequences of his decisions and actions to open his eyes to how deceived he’s become.
For him to hit rock bottom.
For God to do whatever it takes to get his attention.
But if I’m being most honest, I haven't been as concerned with his repentance as I am with wanting him to feel the weight of what he’s done.
The reality is that I sometimes still want him to hurt like I’ve hurt, more than I want him to live forgiven and free.
I’ve had to come face-to-face with the double-standard of my heart.
Because my struggle to genuinely pray not only for his repentance but also for his forgiveness really only means one thing—
I don’t realize just how much I’ve been forgiven.
I want to accept the work of the cross for my sins, but not for my husband’s.
As if my sins have been lesser.
Or even fewer.
When they are neither.
“…God’s kindness leads you toward repentance.”
I remember gasping out loud when I saw that verse as if with new eyes.
And I’ve wrestled with Him long and hard over the implications of it.
It has taken me a very long time to get to this point, but I’ve begun praying—still with tear-filled eyes—for God’s kindness to lead my ex-husband to repentance.
I’ve started asking God to smother him with His goodness and grace and mercy.
Some days it’s easier to pray that way than others.
Some days I can’t at all.
On those days, I just sit in the reality of what it truly means.
And I pray for God’s kindness to lead me to repentance.
I moved to Africa with a couple of very-full suitcases, $200, and a heart-cocktail of faith, naivety, passion, and foolishness. I was only 19.
I didn't know much, but I knew that I loved Africa and her beautiful people. I didn't set out on any grand mission or with any huge goals. I just wanted to meet needs where I could, and see what God would do with my meager fish-and-loaves life. I was hopeful that He could write a magnificent story for me and with me.
In the chasing of my dream, I found love. I got married, and together we pioneered a ministry that trained leaders and taught AIDS prevention in the poorest region of South Africa. God did astounding things. Constantly.
I watched Him open blind eyes, show up with eleventh hour provision, stop wildfires from destroying our mission base, and radically transform lives by His Spirit. After a decade of ministry, our team had grown to over 60 staff members, primarily African nationals. We trained over 100 pastors a year and taught 4000 public school students each week about living lives of purity and purpose.
God was writing a story I never could have imagined.
He truly multiplied our fish and loaves to nourish the masses. He created something out of our nothing. He made life out of our brokenness.
And then the story changed dramatically.
Everything crumbled to pieces when it came out that my husband had been unfaithful. For a year and a half. With a staff member, a friend of mine.
The pieces shattered even further when he announced he was done---with me and ministry. No matter how tightly I tried to cling to it all, I couldn't hold any of it together. Not my marriage or my ministry or even my life... Everything seemed to unravel out from under me.
I fought both my story and the Story-teller. This isn't how it was supposed to be!
It felt as though my story came to a screeching halt. But He kept writing...
After 13 years of ministry in Africa, I was forced to close down our operations in December. I permanently relocated back to the States, walking away from my home, my work, my community, my vision, my history.
I've been divorced for a few months now. It still feels strange to say, and even stranger to truly accept at a heart level. Losing someone by their choice evokes a grief deeper than death. There is loss and there is hurt. There is sadness and anger and mourning and relief and remorse. Sometimes all in the very same breath.
And underneath it all is the hole left in my everyday by the loss of someone I've lived one-third of my life with. It's the small things I miss the most. Our comfortable routines. Our stupid jokes that no one else would ever think is funny. The way he'd draw diagrams when he was explaining something to me. His laughter...
The missing is deep. It's a missing of what was. A missing of who was. A missing of what could've been. A missing of the story I was once living.
It's as though I lost not only my future, but also my past.
I can't find words to really capture what it means to feel as though I've lost my own history, but lately that is what I'm grieving the most. I don't have a single person left in my life who walked that African road with me from start to finish. No one who was with me for all the memories, all the provision and lack, all the joys and heartaches. No one to corroborate what happened, fill in the blanks where my memory forgets, simply remember with me.
There is a unique loneliness in that.
And even as I type these words with no clear end in mind, I hear Him whisper: I was there. Sigh... To be honest, it is so hard to feel content and satisfied in that. But I know it's true. He was there with me. In Him I still have history.
