I have a question. I like questions. Do (end of the) Baby-Booming, African-American, stay-at-home moms blog? I suppose I ask this question because I spent several days this week becoming cyber BFFs with Tonya Ferguson and Jami Nato. I'm not sure why I am wondering but here I am with my at-home, blogging, brown skinned, four kids aged 23-7, closing-in-on 50 self, really connecting with some young women who look nothing like me. Does any of that even matter?
Please meet my new *friends*...
Tonya is beautiful. Her story is beautiful. She is the kind of girl that I wish I had been growing up. Tonya has known, truly known and loved, God from childhood. And she took following Him seriously. Tonya made a conscious decision to live her life listening to and following the Lord. She had a happy, fun young life. Her parents (obviously) modeled a genuine Christian life and Tonya followed their lead. She wasn't after perfection but her direction was (is) consistently God-ward. Her parents allowed her to date at 16, but she chose not to date. Wowza! Tonya waited to give her heart ( and her body!) to her husband. [That is so B.I.G. It has become the message of my life to young people.] She eventually met the young man who would sweep her off her feet. He was a Believer and madly in love with Tonya. They had a sweet courtship and she married the man of her dreams at 20 years old. There are some twists and turns in their story. I was teary reading how God brought them together. Tonya and her husband now have four of the most adorable little Fergusons.
Jami is a lovely woman also. She is a witty and intelligent story teller, magnificently sketching her life with powerful prose and amazing pictures. (Both Tonya and Jami are excellent photographers.) Jami is the kind of woman that I would like to be like today. She has a profound grasp of the Gospel and the ability to communicate it so well in writing.... I love the (quirky) way she shares her story. Jami will give you laughs! Like Tonya (and me), Jami wants to live this Christian life authentically. She says frequently on her blog, "We are all jacked up!!" She is definitely my true soul sister! Jami is a married, stay home mom as well. She and her handsome husband have three darling little Natos.
These two beautiful young women are women after my own heart! Tonya and Jami are more than a decade younger than I and they are both in the first decade of marriage but I feel such a kindred spirit to them. Perhaps a better term for what they have become to me (instead of cyber BFFs :p) is an online support group. As young and beautiful as both of these women are, as much as their marriages were built on the Christian faith, both Tonya and Jami's husband's have been unfaithful. These two girls and their families are on the same redemption journey as I and my family.
I've been pondering their stories this week. And opening my heart so that the Lord can teach me a new thing or two. Every infidelity story is unique but the PAIN is universal. Doesn't matter if you are a believer, non believer, make believer or fake believer, a one-flesh union has been ripped apart. It is a living death. A living hell. The realization and discovery of such is EARTH SHAKING and LIFE ALTERING. All the details, how it comes out (confessed or caught?), how the offending spouse initially handles the revelation ( remorseful, repentant and truthful ? Or proud, blameshifting and continuing to deceive?) makes a critical difference in whether there will be reconciliation and to the healing of both the spouses and the relationship. Jami's discovery day was just a few months before mine. The Nato's story mirrors ours very closely. Like Travis and me, they married within 6 months of dating one another. There were actually two affairs, a 6 week separation, and the aw-ful dreaded trickle-truth (when the truth isn't confessed all at once but comes out in stages. This is a terrible hindrance to healing and rebuilding trust). Jami shared how one night their 2 year old son said that he "didn't have a Daddy anymore." Similarly, during the first week of our separation our 4 year son woke up one night screaming, "Where is Daddy?! Where is Daddy?!" Reading Jami's words is like reading my own journals.
Both Tonya and Jami are really blessing me. I'm about old enough to be their mother but these girls are teaching me some things. I thank God for them. I don't know if there are any other Baby Boomer bloggers out there; I just know I'm grateful to be here. I will write about what I'm learning soon. #Overcoming
"The one who finds his life will lose it, and the one who loses his life because of Me will find it." Matthew 10:39 (ISV)
"They overcame him because of the Lamb's blood, and because of the word of their testimony. They didn't love their life, even to death." Revelation 12:11 (WEB)
Friday, June 8, 2012
Friday, May 4, 2012
Deconstructing the Scandal
What is up with her team? The seemingly tormented Huck? Harrison, a former inside trader who seems to also have a audio-genic mind? The mousey Quinn who had no identity before 2008? Stephen? And Abby who brings just the right amount of *off* to complete the crew? Interesting indeed.
And the preview for next week’s show. Oh. My. Goodness. It was titillating (pun intended), complete with a parental advisory warning. Quite provocative stuff…
Now you must know that I am tracking hard with this *romance* between Olivia and the president (small p on purpose). I mean that is the way this thing is being played. We have been led to believe that she and the president have been gettin' it on. I think it was in episode 2 that the president actually told Liv that he loved her. Even tho he had a “fling” with Amanda Tanner, and (not to mention) he is MARRIED. It is Olivia that he really loves. The flotus (his wife) even seems to KNOW that the president has been involved with Olivia but is otherwise disinterested and/or unbothered by this. Wow.
I have had this theory for many years now that everything we do and believe has its roots in some basic, fundamental need of our heart. There is always a “need behind the deed.” Just as our bodies need and crave food and drink, there is a hunger and thirst within every heart, every soul, every life. If I take a physical drink, I was most likely thirsty, although perhaps WHAT I drank was not actually what I was thirsting for or even what my body really needed. This, I think, is one of the biggest challenges of this life, knowing what it is we are really after, what it is we really desire, what our hearts are calling for.
Who’s got the Power? and The reality – and recognition-- of the Counterfeit
A big draw I see in Scandal is the power play between Olivia and others. Liv is larger than life. She is the FIXER. She can make all things right. I mean she has direct access to the president for goodness sake. One time last year when Travis and I were at the movies a line in a trailer tattooed itself onto my psyche. A female character said, “Women get to say if there will be sex. But men get to say if there will be a relationship.” I have thought about the truth of that statement so often. The woman holds the final say on physical intimacy but the man holds the final say over the companionship. I call this the balance of power. Generally speaking men want sex and women want relationship. “He’s got what she wants, she’s got what he wants…” (In the words of the O'Jays, “They were made for each other…”) A man and a woman fit together like parts of a two piece puzzle. It is the essence of our being. An intelligent design. Altho the story is still unfolding, Liv and the president (who is MARRIED- to someone else) seem to make the perfect power team. Their onscreen chemistry is as potent as their positions. Powerful stuff indeed.
The real life problem we face is that since the beginning of time humanity has had to contend with counterfeits. Fake power brokers--- substitutes, imitations, stand-ins, knock offs. All because of a little transaction between a snake (the spoiler) and the first man and woman. You know the story. We had REAL fellowship with our Creator. Intimate, face to face, naked and unashamed, enthralling connection. But we gave it up for a little knowledge (of good and evil). For the chance at becoming imitation gods (Genesis 3:5). We traded our true image bearing lives in for a parody.
Thousands of years later people are still battling to choose between fact and fiction. Truth and lie. Right and wrong. Accuracy and error. We never get a break from this. Every transaction in life has to be assessed and weighed for its truth capacity. Years ago when Travis worked for the Federal Reserve Bank, in order to identify counterfeits he would study REAL bills. You have to know what’s real in order to detect the fake.
Life is so not about having all the answers. It is more about asking the RIGHT questions. Why did Olivia get involved with the president? What is an adulteress/adulterer really after? What is the need behind the deed? Would a president actually risk his own life and the safety of his country for a few minutes with his *forbidden* love? That is the lure (and lie) of adultery. That a person would throw all caution to the wind for a few stolen moments -- that someone would risk everything important to them for a chance to be with you. It is the ULTIMATE counterfeit. Did you catch the look on Liv’s face as she opened the door and found the president of the united states standing at her door? She had to be thinking, “Certainly I must matter if you would do something so extreme. Surely I am important. He really loves me…”
The most profound deception.
We love a love story, especially these kinds of forbidden love stories because deep down we know that love is costly. And that is the point at which we have to be able to discern the hoax. The cost and sacrifice of true love takes the form of honor, integrity, a genuine concern for the welfare of the other, truth, a self-less-ness that brings good. Forbidden (read: counterfeit) love is costly in that it is only concerned for itself-- producing much destruction, devastation and even death. Amanda Tanner is dead. Liv may try to tell herself that Amanda was only the president’s fling, but if he would so easily *do* his Aide, what does that make Liv? She has to ask herself that question. (A friend of a friend on Facebook asked, “Why does Olivia always look like she is ready to throw up?” She does, doesn’t she?) Perhaps she already has. And then she needs to realize that the president loves only himself. The whole purpose of marriage and the true love within it is to establish a relationship that includes the TWO spouses and EXCLUDES everyone else. It’s not love that sustains the commitment; it’s commitment that sustains the love. The president has proven that he is incapable of the pure, sacrificial love that says, “I am committed to only you. I only have eyes for you.” He could change but it is highly unlikely.
The adulterer’s motive – the need behind the deed – is ALWAYS selfish. But here’s the deal: When a woman goes for (or after) another woman’s husband what she is really desiring is her own Husband. (Isaiah 54:5) [Stop. Read the verse and let that last sentence set. ] She may pretend to be a progressive woman, she may even profess to *want* to be the ‘sideline event’ in a married man’s life but I submit to you that she is self-deceived. She has accepted substitute as real. Her heart and soul are crying out for a Man who will give up everything for her. The hu(man) she is using (and being used by) is an imitation. A fake. A phony. A counterfeit. A fantasy.
I think that is one reason we, men and women, are loving Scandal. It is a tale of the desperate heart within each of us. The heart that desires to be loved, cared for and connected to something powerful. It is a testimony to the call of our souls for something (Someone) bigger than this life.
There is a real and true SCANDALOUS Love out there. One Who did give up EVERYTHING to be with us (Philippians 2), One Who has all the Power, a FIXER who makes all things right. Unlike the beautiful, powerful, onscreen lovers Olivia and Fitzpatrick, we had (have) NOTHING to offer Him. And He loved us anyway. He loves us just because. His self-sacrificing love is pure, pleasing, abundant, life-giving, Un-adulterated. There is no fallout of pain and destruction, no need for schemes and deception, when He loves you.
Our minds enjoy the stuff of fairy tales but our hearts are calling for true love. I’m going to keep watching Scandal, unless and until the Lord tells me to stop. I just say, don’t ever settle for the substitutes. Don't get it twisted. May we not be fooled.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Sense and Sensibilities
That is a topic that has been on my mind these days. Hearing. Seeing. Feeling... What to do with these senses of ours? What to do? What to do?
I started another blog last year... I'm not sure exactly why. It felt like the *sensible* thing to do at the time. But I have come to believe that I'm not finished here.
Today is May 1, 2012. One third of the year has been spent. It's been more than a year since I penned anything here. Where does the time go? Anyhow I know I needed to write today. To begin writing again today. There are so many thoughts roaming around in this head of mine. I'll be back.
I started another blog last year... I'm not sure exactly why. It felt like the *sensible* thing to do at the time. But I have come to believe that I'm not finished here.
Today is May 1, 2012. One third of the year has been spent. It's been more than a year since I penned anything here. Where does the time go? Anyhow I know I needed to write today. To begin writing again today. There are so many thoughts roaming around in this head of mine. I'll be back.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Woman in the Window
Over the course of the last 20 months since my decovery of my husband's infidelity ( Yes, I am still talking about it), he has been asked a few times, if I have "gotten over it" (or when I am going to). Stay with me now...
As a follower of Christ I get to see my life story unfold in the most amazing ways. Last week I heard a psychologist say that people of (true) Christian faith are forgiven but often we are not healed because although we have entered into 1 John 1:9 (confessing our sin to God and being purified of it), we are slow to access the healing that is available from James 5:16 (confessing our sin to one another and praying so that we can be healed). We don't want to confess our stuff. Oh yes, we want to be forgiven. But because we are not yet secure in our FORGIVEN and WASHED identity, we run from the sins of our pasts ( both those we have committed and those that were committed against us). When we are not anchored in our new identity, (forgiven and washed), we still equate (to consider, treat, or depict as equal or equivalent ) the sin with the sinner. And often the pain is too much to deal with.
I see that it TOTALLY throws some of the people close to our story off that I can continue to speak of my husband's betrayal while simultaneously confessing my deep, enduring, growing and everlasting love for him. It seems that in their minds these two things are incongruent. Some Christians have suggested to me that continuing to talk about the infidelity means I have *not* forgiven my husband. And that I am only fooling myself if I think that I have truly forgiven. They say God forgives us and forgets our sins. So therefore forgiving means forgetting-- never speaking of it again. I've written some about this before and I plan to write again on the subject of forgiveness but for now I want to share a small illustration.
My family likes to watch the Biggest Loser on TV. When you hear about a person's tremendous weight loss what is the first thing you think? I know for me, I want to see a picture. I want to see the before and after. Almost every time I hear of a fantastic weight loss story, the person shows their before picture, a pair of pants, something with which we can see the AMAZING redo and difference in their life. ---My marriage was magnificently restored,-- it was re-freshed, re-vitalized and RE-NEWED. I want everyone I know to have what I have ( i.e., a great marriage-- if they want one). My story of surviving infidelity is like holding up a pair of size 54 pants. It is the "before" picture. It is the point at which my marriage should have died. Infidelity is usually an INSURMOUNTABLE deal-breaker for any marriage. But here I am, tightly bonded to my hubby. We are better than ever, free to love one another and eager to tell our story to whomever might be interested. I continue to hold up my "infidelity" pants not to smear the faces of the people who betrayed me but to show what is possible when you invite God to be the glue of your marriage, ...when you've invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life and invited His Holy Spirit to heal your wounded soul.
I've said before that I have no formal training in anything... If you're not familiar with it read John 9. Jesus heals a man born blind and then the religious rulers demand information on how the man was healed. The man basically says, "I don't have the information you want, all I know is that I met a man and He completely HEALED me of my lifelong blindness." Like the blind man, my only credential for sharing with you is that I was healed of the lifelong blindness that fatally effects every human born. I am convinced that so many people are sick, depressed, medicated-- legally and illegally-- oh my goodness and addicted because we are determined to and intent on suppressing (and repressing) things that we need freedom from.
Suppression: To keep from being revealed, published, or circulated; To deliberately exclude (unacceptable desires or thoughts) from the mind
Repression: The unconscious exclusion of painful impulses, desires, or fears from the conscious mind; the activity of managing or exerting control over something; the classical defense mechanism that protects you from impulses or ideas that would cause anxiety by preventing them from becoming conscious
(Yesterday I heard renowned Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias say that scientists have learned that the brain is very fragile. He said they've found that things that are impressed and imprinted upon the brain in our young years will forever haunt us. He went on to say that it used to be that the average age for a boy to be exposed to pornography was 12 years. He said that number now is 5. FIVE years old. I have a 5 year old. I cannot imagine him or any child his age being exposed to pornography. Dr. Zacharias said that all the precious things in life require COMMITTMENT and that exposure to porn greatly reduces a man's ability to bond and stay committed to his wife. But that is a topic for another time.)
My point is just that the things that happen to us in our young lives stay with us forever. And I believe that one of the most basic reasons so many of us are not well is because we have failed to deal with our issues -childhood and otherwise. Hear me now. You cannot fix what you won't face. I cannot heal what I won't feel. We are masters of suppression. And it is killing us.
Now there are all kinds of spiritual implications for this. Walking in the light means you are free to let God heal your broken places. But first you have to be willing to admit that you are broken and need help. There is a force among us whose sole purpose is to counterfeit everything God intended for good. Just as our eyes eventually adjust to walking in the darkness, our souls eventually adjust to living with our pain.... to our suppression (repression) of the hurts in our life AND of the truth that is within us as image bearers of our Maker. We will find substitute comforts... but we were made for more.
People who ab-use ( to use abnormally, apart from the way it was intended to be used) sex are in a desperate search for God. I know this. I have no research but I do have the Tshirt. We are looking for a supernatural connection. We are a sex saturated world because we are a people desperate for DIVINE union. (We had this relationship in the very beginning [ Genesis 1] but we lost it.) This HEART need is intrinsic to our design. We hear all the time, "sex sells." Sex is everywhere because in its natural (unrestrained) form it is an imitation, a counterfeit of both the genuine connection that it was intended to be between two COMMITTED (read: married) people and it is a counterfieit of the authentic connection that it was meant to illustrate between the individual and our Maker. (Ephesians 5:22-32) I read somewhere that it's no wonder people often say "Oh God!" "Oh God!" at the moment of culmination! (We are prone to use that phrase in times of utter despair and in times of ecstasy. Why do you suppose that is?)
In July of 2009, just three short years after the most traumatic event of my life--- finding my 14 year old son strangled dead in his closet--- I discovered that my husband of 18 years and 11 months had been cheating on me. Now this was no ordinary cheating. Not only had there been TWO "affairs," both these affairs were with women I knew. The first woman had been like a sister to both me and my husband for about 4 years previously. I had kept this woman's children, had her in my home, broken bread, and prayed with her. When I learned that there had been an infidelity between the two of them I had something of a seizure. It was just too much for my little heart and mind to comprehend. I have read a mountain of books, online resources, and spoken to others who have endured this and there are just no words for what betrayal does to a person. If you are reading this and have been on the receiving end of it, you know exactly what I am talking about. It is like the worst and most horrific death in your soul only you are still living and the pain in beyond description. It completely demolishes your ability to trust... your spouse, people in general ( why would a person willfully and knowingly do this to you?) and your trust in yourself ( how could I have not known? I thought I knew you.) Add to this agony the anguish that our culture is uninformed and often, often blames the betrayed spouse for causing the infidelity, alledging that the injured spouse was in some way a defective mate. It is a mortal wound.
Infidelity is the one definite Biblical ground given in the Bible for marriage dissolution. It is the one reason that the Bible explicitly gives as being an acceptable reason for divorcing. I have asked God repeatedly why this is so. I think I have a good understanding of why. But I won't go into that now. I really want to talk about why I stayed.
I think I mentioned before that the love I felt for my husband ( after the intial shock of the revelation) surprised even me. It wasn't a desperate, "please don't leave me," "and I'm telling you I'm not going" kind of love. It was a patient, compassionate, "we belong together but I respect your right to choose" kind of love. One memory is forever etched in my brain. Big T and I were separated for about six weeks after D-day (discovery day). I remember one day, late in the second week of our separation, he had come by our townhouse on the hill to pick something up. We spoke briefly and then he got ready to leave. I went upstairs to our bedroom after I'd said goodbye to him. I stood in our bedroom window longingly watching my husband walk down the sidewalk, down the stairs and then to his truck and I thought to myself, " God, have you allowed me to experience this separation to give me a glimpse of the pain YOU feel when we walk away from Your love?"
It was a profound moment. From that point on, my agape ( unconditional & undeserved) love for my husband began to grow and grow. It would be a few more weeks before my guy would come to his senses and decide to come home but I was always waiting for him.
I read a piece from my cyber-friend Shellie Warren (Pure Heart) (Shellie Stuff) yesterday where she said so often we chase what we (think we) want at the risk of losing what we need. My husband sought relief (escape) from the suppressed pain in his life through two adulterous relationships. In the beginning I suppose that seemed like a good idea. In the end it produced much destruction. Listen to me: You don't need a "hook up" to soothe your soul. You need the Healer.