His. Story.
My history is more His story than mine anyway.
Whether or not anyone else knows the details, or my fuzzy brain loses track of it all, or I ever get to speak them out loud again, they are still there. They are His. And they are mine. No matter what.
In Him I still have a future. It is going to look very different than the one I'd been on track towards just a few years ago. It will be nothing like I ever thought it would. But He is already there, going before me to prepare the way. And to prepare me.
My story is more than the sum of my experiences. It is more than what I have seen and done and endured. It is more than what has happened to me.
I, too, am more than the sum of my chapters. I am more than my past or my present or my future. I am more than my history, forgotten or remembered.
Some friends of mine, Justin and Trish Davis, have walked a road similar to mine. But ended up in a completely different place. After infidelity and separation, their marriage has been restored and God uses their story to minister to countless people every week.
I believe strongly in them and their ministry, and felt really burdened to pray for them on Monday. Through that, I ended up writing something for them that they put up on their website today.
I'd love it if you'd link over to Refine Us to read my post and, ultimately, find out more about the incredible ministry and resources there.
And I am starting to wonder if maybe he was right.
I've always felt confident about my decision to step into ministry when and how I did -- against all the odds, really.
I've seen fruit of lives changed and considered it all the proof I needed that I was doing something far from the "worst possible thing".
But here I sit, late at night when the darkness is darkest and the doubts and unknowns are the loudest.
I sit here with my heart pounding and the tears flowing. And now...
Now my confidence is cracked and crumbling. Now while I know lives were changed by our team and years and service in Africa, I still hear my former pastor's words to my faith-filled teenage missionary heart.
And I've gotta be honest. I no longer have my youthful faith and energy that bounded me away from the fateful words spoken over me. I don't have the fight left in me that it takes to stand up against these kinds of roadblocks.
Even when they are only internal.
I simply don't have any fight left.
And I can't help but think...
That maybe he was right after all.
Maybe he was right. Maybe my decision to be a missionary was the worst thing I could've done because of the domino effect it would cause. Because while people got saved, pastors and churches strengthened, young leaders equipped to teach their peers in public schools about abstinence and AIDS prevention, and so many other mind-blowingly amazing things were done that led to transforming a nation... simultaneously my marriage fell apart, the man of God I loved decided to pursue another woman and walk away from God, me, and the ministry, and everything crumbled to pieces.
So maybe he was right all along. Maybe had I not gone to Africa, someone else more suitable and prepared and strong would have gone. And the end result of years of ministry would be so much more than what it currently is.
Maybe he was right...
I know to live in past-tense hypotheticals is completely futile. I know this. But in dark moments of deafening quiet, my heart immediately goes to that place. And I can't help but cry as my chest caves in under the weight of it all.
Maybe he was right...
Maybe He was right.
I gasp, and my breath catches in my throat.
Why do I trust so easily the words of the meteorologist and yet hesitate at the words of God? Why do I more easily trust the negative, fearful voices in my head than I do God's truth?
He told me to go. I went. Lives were changed through the grit and the glory. Including my own.
And so through the ugly tears, I'm starting to hear a growing whisper.
That's the first time I've actually said that word out loud.
Over the past two months, I've used varying versions of "my divorce was finalized", but I've avoided saying the actual word.
It's as though I feel a shameful sting in the word divorced. I hear unspoken judgments, like What's wrong with her that made her husband leave? and She's used goods and even simply a sigh of disappointment.
I hear them because my heart has also condemned others that way.
My good Christian upbringing left me judgmental. Pious. Spiritually stuck-up. I've unconsciously viewed divorce as the ultimate failure.
And now here I am, walking around with a red D on my chest for the world to see. And I feel not only the weight of others' judgment, but also the historical weight of my own.
Oh how arrogant I have been...
A friend recently spoke some healing and freeing words for my heart:
Divorce is no more a sign of relationship failure than marriage is of relationship success.
And even just typing those words out, my breath catches in my throat. Because I know it is true.
Even when it is hard for me to believe.