Forgiveness is not forgetting. We have just entered the Lenten season, ( the 40 days before the commemoration of Resurrection Day). A dear FB friend recently reminded me that when Jesus returned to earth He returned with His scars. (John 20:19-31) He had been beaten (whipped) and nailed to a cross. And when He made His short return visit back here He returned with His scars (as proof I suppose of what He had endured). My wise FB friend told me that the suicide of our son and infidelity in our marriage are our *scars and stripes*. He said that like Jesus', our scars are meant for other's healing. And that, my friend, is true for all of us. The hurts and pains in your life are not there to destroy you. ( 2 Corinthians 1:3-7) Hardship is a fact of life. Our parents were imperfect people who are going to mess up. Our siblings, other family members, friends, co-workers, strangers, we are all imperfect people who are going to mess up, dissapoint, neglect, offend, betray, and even sometimes abuse us. We must accept this fact. And then we must accept the truth. The TRUTH ( John 14:6).
Ignoring and repressing our issues, medicating our pain and problems to keep them quiet will enslave us in the darkness and poverty of our own souls. But in the Hands of God, our trials will be made into triumphs. You will be able to hold up your size 54s and tell the story of how you got free! That is what I want you to know.
I imagine God peering thru the window of Heaven longingly waiting and watching for us to come home to Him. He loves us with a "we belong together but I respect your right to choose" kind of love. Won't you let Him love you?
______________________________
"Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working]." James 5:16 (Amp)
"May the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ be blessed! He is the compassionate Father and God of all comfort. 4 He’s the one who comforts us in all our trouble so that we can comfort other people who are in every kind of trouble. We offer the same comfort that we ourselves received from God. 5 That is because we receive so much comfort through Christ in the same way that we share so many of Christ’s sufferings. 6 So if we have trouble, it is to bring you comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is to bring you comfort from the experience of endurance while you go through the same sufferings that we also suffer. 7 Our hope for you is certain, because we know that as you are partners in suffering so also you are partners in comfort." 2Corinthians 1:3-7 (CEB)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Fairy Tales, A Birthday...
(And Hope for Hard Times)
My son Bryant was (is) a special kid… Now I happen to think that ALL kids are special, each in his or her own way. Children aregiven loaned to their parents to nurture, teach, encourage, discipline and prepare so that they are able to make their positive mark on the world.
If only we parents fully understood this. Shortly after Bryant’s suicide, Travis and I saw a grief counselor. His instructions were the same as the flight attendant who informs air passengers in the event of emergency to secure the oxygen mask on yourself before you attempt to help a child or anyone else. The counselor advised us to do everything we could to stabilize ourselves so that we would be able to help our other children process the loss of their brother.
I think this is a good principle for the parent/child relationship in life in general.
It is true that you can’t give what you don’t have. So it follows that a healthy (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally) parent will be best prepared to pass that good health on to their child(ren). An unhealthy parent will not.
(I feel the need to say that there are also no guarantees. There is no absolute formula for success in parenting. Like playing the stock market, there are general guidelines that usually produce a favorable outcome. But there are no guarantees. You can be healthy, do a good job by your children and still have things turn out negatively. I also know of many “success” stories of children who made it, despite having had unhealthy parents and all kinds of terrible odds against them.)
Last night Travis and I read thru the journal I started keeping for Bryant when he was a little boy. Over the years I wrote periodically to him about our life, about his specialness to me and what I hoped his life would be like. (Tears)
I read thru the journal again this morning. Today, on his 19th birthday, 229 weeks (exactly 1604 days), since he left, reading about his life makes me smile. He had a short but wonderful life. In just 14 years he: received the “Daniel Award” in Kindergarten for the boy in the class with the best character; attended Flight Camp and flew a small plane with his instructor; swam/fished in the Chesapeake Bay @ Boys Camp in 2000; cut the Ribbon at the Grand Opening of KIDS Inc.; went to Disney World twice with his grandparents (thanks Mom & Pop Stoves); toured the Nation’s Capital; waded in the Atlantic Ocean; spent a week touring New York City (just a few months before the Towers fell in 2001); observed a bear in the wild in Gatlinburg Tennessee ; built a bird house and model car at Home Depot Kids Workshops; participated in Debate Training and Tournaments; performed in church and community plays; was a talented shooting guard in Basketball; danced in the rain at age 12 --just because he felt like it :D; was the undefeated family champion at Putt Putt Golf; was a fierce UNO, Connect Four, Flinch, Phase 10 and Monopoly player during family game times; was a history buff, especially the Civil War and an avid reader— BRYANT read EVERYTHING, the USA Today, all kinds of books, a favorite title was, “The Watson’s Go to Birmingham” & anything on Greek Mythology; was an accomplished piano student and swimmer; Old School music lover; his 8th grade SAT complete battery score was “Post -High School”; was the #1 Auburn & Indianapolis Colts fan. And last but not the least bit least, all time world record holder for most CHICKEN eaten!
He was bright and funny. He loved life. He had a rich life. We miss him so. Why did he have to leave? Sometimes life seems to make no sense.
One weekend a few months ago my family and I were having a leisurely afternoon in a Books a Million bookstore. I ended up settling comfortably in a chair with a stack of books on one side of the store. Travis took the kids over to the youth section. A few hours later as we were getting into the car to go home, Travis began to tell me about an experience he’d had inside. He was reading and the kids were playing when he noticed a cute little blond headed boy, about 3 years old, playing with our kids. The boy’s dad sat down near Travis and they eventually got talking. The boy’s father, a man in his late 30s asked Travis about the book he was reading. It was a book on faith and they discussed it for a few moments. The man told Travis that he hadn’t been to church in a great while and that he was in quite a difficult spot these days. He shared that he’d lost his corporate job more than a year previously. The wife, also corporately employed, had moved out of their home and they were currently splitting custody of their son. She wanted a divorce. Their family home was in foreclosure. Travis began to talk with him about his (our) own struggles and the faith that has sustained him. He said the man began to cry. Travis encouraged the man, assuring him that God cared. That all was not lost. That our struggles come. to. pass. That he could make it, that he would make it. They finished talking and the stranger gathered his son to leave. Travis said that the man got almost to the door with his boy when he turned, came back and said, “Thank you. You just don’t know. Thank you.”
Just a few days ago I was at a nearby library. I was sitting at a table looking thru a few books. I also had with me the library’s copy of the Bible. There was an older African American man, (I’m guessing mid to late 50s) sitting near me as I was reading and writing. He probably looked older than he was. You know the kind of person who looks like maybe they’ve had a tough time in life. The man was with two boys who were working on the library computers not far from us. One of them looked to be about 12. The other boy was well over 6 feet and looked about 16 or 17. I noticed them because they would periodically come over to the man and their interactions were noticeably respectful…
The boys finished up on the computer and it seemed they were about to leave when the man (their father) saw the Bible near me. He spoke to me saying, “Are you a Christian?” I answered that I “most certainly” was, then he said, “Well I’m trying.” I said, “Brother, you don’t have to try to be a Christian. You just make a decision for Christ and stick with it.” He said it was hard. He began to tell me about his life. He said the factory where he worked had shut down earlier this year. He was separated from his second wife and everything in life seemed to be upside down. I began to share a little of my life, in contrast to my KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING that God is good no matter what. I told him about Bryant’s death and how life often makes no sense but that God is always God. I told him that God knew about what was going on with him and that God cared. That he just needed to call on Him. (Jeremiah 29:11-13) He shared some more. He and the boys were sleeping in their car. School had started. He was trying to figure how to get them registered without proof of an official residence. He began to cry. Right there in the middle of the library.
People are hurting.
In this country and worldwide. Right next to you in your office or cubicle, in your neighborhood, across the screen on the www, across all socio-economic and cultural lines,...in the library and at the bookstore. I was praying once earlier this year and I began to ask God why there was so much suffering in this world? His response came quickly and clearly. He said, “Sharmayn, I made this world and filled it with goodness, with everything you would need to have a good life. Then I put you (mankind) in charge. Most of the problems the world is facing are not because I don’t care. They are because YOU (mankind) don’t care.” (Genesis 1)
Travis met a woman at work last week. She, her husband and three children are career international missionaries. They have just returned here for a 6 month sabbatical from some part of Russia. Travis told me she said they had been on this last assignment for 7 years. She said that in all that time NOT ONE PERSON accepted faith in Christ. NOT ONE. She said that there is such a heavy “darkness” – a resistance to the things of God – there that even the young children are permitted to regularly view pornography. (I will surely be discussing that on another post.) This family has worked faithfully to try to help, regardless of the outcome. They are living for something more than personal happiness and satisfaction.
I have said before that we are not here for what we can get. We are here for what we can give. I think one of the reasons our country has experienced this economic slump and national hardship is to remind us of this truth. Somehow we decided that life was all about getting stuff. When in truth and actuality, life is really all about our SOURCE-- and not our resources. All our stuff-- our ability to produce, acquire, store and maintain stuff, is an unsure foundation upon which to build a life or place our trust. Here today, maybe gone tomorrow. If all my hope is in my job, my bank balance or financial portfolio, (or even my earthly relationships) the stuff I can put my hands on, what happens when Bernie Madoff has made off with all my money? Or my job is gone? When my marriage ends? Or my child is gone?
This time last year when I was apart from my husband, I was praying and asking God to fix our mess, to give Travis a change of heart and bring him home to his family. I felt God say, “My Daughter, I have heard your prayers. I allowed Travis to explore what he thought might be the answer to his troubles, I allowed all this to bring him to the end of himself. I permitted him to fall (and fail) so that he would have to put down his idol-- his ego and pride... his foolish attempts to make and find his own way. He tried to make you his god. When you failed, as you surely would, he decided that he would be his own god. Now My child, you are not to take up that idol and attempt to make Travis your god. I know that you love him and want him to come home. But I Am the Only One you can’t live without.”
Too often we have believed the fairy tale of life. That there really is such a thing as an American Dream. And that it is ours to be had. That we should have it. A perfect family, a white picket fence, a dog and not a trouble in the world. It is the stuff of make believe.
The things we see have been made from what is unseen. (2 Corinthians 2:14; Colossians 1:15-16) The unseen things of life are MORE REAL than the seen. The Bible says that we should “walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) That just means that we are able to recognize the difference between the facts and the truth. There is a big difference between the two, you must know. Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation” (fact), He goes on to say “But take heart (be of good cheer), I have overcome the world.” (truth) (John 16:33)
Four years ago when my son died, I had to have something deep and real to anchor to. Or it would have been too much to bear. Last year, when my life was again blown apart, there had to be something – SOMEONE – to believe in, a TRUE King who COULD put humpty dumpty together again.
Life is hard. But I am a witness that God is AWESOMELY GOOD. Come what may, Jesus is the only one I can’t live without. He is real. He wasn’t just a good man. He was fully man and fully God. (Philppians 2:5-11) His Spirit (RUACH) is my comfort always. May He be yours as well.
Happy 19th Birthday to my sweet baby, Bryant Colin Stoves! Looking forward to seeing you again one day soon!
___________________________________________________
“ Comfort, yes, comfort My people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1
“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; Who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 (NKJV)
“All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus, the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (Message Version)
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).
My son Bryant was (is) a special kid… Now I happen to think that ALL kids are special, each in his or her own way. Children are
If only we parents fully understood this. Shortly after Bryant’s suicide, Travis and I saw a grief counselor. His instructions were the same as the flight attendant who informs air passengers in the event of emergency to secure the oxygen mask on yourself before you attempt to help a child or anyone else. The counselor advised us to do everything we could to stabilize ourselves so that we would be able to help our other children process the loss of their brother.
I think this is a good principle for the parent/child relationship in life in general.
It is true that you can’t give what you don’t have. So it follows that a healthy (mentally, emotionally, spiritually, relationally) parent will be best prepared to pass that good health on to their child(ren). An unhealthy parent will not.
(I feel the need to say that there are also no guarantees. There is no absolute formula for success in parenting. Like playing the stock market, there are general guidelines that usually produce a favorable outcome. But there are no guarantees. You can be healthy, do a good job by your children and still have things turn out negatively. I also know of many “success” stories of children who made it, despite having had unhealthy parents and all kinds of terrible odds against them.)
Last night Travis and I read thru the journal I started keeping for Bryant when he was a little boy. Over the years I wrote periodically to him about our life, about his specialness to me and what I hoped his life would be like. (Tears)
I read thru the journal again this morning. Today, on his 19th birthday, 229 weeks (exactly 1604 days), since he left, reading about his life makes me smile. He had a short but wonderful life. In just 14 years he: received the “Daniel Award” in Kindergarten for the boy in the class with the best character; attended Flight Camp and flew a small plane with his instructor; swam/fished in the Chesapeake Bay @ Boys Camp in 2000; cut the Ribbon at the Grand Opening of KIDS Inc.; went to Disney World twice with his grandparents (thanks Mom & Pop Stoves); toured the Nation’s Capital; waded in the Atlantic Ocean; spent a week touring New York City (just a few months before the Towers fell in 2001); observed a bear in the wild in Gatlinburg Tennessee ; built a bird house and model car at Home Depot Kids Workshops; participated in Debate Training and Tournaments; performed in church and community plays; was a talented shooting guard in Basketball; danced in the rain at age 12 --just because he felt like it :D; was the undefeated family champion at Putt Putt Golf; was a fierce UNO, Connect Four, Flinch, Phase 10 and Monopoly player during family game times; was a history buff, especially the Civil War and an avid reader— BRYANT read EVERYTHING, the USA Today, all kinds of books, a favorite title was, “The Watson’s Go to Birmingham” & anything on Greek Mythology; was an accomplished piano student and swimmer; Old School music lover; his 8th grade SAT complete battery score was “Post -High School”; was the #1 Auburn & Indianapolis Colts fan. And last but not the least bit least, all time world record holder for most CHICKEN eaten!
He was bright and funny. He loved life. He had a rich life. We miss him so. Why did he have to leave? Sometimes life seems to make no sense.
One weekend a few months ago my family and I were having a leisurely afternoon in a Books a Million bookstore. I ended up settling comfortably in a chair with a stack of books on one side of the store. Travis took the kids over to the youth section. A few hours later as we were getting into the car to go home, Travis began to tell me about an experience he’d had inside. He was reading and the kids were playing when he noticed a cute little blond headed boy, about 3 years old, playing with our kids. The boy’s dad sat down near Travis and they eventually got talking. The boy’s father, a man in his late 30s asked Travis about the book he was reading. It was a book on faith and they discussed it for a few moments. The man told Travis that he hadn’t been to church in a great while and that he was in quite a difficult spot these days. He shared that he’d lost his corporate job more than a year previously. The wife, also corporately employed, had moved out of their home and they were currently splitting custody of their son. She wanted a divorce. Their family home was in foreclosure. Travis began to talk with him about his (our) own struggles and the faith that has sustained him. He said the man began to cry. Travis encouraged the man, assuring him that God cared. That all was not lost. That our struggles come. to. pass. That he could make it, that he would make it. They finished talking and the stranger gathered his son to leave. Travis said that the man got almost to the door with his boy when he turned, came back and said, “Thank you. You just don’t know. Thank you.”
Just a few days ago I was at a nearby library. I was sitting at a table looking thru a few books. I also had with me the library’s copy of the Bible. There was an older African American man, (I’m guessing mid to late 50s) sitting near me as I was reading and writing. He probably looked older than he was. You know the kind of person who looks like maybe they’ve had a tough time in life. The man was with two boys who were working on the library computers not far from us. One of them looked to be about 12. The other boy was well over 6 feet and looked about 16 or 17. I noticed them because they would periodically come over to the man and their interactions were noticeably respectful…
The boys finished up on the computer and it seemed they were about to leave when the man (their father) saw the Bible near me. He spoke to me saying, “Are you a Christian?” I answered that I “most certainly” was, then he said, “Well I’m trying.” I said, “Brother, you don’t have to try to be a Christian. You just make a decision for Christ and stick with it.” He said it was hard. He began to tell me about his life. He said the factory where he worked had shut down earlier this year. He was separated from his second wife and everything in life seemed to be upside down. I began to share a little of my life, in contrast to my KNOWLEDGE and UNDERSTANDING that God is good no matter what. I told him about Bryant’s death and how life often makes no sense but that God is always God. I told him that God knew about what was going on with him and that God cared. That he just needed to call on Him. (Jeremiah 29:11-13) He shared some more. He and the boys were sleeping in their car. School had started. He was trying to figure how to get them registered without proof of an official residence. He began to cry. Right there in the middle of the library.
People are hurting.
In this country and worldwide. Right next to you in your office or cubicle, in your neighborhood, across the screen on the www, across all socio-economic and cultural lines,...in the library and at the bookstore. I was praying once earlier this year and I began to ask God why there was so much suffering in this world? His response came quickly and clearly. He said, “Sharmayn, I made this world and filled it with goodness, with everything you would need to have a good life. Then I put you (mankind) in charge. Most of the problems the world is facing are not because I don’t care. They are because YOU (mankind) don’t care.” (Genesis 1)
Travis met a woman at work last week. She, her husband and three children are career international missionaries. They have just returned here for a 6 month sabbatical from some part of Russia. Travis told me she said they had been on this last assignment for 7 years. She said that in all that time NOT ONE PERSON accepted faith in Christ. NOT ONE. She said that there is such a heavy “darkness” – a resistance to the things of God – there that even the young children are permitted to regularly view pornography. (I will surely be discussing that on another post.) This family has worked faithfully to try to help, regardless of the outcome. They are living for something more than personal happiness and satisfaction.
I have said before that we are not here for what we can get. We are here for what we can give. I think one of the reasons our country has experienced this economic slump and national hardship is to remind us of this truth. Somehow we decided that life was all about getting stuff. When in truth and actuality, life is really all about our SOURCE-- and not our resources. All our stuff-- our ability to produce, acquire, store and maintain stuff, is an unsure foundation upon which to build a life or place our trust. Here today, maybe gone tomorrow. If all my hope is in my job, my bank balance or financial portfolio, (or even my earthly relationships) the stuff I can put my hands on, what happens when Bernie Madoff has made off with all my money? Or my job is gone? When my marriage ends? Or my child is gone?
This time last year when I was apart from my husband, I was praying and asking God to fix our mess, to give Travis a change of heart and bring him home to his family. I felt God say, “My Daughter, I have heard your prayers. I allowed Travis to explore what he thought might be the answer to his troubles, I allowed all this to bring him to the end of himself. I permitted him to fall (and fail) so that he would have to put down his idol-- his ego and pride... his foolish attempts to make and find his own way. He tried to make you his god. When you failed, as you surely would, he decided that he would be his own god. Now My child, you are not to take up that idol and attempt to make Travis your god. I know that you love him and want him to come home. But I Am the Only One you can’t live without.”
Too often we have believed the fairy tale of life. That there really is such a thing as an American Dream. And that it is ours to be had. That we should have it. A perfect family, a white picket fence, a dog and not a trouble in the world. It is the stuff of make believe.
The things we see have been made from what is unseen. (2 Corinthians 2:14; Colossians 1:15-16) The unseen things of life are MORE REAL than the seen. The Bible says that we should “walk by faith and not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) That just means that we are able to recognize the difference between the facts and the truth. There is a big difference between the two, you must know. Jesus said, “In this world you will have tribulation” (fact), He goes on to say “But take heart (be of good cheer), I have overcome the world.” (truth) (John 16:33)
Four years ago when my son died, I had to have something deep and real to anchor to. Or it would have been too much to bear. Last year, when my life was again blown apart, there had to be something – SOMEONE – to believe in, a TRUE King who COULD put humpty dumpty together again.