I hope someday I won't feel completely defined by my divorce. And that I can eventually say the word without hanging my head in shame, or feeling the need to justify it with an explanation, or wincing as I hear it megaphone my insufficiencies.
Because though it feels like divorced has been written on my heart in permanent ink, I need to remember... So has beloved. Chosen. Loved. His.
A few years ago, things felt pretty certain. Now... Notsomuch.
In some ways, I feel like I've gotten used to the uncertainties. I've grown accustomed to all the question marks.
But they still suck.
In December I said a final goodbye to my home, my ministry, my job, my everything... For the two years prior to that, I'd already been bouncing between guest rooms, hoping for a very different ending than how things ended up.
It's been a long season of limbo. Transition. Change.
And even the few things I've hazily viewed over the past few months as possibilities for the future... I feel less certain about them now than I did before.
I am often asked questions about my current season and what's down the road. The questions come from hearts that care, and that is an invaluable gift to me. I know I am loved and thought of and prayed for by many, and that is unbelievably humbling. I am beyond grateful.
Still, I'm left tired.
It's not the questions I'm tired of. It's that I've grown weary of not having answers.
So let me tell you what I know for sure:
:::
I am living in Southern Oregon with incredible friends. Friends who are family. Friends who are a safe place for my heart to land.
I've unpacked my suitcases. The Hodges had my room amazingly set up just for me -- complete with a closet and a dresser and a desk. And I feel more settled than I have in a long time.
I am trying to give myself permission to just be right now. I've done a lot. And I'm spent. So I'm trying to just give my heart some breathing room for a little while.
Extending myself grace to just be -- to not do, to not feel guilty about not doing, to not worry about what I'll be doing next -- is much easier said than done.
Some days it's hard to simply get out of bed and put my two feet on the floor. Physically. Emotionally. Life feels hard, inside and out, and I'm struggling with my inability to see ahead. At all. But I'm trying to be okay with all my not knowing. Trying.
I am still battling my chronic health issues. But I feel hopeful -- for the first time -- that I might get my very own Dr. House sometime soon. And that makes things a little easier.
I am grateful for my friends and my community (you!) who have walked with me through the past few years. Like I said before, I know I am loved and prayed for. And that's just... Wow.
I feel doubly grateful for those friends who knew me in my "before" life, and love me still. Because I feel like a very different person now than I was then. And there's such exhale in simply being known.
I am amazed anyone at all shows up here to read the scribblings of my heart. Thank you. Truly.
God is not absent. Not distracted. He sees. He knows. He cares. And He's doing something about it.
:::
So I guess that means I know quite a bit more than I thought I did...
"Sleep good," my friend called from her bedroom doorway.
"Sleep well," her daughter replied.
Instantly -- before I could even take a breath-- the words flooded to the forefront of my mind. Right on cue, they were all I could hear.
"Sleep however you want."
That's what my husband would always say. And though I haven't heard it, or even thought it, in a very long time, it crept up on me tonight. It took me by surprise and left me with tears. And a smile.
For all the hell the past few years have been, my ten-year marriage had a lot of good in it. And I am grateful for those memories, those instinctual thoughts, that still come. Though they sting, and though I am tired of tear-stained cheeks, there are some things I hope I never forget.
I never imagined this moment would come at all. I certainly never thought it would play out like this.
By myself.
In a Kinko's.
I print out the paperwork my attorney emailed me, and I just stare at it. With trembling fingers, I pick up the pen, and still... I just sit here. Aware of each breath. Fighting tears---and losing. Unable to swallow.
I read and re-read the letters on the page, trying to wrap my mind around the legal jargon. I worry there's something I'm missing or misunderstanding. So I read and re-read again. And then... I just sit here. I sit here and stare. Motionless, save for the uncontrollable trembling in my fingers. And my legs. Yeah, they're jittering as well.
I sigh.
I brace myself, steeling for the inevitable. I hold my breath as I put ink to paper... and sign. Painfully. Heart-brokenly. Yet peacefully...
Tears stream down my face and I try to make sense of this collision of emotions. There's a deep unspeakable ache... and an overwhelming sense of relief. Neither stronger than the other, these emotional opponents are equally matched. Pain and peace, dancing together to the somber music of my heart.