Life is hard. But I am a witness that God is AWESOMELY GOOD. Come what may, Jesus is the only one I can’t live without. He is real. He wasn’t just a good man. He was fully man and fully God. (Philppians 2:5-11) His Spirit (RUACH) is my comfort always. May He be yours as well.
Happy 19th Birthday to my sweet baby, Bryant Colin Stoves! Looking forward to seeing you again one day soon!
___________________________________________________
“ Comfort, yes, comfort My people, says your God.” Isaiah 40:1
“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; Who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” 2 Corinthians 1: 3-4 (NKJV)
“All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus, the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it He brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us.” 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 (Message Version)
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18).
Sunday, August 15, 2010
GANG RAPED in the CHURCH
(And Why I Still Love It) --- A Treatise on Grace and Forgiveness
So how have you done it?
Earlier this year, when I shared my story with a close friend of mine who lives in another state, his first question to me was, “So how much time did you spend in jail?” I dearly love this dude and we had a good laugh about it. But when I share this latest saga of my life – my experience of adultery – with people I often get asked, “How have you done it?” How have you been able to move on with your husband in light of what has happened? How have you forgiven and moved on?
I have spoken of the grief I experienced when my son died four years ago. And now I am fervently speaking about the grief I experienced from the betrayal of my husband last year with two “sisters,” two women who were members of my faith family in the small church where Travis and I were members for more than a decade. When my son died I became extremely sad. When my marriage died last year (from premeditated murder), I became extremely mad!
C'mon now, really, how does a person commit adultery with someone they met in church!? I mean that just feels like a whole other realm of wrong. (Can I get a witness?)
I have said that I love people. All people. Even those who seem to hate me. I want to share my story to speak to believers (of the gospel of Jesus Christ), non-believers, and probably most especially to the make-believers – those people who are either pretending or are self-deceived about their faith relationship with God.
In my last post I discussed how I believe adultery amounts to the rape of a betrayed spouse. How the Scripture says, "Let each man have his own wife and each woman have her own husband. The husband should give his wife what she is entitled to in a marriage relationship, and the wife should do the same for her husband. The wife is not in charge of her own body, but her husband is; likewise, the husband is not in charge of his own body, but the wife is.” 1 Cor 7: 3-4. In a marriage the husband and wife have given their bodies to one another. So when one spouse “gives” their body (physically and/or emotionally) to someone else, they and their adultery accomplice are essentially raping the unsuspecting spouse. How many of you in a marriage would consent to your spouse being emotionally or sexually involved with someone else? (If you raised your hand, stop reading now. And know that I have said a special prayer for you.) ;-)
Besides the trauma of the infidelity, when my husband’s adultery was exposed in the church last year I experienced further wounding from many in the church. Travis was so deeply deceived (in spiritual darkness) and he was not initially repentant. In hindsight I understand now that this kind of sin brings great shame upon the perpetrator(s). If h/she was caught, just as the first man and woman did in the Garden, s/he will automatically (naturally) look for someone (else) to blame. Travis blamed me. I had forced him to cheat. After months of cataloging my shortcomings (both real and fabricated), first with one friend, then with another, the list of my faults was long and terrible. When I spoke briefly with his first accomplice, the sister who brought the initial break in my covenant with my husband, she concurred. Their adultery was all my fault because I had neglected my husband. He was so “lonely” she had to help him out. (Ok, I am not generally given to profanity but some choice words came to mind in response to the absolute ridiculousness of that rationale.) They made the choices they made -- to sin -- because THEY WANTED TO!!
Church folks began to shun me. Some seemed to agree that it was my fault. (Remember, “Take care of your man or someone else will”? If I had just been on my job, none of this would have happened, right?) I’ve also said that when something terrible happens to “good people” those who witness it sometimes become afraid that it might be “contagious.” About six months after it all came out, I sent a mass email to the church body outlining everything that had happened. It was as tastefully written as a letter about three “Christ followers” in sexual sin could be. [I admonished the church that this thing was just completely UNACCEPTABLE. It should not have happened in a church as “loving” and spiritually intelligent as ours should have been. My former pastor is one of the MOST GODLY men I have ever known.] But after I sent the email the church was, for all intents and purposes, finished with me. (My letter also informed the church that our family would be leaving. As I’ve said adultery ALWAYS produces some kind of death. How was I to continue fellowshipping with these women? Our relationship there was destroyed ---by all their choices.) I was further rebuked. Few wanted to deal with it. (Truth is, some might have been privately dealing with this same thing themselves.) I believe it just hit too close to home. It forced everyone to take a good look at their own lives for any personal “darkness” there might have been, that is, hidden things being done in secret. It was just too much. Not everyone blackballed me. But many did.
If you know anything of the Christian church, you know that church people can be really wacky. Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.” Alas, much wrong has been done in the name of Christianity. Can we just say slavery? People who claim Christianity are too often some of the most misled, uninformed, greedy, mean spirited people I have ever known. I heard the story of a woman last week whose family was stalked and harassed so badly until her father, the pastor of the church, was eventually killed. All this happened at the hand of a deacon in their church. (Her book "Devil in Pew Number 7" is now on my reading list.) On our TVs are men and women preachers who attempt to sell people the gospel blessings for a “gift” of XX amount of dollars. And I wanted to scream when Sarah Palin was introduced several years ago at the Republican National Convention. She was pretty, reasonably well spoken, a break-out political star touted as a devout “Christian.” But her Christian label left me wanting (and wondering) as I heard her sling mud all over her opponent, the now sitting president, Barack Obama. (We can put Sarah Palin down as another topic that is a book unto itself in my head.)
We (Christians) get angry at the jihad (the holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty), that remnant of Islamic religious fanatics who have taken “world peace” into their own hands. But some of us (Christians) are in many ways just like them, full of hate; dogmatic and self-righteous.
Make no mistake. I have already said, this adultery thing has made me plenty mad. I feel hate. But I don’t hate people. I hate sin. (Starting with my own.) I hate what the people who betrayed me did. And I hate the Evil One who encouraged them to do it. That’s why I write. To expose him. I don’t write to make anybody look bad. I write to make sin (and the devil) look bad. To show it (and him) for what it really is. Evil comes enticingly dressed. It draws you in (and then takes you out) like the proverbial frog in a pot of cool water. The temperature is turned up slowly. The frog is unaware that soon he will be boiled to his destruction. Devoured in his own complacency and unknowing. How many people do you know who planned to become a drug, porn or gambling addict? How many times have you ever heard a child say, “When I grow up I’m gonna be a prostitute”? or “I want to one day be an alcoholic or maybe a murderer?” The origin of this stuff is sin, either our own or someone else’s that was forced upon us. There was a time unfortunately when church folks seemed to think EVERYTHING was wrong. But these days we will accept just about anything. Nothing is wrong anymore. “Everybody just live and let live.” When it comes to sin, people either want to glamourize it, make excuses for it or turn a blind eye and deaf ear to it—ignore it and hope it goes away… That is until it comes to your house and victimizes you or you find yourself having done something unthinkable. We gotta deal with this stuff. I’m calling it out!
I want to stop a minute and address something here. I'm calling this a "Treatise on Grace and Forgiveness." I feel the need to clarify something that I believe is widely misunderstood. Forgiveness is not equivalent to forgetting. It is not pretending that a wrong did not occur or that you no longer feel pain from the offense and it is not never speaking of it again. If I had a dollar for every minute Travis and I have spent talking about his infidelity, we could move next door to Oprah or Bill G. I've heard people say that God "remembers our sin no more" and "casts it into the sea of forgetfulness" and this is most certainly true. The Bible also says that love "keeps no record of wrongs" (or taketh no account of evil). Again this just speaks of a person not continuing to hold the debt or the charge against the offender. When we ask for forgiveness God DOES NOT HOLD our wrongs against us any longer. Our debt has been paid. He does this for us and all of mankind just as He did for a whole slew of folks in the Bible. And yet from the very beginning the Bible is full of stories of people's disobedience, pride, murder, grumbling, sexual immorality, lying, backbiting, (I could go on and on). Their FAILURES have been recorded for all mankind to read, study AND LEARN FROM. When we truly forgive, we release our offenders from their indebtedness to us. But rarely are we able to forget. If I get drunk and drive and take someone's life in a car accident, God will certainly forgive me. But the family of the victim will NEVER forget. And neither will I. Rarely is there no consequence to our sin and offense against one another. The two issues of forgiveness and forgetting are separate and distinct. We cannot hold offenses against our offenders. But I will continue to talk about this (the redemption of it) until God tells me to shut up!
Me thinks I have greatly digressed. =) I wanted to share with you how I have forgiven. How I can simultaneously feel the pain of betrayal and an inexpressible joy. Why I continue to love my husband, more than I ever thought possible-- and how I have released the two women who were deceived into trying-- for a brief minute-- to be me.
When Bryant died, the Lord God, the RUACH (His Spirit) was literally my life support. It was the worst of times (up ‘til then) but it was also the best of times. If you don’t know God in that way, I pray you can understand this. I felt God’s presence -- HIS COMFORT-- in such a magnificent way. Some months later though, as life begin to move on and I was no longer able to nurse my sadness, I started to feel angry. I was angry at Bryant for being so foolish. I was angry at myself, for all the ways I failed him. I was angry at Travis too for the ways he’d failed our son. Anger can a very dangerous thing. Pair it with accusation and you have a time bomb waiting to ignite. The Evil one is called “The accuser of our brethren.” (Revelation 12:10) That is in fact who he is --our Accuser.
What do we do when we have been wronged and mistreated? We rehearse the offense. We say, “I can’t believe you could _______ ( name the offense).” “How could you treat me this way?”
I believe that anger is often an emotional response to the grief and hurt of ill-treatment in our lives. As I worked thru my anger (grief) over Bryant’s suicide, I had to deal with each person individually. For me, I forgave myself saying, “I did the best I knew to do for my son. I loved and cared for him as best I could. He had a good life.” I said the same of Travis, “He was the best father he knew to be. He loved Bryant more than his own life.” There is no guilt or shame in doing the best you can for your child. But for Bryant, forgiveness came differently. It came directly from a Biblical passage. I was able to forgive Bryant as Jesus did when He hung on the cross and said, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” I was able to say, “Lord, I forgive Bryant, because he did not know what he was doing.”
When my husband packed his stuff and left our home early that July morning last summer, I was devastated. Later that day I would learn that for the past several months he’d been secretly living as if he were a single man. He did not leave for another woman. After the “covers were pulled back” on his illicit activity, as BB King would say, the “thrill (was) gone.” His midlife reality escape had shown itself for what it really was-- a smelly mirage of smoke and mist. The gig was over but as I said, he was not initially repentant. He (with the help of the Accuser) had convinced himself that I would never forgive him. The adultery had given him a sort of “spiritual suicide.” He had totally lost himself and he believed everything else was lost. Anais Nin said, “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” I’m convinced of this truth. We see the things of life as we are. When we are broken inside, our view of life is broken, our thoughts and corresponding actions are broken. (That’s why personal wellness, wholeness and freedom are so vitally important.) Eight days later, when I learned there had been an earlier violation with someone else, (a few “hook ups” with our close friend) I was completely destroyed. There had been a triple betrayal. GANG RAPE. Wicked depravity all up in the church.
I wasn’t sure I could survive it. Forget divorce, I’m talking feeling the life go out of you.
Then the Lord spoke something specific to me from His Word in the Bible. It was from 1 Samuel 8. If you are not familiar with the story, you should read it. Basically the Lord said to me, “Do not be distraught Sharmayn, ‘for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.’ ” (verse 7)
When my husband ran out that Monday morning, he wasn’t running from me. He was running from God, from the truth (and from himself). When my friends decided they wanted to have sex with my husband, they weren’t betraying me, they were betraying their God. They believed the lie that God’s comfort, love and provision for their lives was not enough to satisfy them. They all acted in ignorance. And in deception. Like the first man and woman in the Garden, they were tempted “to eat death disguised as a slice of life.” They all bit. And they would all suffer the self-inflicted consequences.
And so, armed with this truth I was able to leave the question of “How could you do this to me?” and just ask “How could you do this?” (And God had already given me the answer.) As much as I was hurt, I had to de-personalize all this. It really wasn’t about me.
God gave me such a special agape (unconditional love) for my husband. The compassion God gave me for him surprised even me. Travis had been thru alot. He was (is) still struggling with our son’s death. Despite a mountain of challenges, my husband had cared for me, both of my parents and our children like the champion that he is for more than 18 years. It was easy to keep my vow to him (even tho he had broken his to me) because he had proven himself faithful in so many ways. [His kind heartedness (mis-directed) was in some ways what got him into all this mess.] He was my rock, a broken one, but mine nonetheless.
It was not, however, that easy to forgive these women. I had been nothing but a kind sister to both of them. These women had no right to my husband and they should have known better, done better, been better. Should have. Over the course of the months, I went back and forth between feeling pity and forgiveness for them and fighting bitter hatred towards them. I’m just calling it like it was. (At times I felt a struggle with “feeling forgiving” towards Travis as well. I love that man. But the thought of the offense angered me terribly.) I remember when Travis had come to himself and decided to return home. A dear friend whose marriage had survived infidelity told me, “Be prepared Sharmayn. The devil will not be happy that his plan to destroy you two did not succeed.” Nowhere have I seen that be truer than in my attempts to forgive my husband’s adultery accomplices.
But forgiveness is an essential ingredient of a free life. Unforgiveness is a virtual prison. I have a friend whose mother-in-law was hospitalized in intensive care for several months before she died. The doctors performed all kinds of tests but were never able to find out what was wrong with her. After the woman passed, my friend said her husband commented of his mother’s state, “There is no test for bitterness.” First it paralyzed her. Then it killed her.
As with my son’s death, I knew I had to settle the forgiveness issue. Otherwise I would be held hostage by grief, anger, bitterness… my own pain. It has only happened recently but I can say with truth and certainty that I have forgiven these women for what they did. First of all their offense was against God. They will have to deal with Him. If they have earnestly repented (to feel such regret for past conduct as to change one's mind regarding it; to make a change for the better as a result of remorse or contrition for one's sins ) then God has forgiven them. A few weeks ago as I was praying and writing, I was near tears. It hurt so much. I told the Lord that I did not think I had it within me to truly forgive-- to fully release them from their debt for the severe pain I was feeling because of what they chose to do to me and my family. I just didn’t think I could do it.
Then I sensed the Lord saying, “Well, are you willing to let Me forgive them? Will you let Me do it in you,... for you?” My answer to Him was of course, “Yes, Lord.” A short time later I felt a release inside me and once again the words came to me, “Father, forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing.” Glory!
Freedom came. I can honestly say that I have fully forgiven them. Does the thought of their actions still hurt? Yes. I look forward to the day when the wound becomes a scar. Healed over and no longer painful. But the God I know is a Redeemer. A Healer. Just like with Lazarus in the tomb (John 11), GOD called my marriage back from death. And He has given me double for my trouble ( Job 42:10) in the wonderful way He has brought me back together with my beloved husband (Song of Solomon 2:16 & 5:16). I love the Lord God, His One and Only Son Jesus, and His Wonderful Spirit, the RUACH that keeps me flying high above the pain and circumstances of this life.
And I love the church. Messed up as we are. We need to know there is no such thing as perfection in this life. Our families, our workplaces, our social organizations, even our churches, they all have their idiot-syncrasies. (I'm actually thinking IDIOT –sin- CRAZIES – play on word intended). Some of us are even the ones in question! {As my former pastor used to say, "Everybody's got a little something wrong with them." That includes you and me.} Earlier this year we joined another church, a big one. I was shocked to learn just last week that there is all kinds of foolishness-- not about issues of sin, but as best I can tell, personality issues-- going on behind the scenes there. Instead of complaining or running, I've just ramped up my prayers for our new pastor, who seems to be a dynamic man of God, and for the church people. We’re trying (to get it together). And we’re gonna get there. There are wonderful folks out there who are not caught up in religion, those who understand that faith is not about rules and regulations...that faith, true and authentic faith, is about RELATIONSHIP with our Creator God. He is real. He is love. (That’s not all He is, but that’s another post.) He loves us, idiot-syncrasies and all. His grace is amazing. I do love Him so.
“ Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God therefore. As dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." ( Ephesians 4:32-5:2)
"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 NIV
"Jesus replied, 'All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and We will come and make Our home with each of them.' " John 14:23 (NLT)
So how have you done it?
Earlier this year, when I shared my story with a close friend of mine who lives in another state, his first question to me was, “So how much time did you spend in jail?” I dearly love this dude and we had a good laugh about it. But when I share this latest saga of my life – my experience of adultery – with people I often get asked, “How have you done it?” How have you been able to move on with your husband in light of what has happened? How have you forgiven and moved on?
I have spoken of the grief I experienced when my son died four years ago. And now I am fervently speaking about the grief I experienced from the betrayal of my husband last year with two “sisters,” two women who were members of my faith family in the small church where Travis and I were members for more than a decade. When my son died I became extremely sad. When my marriage died last year (from premeditated murder), I became extremely mad!
C'mon now, really, how does a person commit adultery with someone they met in church!? I mean that just feels like a whole other realm of wrong. (Can I get a witness?)
I have said that I love people. All people. Even those who seem to hate me. I want to share my story to speak to believers (of the gospel of Jesus Christ), non-believers, and probably most especially to the make-believers – those people who are either pretending or are self-deceived about their faith relationship with God.
In my last post I discussed how I believe adultery amounts to the rape of a betrayed spouse. How the Scripture says, "Let each man have his own wife and each woman have her own husband. The husband should give his wife what she is entitled to in a marriage relationship, and the wife should do the same for her husband. The wife is not in charge of her own body, but her husband is; likewise, the husband is not in charge of his own body, but the wife is.” 1 Cor 7: 3-4. In a marriage the husband and wife have given their bodies to one another. So when one spouse “gives” their body (physically and/or emotionally) to someone else, they and their adultery accomplice are essentially raping the unsuspecting spouse. How many of you in a marriage would consent to your spouse being emotionally or sexually involved with someone else? (If you raised your hand, stop reading now. And know that I have said a special prayer for you.) ;-)
Besides the trauma of the infidelity, when my husband’s adultery was exposed in the church last year I experienced further wounding from many in the church. Travis was so deeply deceived (in spiritual darkness) and he was not initially repentant. In hindsight I understand now that this kind of sin brings great shame upon the perpetrator(s). If h/she was caught, just as the first man and woman did in the Garden, s/he will automatically (naturally) look for someone (else) to blame. Travis blamed me. I had forced him to cheat. After months of cataloging my shortcomings (both real and fabricated), first with one friend, then with another, the list of my faults was long and terrible. When I spoke briefly with his first accomplice, the sister who brought the initial break in my covenant with my husband, she concurred. Their adultery was all my fault because I had neglected my husband. He was so “lonely” she had to help him out. (Ok, I am not generally given to profanity but some choice words came to mind in response to the absolute ridiculousness of that rationale.) They made the choices they made -- to sin -- because THEY WANTED TO!!
Church folks began to shun me. Some seemed to agree that it was my fault. (Remember, “Take care of your man or someone else will”? If I had just been on my job, none of this would have happened, right?) I’ve also said that when something terrible happens to “good people” those who witness it sometimes become afraid that it might be “contagious.” About six months after it all came out, I sent a mass email to the church body outlining everything that had happened. It was as tastefully written as a letter about three “Christ followers” in sexual sin could be. [I admonished the church that this thing was just completely UNACCEPTABLE. It should not have happened in a church as “loving” and spiritually intelligent as ours should have been. My former pastor is one of the MOST GODLY men I have ever known.] But after I sent the email the church was, for all intents and purposes, finished with me. (My letter also informed the church that our family would be leaving. As I’ve said adultery ALWAYS produces some kind of death. How was I to continue fellowshipping with these women? Our relationship there was destroyed ---by all their choices.) I was further rebuked. Few wanted to deal with it. (Truth is, some might have been privately dealing with this same thing themselves.) I believe it just hit too close to home. It forced everyone to take a good look at their own lives for any personal “darkness” there might have been, that is, hidden things being done in secret. It was just too much. Not everyone blackballed me. But many did.