People have told me I was brave for moving to Africa when I was 19. But I didn't feel brave. I'm pretty sure it was more foolishness and naivety (with a little faith mixed in) than it was bravery.
I didn't look at what I was doing as being anything special. It was frightening in some ways, sure. But I wasn't setting out to be Mother Teresa. I didn't think I was embarking on anything pat-on-the-back worthy. I was simply following my heart. And outsiders called that bravery. Courage.
I'm sitting here tonight with a lump in my throat.
Moving home from Africa after 13 years is demanding far more courage than it took to move there.
More courage than I have.
I am most certainly not brave. I cry painful, ugly tears at the thought of needing to make a whole new life for myself. The smallest of things feel insurmountable to me right now. And the biggest of things... Well, they sit heavily on my chest and make it impossible for me to breathe.
Like a landslide, the only dream I've ever had just completely washed away. I didn't have a "back-up plan" tucked in my pocket for a rainy day. I didn't have a secret wish of "If I weren't a missionary, I'd do THIS with my life". I was doing exactly what I always wanted to do.
And now it's gone.
I feel as though my heart may not have another dream left in her.
I am scared. And I feel alone (even though I am well aware of the amazing people God has given me in my life). And my heart feels hollow.
Dreamless.
Passionless.
Paralyzed.
I've been told to embrace the idea of a clean slate. The world is my oyster. I can do anything I want to do.
While I appreciate the heart behind those statements, please---I beg you---spare me the rhetoric. Please hang onto your two cents and your platitudes. It's not as easy as just "deciding what I want to do next". Maybe it should be. But it isn't.
I want to dream again. I want to hope. I want to breathe in deep. I crave it... but I also fear it.
I need courage to face my fears. To trust one more time. To hope again.
I need to courage to speak. To be vulnerable. To be really me.
I need courage to put one foot in front of the other. To believe it's going to be ok. To look for His hand.
I need courage to grieve. To bury. To walk away.
I need courage to embrace wholeness. To dream again. To start over.
Two years ago, when my husband confessed to an 18-month affair, I didn't think things could get any worse.
And then he filed for divorce.
And I had to close the ministry I launched 13 years ago.
And I had to give up my home, my car, almost all my possessions, and move back to America. Where I currently am living out of a suitcase, in people's guest rooms, with no income and no plan.
I'd say Transition has slapped me around pretty good.
And, the bully that he is, Transition won't leave me alone.
Change is my only constant. And I've gotta be honest...
I hate it.
It makes me want to scream. It makes me cry ugly tears. It makes me want to cuss.
I've lost so much -- am still losing so much -- to unrelenting Transition.
And -- sigh -- I don't think I've handled it very well. I haven't carried myself very gracefully through these changes.
I'm pretty sure I allowed Transition to steal my faith, hope, and joy along with everything else.
Something's gotta give...
I ended 2010 so ready to kick the year to the curb. But at the stroke of midnight, things didn't miraculously change.
And now, I find myself looking around, wondering where's the "new" in the new year. Everything's still the same. Only the calendar's different.
Transition's still taking a wrecking ball to my life. Hope still seems scarce. Tears I didn't know I had left, keep coming. The hard days continue.
And I know they will.
So I made the decision to look for God's hand in the midst of the hard.
My eyes have been blindfolded by Transition for too long.
I want to actively search for God in my brokenness. Seek out His beauty in my pile of ashes. Face the continual tide of change on my tip-toes, looking for God where I haven't seen Him before.
I haven't quite mustered up the strength to steal back my faith, hope, and joy. But I'm at least going to start looking for them. Which is more than I've done in a long time.
I can't stop change from coming. I cannot.
But I can choose to remember that He holds my ever-changing life in His never-changing hand.
Life is hard right now.
I let out a "Heh" (with an eye-roll) as I write that, because "right now" has spanned the past two years. No, make that four years. But my immediate right now is still just... really hard.
It's dark. Dry. Barren. Cold. Unrelenting.
I've endured more transition in these few years than I could ever imagine facing in a lifetime. An unfaithful spouse. A divorce (which still isn't final). The forced-closing of the ministry I pioneered. The loss of my home. Moving back to America after 13 years in Africa.