If you know anything of the Christian church, you know that church people can be really wacky. Ghandi said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians.” Alas, much wrong has been done in the name of Christianity. Can we just say slavery? People who claim Christianity are too often some of the most misled, uninformed, greedy, mean spirited people I have ever known. I heard the story of a woman last week whose family was stalked and harassed so badly until her father, the pastor of the church, was eventually killed. All this happened at the hand of a deacon in their church. (Her book "Devil in Pew Number 7" is now on my reading list.) On our TVs are men and women preachers who attempt to sell people the gospel blessings for a “gift” of XX amount of dollars. And I wanted to scream when Sarah Palin was introduced several years ago at the Republican National Convention. She was pretty, reasonably well spoken, a break-out political star touted as a devout “Christian.” But her Christian label left me wanting (and wondering) as I heard her sling mud all over her opponent, the now sitting president, Barack Obama. (We can put Sarah Palin down as another topic that is a book unto itself in my head.)
We (Christians) get angry at the jihad (the holy war waged on behalf of Islam as a religious duty), that remnant of Islamic religious fanatics who have taken “world peace” into their own hands. But some of us (Christians) are in many ways just like them, full of hate; dogmatic and self-righteous.
Make no mistake. I have already said, this adultery thing has made me plenty mad. I feel hate. But I don’t hate people. I hate sin. (Starting with my own.) I hate what the people who betrayed me did. And I hate the Evil One who encouraged them to do it. That’s why I write. To expose him. I don’t write to make anybody look bad. I write to make sin (and the devil) look bad. To show it (and him) for what it really is. Evil comes enticingly dressed. It draws you in (and then takes you out) like the proverbial frog in a pot of cool water. The temperature is turned up slowly. The frog is unaware that soon he will be boiled to his destruction. Devoured in his own complacency and unknowing. How many people do you know who planned to become a drug, porn or gambling addict? How many times have you ever heard a child say, “When I grow up I’m gonna be a prostitute”? or “I want to one day be an alcoholic or maybe a murderer?” The origin of this stuff is sin, either our own or someone else’s that was forced upon us. There was a time unfortunately when church folks seemed to think EVERYTHING was wrong. But these days we will accept just about anything. Nothing is wrong anymore. “Everybody just live and let live.” When it comes to sin, people either want to glamourize it, make excuses for it or turn a blind eye and deaf ear to it—ignore it and hope it goes away… That is until it comes to your house and victimizes you or you find yourself having done something unthinkable. We gotta deal with this stuff. I’m calling it out!
I want to stop a minute and address something here. I'm calling this a "Treatise on Grace and Forgiveness." I feel the need to clarify something that I believe is widely misunderstood. Forgiveness is not equivalent to forgetting. It is not pretending that a wrong did not occur or that you no longer feel pain from the offense and it is not never speaking of it again. If I had a dollar for every minute Travis and I have spent talking about his infidelity, we could move next door to Oprah or Bill G. I've heard people say that God "remembers our sin no more" and "casts it into the sea of forgetfulness" and this is most certainly true. The Bible also says that love "keeps no record of wrongs" (or taketh no account of evil). Again this just speaks of a person not continuing to hold the debt or the charge against the offender. When we ask for forgiveness God DOES NOT HOLD our wrongs against us any longer. Our debt has been paid. He does this for us and all of mankind just as He did for a whole slew of folks in the Bible. And yet from the very beginning the Bible is full of stories of people's disobedience, pride, murder, grumbling, sexual immorality, lying, backbiting, (I could go on and on). Their FAILURES have been recorded for all mankind to read, study AND LEARN FROM. When we truly forgive, we release our offenders from their indebtedness to us. But rarely are we able to forget. If I get drunk and drive and take someone's life in a car accident, God will certainly forgive me. But the family of the victim will NEVER forget. And neither will I. Rarely is there no consequence to our sin and offense against one another. The two issues of forgiveness and forgetting are separate and distinct. We cannot hold offenses against our offenders. But I will continue to talk about this (the redemption of it) until God tells me to shut up!
Me thinks I have greatly digressed. =) I wanted to share with you how I have forgiven. How I can simultaneously feel the pain of betrayal and an inexpressible joy. Why I continue to love my husband, more than I ever thought possible-- and how I have released the two women who were deceived into trying-- for a brief minute-- to be me.
When Bryant died, the Lord God, the RUACH (His Spirit) was literally my life support. It was the worst of times (up ‘til then) but it was also the best of times. If you don’t know God in that way, I pray you can understand this. I felt God’s presence -- HIS COMFORT-- in such a magnificent way. Some months later though, as life begin to move on and I was no longer able to nurse my sadness, I started to feel angry. I was angry at Bryant for being so foolish. I was angry at myself, for all the ways I failed him. I was angry at Travis too for the ways he’d failed our son. Anger can a very dangerous thing. Pair it with accusation and you have a time bomb waiting to ignite. The Evil one is called “The accuser of our brethren.” (Revelation 12:10) That is in fact who he is --our Accuser.
What do we do when we have been wronged and mistreated? We rehearse the offense. We say, “I can’t believe you could _______ ( name the offense).” “How could you treat me this way?”
I believe that anger is often an emotional response to the grief and hurt of ill-treatment in our lives. As I worked thru my anger (grief) over Bryant’s suicide, I had to deal with each person individually. For me, I forgave myself saying, “I did the best I knew to do for my son. I loved and cared for him as best I could. He had a good life.” I said the same of Travis, “He was the best father he knew to be. He loved Bryant more than his own life.” There is no guilt or shame in doing the best you can for your child. But for Bryant, forgiveness came differently. It came directly from a Biblical passage. I was able to forgive Bryant as Jesus did when He hung on the cross and said, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.” I was able to say, “Lord, I forgive Bryant, because he did not know what he was doing.”
When my husband packed his stuff and left our home early that July morning last summer, I was devastated. Later that day I would learn that for the past several months he’d been secretly living as if he were a single man. He did not leave for another woman. After the “covers were pulled back” on his illicit activity, as BB King would say, the “thrill (was) gone.” His midlife reality escape had shown itself for what it really was-- a smelly mirage of smoke and mist. The gig was over but as I said, he was not initially repentant. He (with the help of the Accuser) had convinced himself that I would never forgive him. The adultery had given him a sort of “spiritual suicide.” He had totally lost himself and he believed everything else was lost. Anais Nin said, “We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.” I’m convinced of this truth. We see the things of life as we are. When we are broken inside, our view of life is broken, our thoughts and corresponding actions are broken. (That’s why personal wellness, wholeness and freedom are so vitally important.) Eight days later, when I learned there had been an earlier violation with someone else, (a few “hook ups” with our close friend) I was completely destroyed. There had been a triple betrayal. GANG RAPE. Wicked depravity all up in the church.
I wasn’t sure I could survive it. Forget divorce, I’m talking feeling the life go out of you.
Then the Lord spoke something specific to me from His Word in the Bible. It was from 1 Samuel 8. If you are not familiar with the story, you should read it. Basically the Lord said to me, “Do not be distraught Sharmayn, ‘for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.’ ” (verse 7)
When my husband ran out that Monday morning, he wasn’t running from me. He was running from God, from the truth (and from himself). When my friends decided they wanted to have sex with my husband, they weren’t betraying me, they were betraying their God. They believed the lie that God’s comfort, love and provision for their lives was not enough to satisfy them. They all acted in ignorance. And in deception. Like the first man and woman in the Garden, they were tempted “to eat death disguised as a slice of life.” They all bit. And they would all suffer the self-inflicted consequences.
And so, armed with this truth I was able to leave the question of “How could you do this to me?” and just ask “How could you do this?” (And God had already given me the answer.) As much as I was hurt, I had to de-personalize all this. It really wasn’t about me.
God gave me such a special agape (unconditional love) for my husband. The compassion God gave me for him surprised even me. Travis had been thru alot. He was (is) still struggling with our son’s death. Despite a mountain of challenges, my husband had cared for me, both of my parents and our children like the champion that he is for more than 18 years. It was easy to keep my vow to him (even tho he had broken his to me) because he had proven himself faithful in so many ways. [His kind heartedness (mis-directed) was in some ways what got him into all this mess.] He was my rock, a broken one, but mine nonetheless.
It was not, however, that easy to forgive these women. I had been nothing but a kind sister to both of them. These women had no right to my husband and they should have known better, done better, been better. Should have. Over the course of the months, I went back and forth between feeling pity and forgiveness for them and fighting bitter hatred towards them. I’m just calling it like it was. (At times I felt a struggle with “feeling forgiving” towards Travis as well. I love that man. But the thought of the offense angered me terribly.) I remember when Travis had come to himself and decided to return home. A dear friend whose marriage had survived infidelity told me, “Be prepared Sharmayn. The devil will not be happy that his plan to destroy you two did not succeed.” Nowhere have I seen that be truer than in my attempts to forgive my husband’s adultery accomplices.
But forgiveness is an essential ingredient of a free life. Unforgiveness is a virtual prison. I have a friend whose mother-in-law was hospitalized in intensive care for several months before she died. The doctors performed all kinds of tests but were never able to find out what was wrong with her. After the woman passed, my friend said her husband commented of his mother’s state, “There is no test for bitterness.” First it paralyzed her. Then it killed her.