And those are just the big things. Each one brings with it a myriad of "small" losses and griefs and heartaches. Even now, I feel a thousand aches from the thousand small things that happened this week alone.
I've been through the ringer.
The trouble is? There's still no end in sight.
My days remain filled with the details of closing Thrive. Thirteen years, sixty staff members, thousands of supporters, and a ministry that spanned two continents doesn't wrap up easily.
And as each loose end gets tied, I have yet another breakdown. I feel like I should be grateful for the bit of relief and closure that comes with each segment of finality, but instead... they just rip open the raw wound of my broken heart.
Again.
I have lost everything.
And in some moments I feel like "everything" includes my head. And my heart.
I've lost me.
And I'm not quite sure how to find me again. I'm not even sure I have enough fight left in me for the search.
So it was with agonizing tears that I committed to look this year. To look for hope. For light. For Him. For me.
To look for life.
It hurts just to open my eyes. The sting of grief and the brace for more disappointment makes me wince. But I told Him I'd look. Though it hurts. Though I may not like what I see. Though I may be scared... I will look.
I don't have words for so much of what I'm dealing with and attempting to process through. I know some will misinterpret my silence on certain things to mean a lack of feeling or caring (I know, because some already have). And to that all I can say is... Usually the hardest, most deeply-felt things, are those I simply cannot talk about.
Do with that what you will.
I went to South Africa last month for a couple weeks. I was there for our final week of ministry. I packed up my home. I said heart-wrenching goodbyes.
And in between all of those things, the greatest heartache I've ever known steadily grew.
Even now, I can't even just think about that time in Africa without tears overflowing down my face. It's just too hard. It's just too much.
I don't think I will ever be able to explain to a solitary soul all the layers of hard that were in those two weeks. Or anything that's taken place since then.
It makes my breath catch painfully in my throat. It feels as though someone is sitting on my chest. I can hear my heart pouding in my own ears.
Breaking hearts are anything but quiet. Under the surface at least...
Every shatter, every crack, piercingly resounds, echoing over and over again.
So know that for every second of my silence, there are a thousand deafening decibles resonating from my broken heart.
And because it's trapped inside, it reverberates around the hollow shell of me.
As you’ve been aware while walking this road with us, the past two years have been extremely difficult for Thrive. We have encountered significant challenges that far exceed any other obstacle we’ve overcome in the past 13 years of ministry.
In spite of every effort to raise funds, our financial support has continued to dwindle. For the first time since our inception, we’ve found ourselves unable to sustain our basic operating expenses, for multiple months in a row.
Last month the Board of Directors came to the point of needing to make the most difficult decision we’ve ever made. We will officially be closing our operations in South Africa at the conclusion of the ministry year.
I am thankful that the closing of Thrive doesn’t mean a ceasing of the vital work we have been doing. We are supporting the launch of a new ministry, Ignite South Africa, through several of our staff members who will carry on large aspects of our programming.
I ask that you prayerfully consider continuing your partnership with us through April 2011. Incoming finances will be used to provide our indigenous ministry staff with severance pay and clear Thrive’s operational debts. It is our desire to finish strong and honorably in every way, and we need your help to do that.
We have much to celebrate and rejoice about as we look back at over a decade of ministry together in Africa. God has done incredible things, and you have been a vital part of that. Thank you for allowing Him to use you to bring the light and hope of Jesus to so many.
I so appreciate your ongoing prayers for me, our entire staff team, and everyone whose lives are deeply impacted by this transition. Thank you for everything.
With love, thankfulness, sorrow, and hope, my heart still believes...
I didn't date until I was 20, and my first and only boyfriend became my husband a couple years later. He is the only guy I've ever kissed; he's the only one I've ever slept with.
And somewhere along the line, without even realizing it, I assumed that had earned me some brownie points with God.
After all, I'd "kissed dating goodbye". I'd saved myself for my husband. Subconsciously, I thought that guaranteed an incredible, lasting marriage.
In some ways, it feels like I'd saved myself for nothing... Like none of it mattered.
I know, at least on some levels, that that isn't true. I know that even my"all things" are intended for my good, even when it's impossible to see. I know that He is redeeming, restoring, rebuilding me, for His ultimate purpose.
I also know that redemption doesn't usually look like we think it will.
And that there are no brownie points to be had. There are no guarantees, no obligatory blessings, no automatic protections or provisions.
Life is just plain hard. Even though God is good.
Even though God is good.
And even when I "kissed dating goodbye".
I hope to someday see the bigger picture. The full circle. The "none of it mattered" transformed into "every bit of it mattered".
But even if I don't, even if I won't, I'm still called to trust Him. To live on the truth of what He says and who He is.
When my husband's affair was exposed, my entire life turned upside down.
Everything changed. Overnight.
And though I didn't think it was possible, everything crumbled into even smaller pieces when he filed for divorce.
In one big swoop, I lost my marriage... my ministry... my home.
After a decade of living in Africa, I've now been back in the States for a year-and-a-half. Almost nothing in my life is the same as it was two years ago.
Nothing.
My world fell out from under me. And it was surprising to see the people God used to catch me.
It wasn't who I expected. In fact, some were people I never would've expected.
But that's just the way God works, isn't it?
Often, those we think "should" be there for us, aren't. And those we'd never expect to be, are. It's painful in some ways and joyous in others, but ultimately it reminds me to keep my eyes on God rather than on man.
And while it never plays out the way we'd script it, God uses people to bring redemption and restoration to our lives.
The greatest hurts always come from relationships. But so do the greatest healings.
In the past couple years, I have felt the deepest pain of my entire life. But I've also felt more loved than I ever have before.
It's as though the raw hurt was matched, depth for depth, with immense love.
Deep calls out to deep.
And I wouldn't know how to love and be loved so intensely if it weren't for the pain I've endured in my life.
In the midst of such indescribable personal grief, God built an amazing support system around me. In unfathomable ways.
He gave me friends who've loved me hard even when I had nothing to give back to them. Friends who've prayed faithfully and sincerely for me. Friends who've held me as I cried, talked me down off the proverbial edge when hopelessness set in, and pushed/carried/dragged me when it felt impossible to take a single step.
In a lot of ways, being on the receiving end of so much care and support has been really hard for me. But over and over again I've heard God's unmistakable voice:
"Let Me love you through My people."
In allowing myself to receive others' love, I've discovered new depths of the love of God. I've experienced more of His character. I've learned to love more deeply in return.
I am grateful for the community God's given me. I'm thankful for the amazing people I get to call "friends" and the ways God uses them to bring healing to my heart.
He continues to show me aspects of who He is that can only be expressed through His people.
In spite of great loss, my life feels incredibly rich.
I knew the entire 18 months that my husband was having an affair.
At first it was just a suspicion; by the end, we were fighting every single day about her. He kept denying it. And insisting that the real issue was me. How dare I accuse him of something like this?!
Until I confronted him with undeniable proof.
I don't know what I thought would happen after that. I don't know that I was thinking at all. But I certainly didn't imagine everything that's transpired in the year-and-a-half since then.
I never anticipated the bottom completely falling out of my world, making every single thing in my life uncertain and unsure. I never expected him to leave me for her. I couldn't imagine that things would get far worse long before they'd ever start getting better.
I wonder if I'd have gone through with it if I had known what would happen.
I was so crushed, depressed, and broken, that I'm not sure I would have. And that breaks my heart.
It also makes me realize that---and I'm almost afraid to say this out loud---I'm grateful. With tears streaming down my face, I'm thankful that my life shattered to pieces... because I am already more whole than I was before all this happened.
Don't get me wrong. The past few years have been hell. They've been harder than I ever imagined I could survive, and I wouldn't wish that kind of pain on anyone. Even her.
But sitting here today, I have a clearer picture of my value and worth than I ever did in my marriage.
I still have a long road ahead of me. I will live with the pain of this heartache for a long time. But today... Today I feel hopeful that God is redeeming this.
He doesn't waste a thing.
Everything can be made new. Everything can be redeemed. Everything can be made whole.