As with my son’s death, I knew I had to settle the forgiveness issue. Otherwise I would be held hostage by grief, anger, bitterness… my own pain. It has only happened recently but I can say with truth and certainty that I have forgiven these women for what they did. First of all their offense was against God. They will have to deal with Him. If they have earnestly repented (to feel such regret for past conduct as to change one's mind regarding it; to make a change for the better as a result of remorse or contrition for one's sins ) then God has forgiven them. A few weeks ago as I was praying and writing, I was near tears. It hurt so much. I told the Lord that I did not think I had it within me to truly forgive-- to fully release them from their debt for the severe pain I was feeling because of what they chose to do to me and my family. I just didn’t think I could do it.
Then I sensed the Lord saying, “Well, are you willing to let Me forgive them? Will you let Me do it in you,... for you?” My answer to Him was of course, “Yes, Lord.” A short time later I felt a release inside me and once again the words came to me, “Father, forgive them, for they did not know what they were doing.” Glory!
Freedom came. I can honestly say that I have fully forgiven them. Does the thought of their actions still hurt? Yes. I look forward to the day when the wound becomes a scar. Healed over and no longer painful. But the God I know is a Redeemer. A Healer. Just like with Lazarus in the tomb (John 11), GOD called my marriage back from death. And He has given me double for my trouble ( Job 42:10) in the wonderful way He has brought me back together with my beloved husband (Song of Solomon 2:16 & 5:16). I love the Lord God, His One and Only Son Jesus, and His Wonderful Spirit, the RUACH that keeps me flying high above the pain and circumstances of this life.
And I love the church. Messed up as we are. We need to know there is no such thing as perfection in this life. Our families, our workplaces, our social organizations, even our churches, they all have their idiot-syncrasies. (I'm actually thinking IDIOT –sin- CRAZIES – play on word intended). Some of us are even the ones in question! {As my former pastor used to say, "Everybody's got a little something wrong with them." That includes you and me.} Earlier this year we joined another church, a big one. I was shocked to learn just last week that there is all kinds of foolishness-- not about issues of sin, but as best I can tell, personality issues-- going on behind the scenes there. Instead of complaining or running, I've just ramped up my prayers for our new pastor, who seems to be a dynamic man of God, and for the church people. We’re trying (to get it together). And we’re gonna get there. There are wonderful folks out there who are not caught up in religion, those who understand that faith is not about rules and regulations...that faith, true and authentic faith, is about RELATIONSHIP with our Creator God. He is real. He is love. (That’s not all He is, but that’s another post.) He loves us, idiot-syncrasies and all. His grace is amazing. I do love Him so.
“ Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God therefore. As dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." ( Ephesians 4:32-5:2)
"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 NIV
"Jesus replied, 'All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and We will come and make Our home with each of them.' " John 14:23 (NLT)
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
TMI
(But Stuff You Need to Know Anyway or My Tribute to Married Love)
(The subject matter will be a bit edgy but I think this is a message for everyone who is able to understand, regardless of your marital status.)
Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. Yey for us! If you know anything at all about me, you know that life for me and my man “ain’t been no crystal stair.” “And still (we) rise.” :)
For the record I want you to know that I love being with my husband. (You know what I mean.) After 20 years, he knows me. We’ve spent a lot of time over the years fine tuning an already great machine- that one flesh union between us. Of course there have been times when things weren’t all hot and heavy, when we had our “dry spells” but from the time we said “I do,” I recognized this unique gift for what it is. And I thankfully and happily receive it as often as I can. (wink)
So today in honor of marriage… in honor of my marriage, I want to talk about sex. Not your run of the mill, garden variety, wild thang, Have-it-Your-Way-Burger-King style sex, but Sacred Sex, sex the way it is supposed to be.
Now this is my story. I am not concerned about offending anyone because this is life the way I see it. The way I understand it to be. My views are not an indictment upon yours, should your views be different. These are simply that, my views.
I happen to believe that there is a Creator and therefore a created order for things. An intelligent design. (And my man and I didn’t follow it. But I’ll say more on that another time.)
What Sex Is…
Sex is an indescribably wonderful gift to humanity, thought up and given by a wonderfully indescribable Originator (God), to two people (an adult man and an adult woman) who have given themselves totally and exclusively to one another … for a lifetime. In the same way that frosting was designed for cake, the sexual experience was designed for the exclusive, committed life union of one man and one woman. Sex was created to equal married love. It is the sweet and delicious topping on the delicacy of two lives that have been irrevocably entwined, who are in covenant* to be together, no matter what, ‘til death do they part. This is the only manner in which this gift can exist without negative consequences. Like fire in a fireplace, sex gives warmth and comfort and light to a relationship between two married lovers. In its purest experience it is passionate and mind blowing, ecstasy beyond imagination. But experiencing this “fire” without that bond of exclusivity and covenant is like setting a fire in the middle of the bedroom floor. Tho it is a physical act, to the human soul this is absolute devastation in the making. A certain disaster.
What Sex is Not…
Sex is not a recreational activity akin to some extreme sport. It is not a biological necessity like eating, drinking and breathing. It is not even the “best thing” in the world or the best thing about marriage. (It is a wonderful thing to be sure, but it is not the most important thing.) Sure everybody seems to be thinking about, doing it, thinking about doing it, talking about it, writing about it, dreaming of it, watching it (Heaven help us!), or otherwise obsessing over it but sex is NOT the end all experience of life. (And this is coming from a woman who LOVES it!) It is truly wonderful to experience but I just happen to understand that the sexual relationship wasn’t meant to be a come one, come all means to “getting the monkey off your back” (Do people still say that? LOL)
The sex act was meant to be the crescendo of oneness, the explosive experience of being fully known, accepted and treasured: the union of body, soul and spirit between two people who “forsake all others” for one another. It is a kind of worship (the act of showing great reverence, honor, respect , etc.) where two people are “naked” before each other – not just physically but in all ways-- “and unashamed” because they are fully committed to one another. It is the God given glue of marriage, the physical expression of the partners love and faithfulness to one another. I believe it was meant to say, “I want to know you in the most intimate of ways,” “I love you” and “I want to experience all of you and give all of myself to you because I want to and will be with you always.” “What we two have is just for us, just between us…It is sacred [devoted exclusively to one service or use- (as of a person or purpose); entitled to reverence; holy by connection with God]” What we enjoy together is...
Sacred Sex.
Sex was not intended to be a means to an end for people to “relieve” themselves and hope for the best-- even sex by yourself misses the point. (Yep I said it.) Anyone who has experienced sex apart from covenant knows full well what I am talking about. Whether you will admit it or not. Something inside you tells you it ain’t quite right. I don’t care how drunk or high you were, how horny, how “in love” or how “committed,” if you’ve ever gone there with someone who wasn’t exclusively and eternally yours, you’ve felt that “morning after” pang of regret (if only for a moment). Even if you didn’t fully recognize it for what it was, you knew that something just wasn’t right. Yes, in the beginning it feels good. You “need” it. Maybe you even think you “need” the person. But when the “relationship” (if there even was one) ends, you know deep in your soul you just lost something of yourself. (see 1 Corinthians 6:18)
Because you see there is a divine order.
1. Covenant commitment (‘til death do we part) => (yields) 2. Sexual experience ( the gift of sacred union) => (yields) 3. Relational health and stability (We together are in this for the long haul.)
That’s the way it’s supposed to be anyway.
A few months ago I read the most astute and profound comment on this topic in a Facebook discussion and I must share it with you. The conversation was about covenantal versus non covenantal sex and the commenter stated something to the effect that-- There is no such thing as non covenant sex. When people go around from partner to partner, they always end up unfulfilled because what they are looking for (in a non-covenantal union) DOES NOT EXIST. Sex was created as a GIFT in MARRIAGE. If you are having it any other way than under that circumstance, what you are experiencing is a counterfeit.
An imitation crabmeat sandwhich.
A knock off designer bag.
A simulated plane ride.
A game of tennis on the Wii.
All those things can be nice and good. But they are FAKE. Not the real thing.
Once again I’m just telling you what I know.
Before I married I had my share of FAKE sex. -- I write that with shame and regret. (Having enjoyed the freedom of marital unity and sacred sex --- the REAL THING -- for two decades now I can tell you that put up against the imitation stuff, there is ABSOLUTELY. NO. COMPARISON.) I was a girl raised in the south by an old fashioned mother who told me simply “Don’t do it.” That was pretty much the extent of my sexual education. At least from my Mama anyway. I managed to obey her out of sheer fear until I was almost out of high school. But when I ended up with a boyfriend who I thought really “loved” me, well you know what happened.
[Now there are volumes I could say right here on this. I have a passion for the education, wholeness and well being of young girls and women but I won’t digress to all that right now. I just want to say that when a girl grows up without a father, or with one who is mentally or emotionally unhealthy, she is set up for relational/sexual failure. A father is a girl’s first exposure to male love. He is supposed to teach his daughter how she should relate to a man. If he fails at this, she usually becomes a marked target for sexual misuse and abuse. Yes, she has choices. But (like me) she will often make bad ones as she “looks for love in all the wrong places.” But I’ll talk about all this another time when I can devote an entire post to it.]
I am horrified at some of the things I hear that people are doing in the name of sex these days. I won’t get started with the perversion of child porn and the like. I am sickened and grieved by what some people have decided is “normal.” Does anyone truly believe that sex with a child or an animal is ok? And what about cyber sex and the kids who are “hooking up” or the college students (and adults as well) who have “friends with benefits”? I read recently that in the decade of the 60s there were like 3 or 4 sexually transmitted diseases. Now in 2010, there are like 58!!!!!! (Check me out on this stat for yourself. I’m going from memory as I don’t have time right now to verify it specifically.) If sex is whatever we want it to be, somebody tell me what is up with that!?!
Beloved, I promise I have an entire book in my head on this whole matter. Last December, Travis and I rededicated our vows in a mini ceremony at the church where his infidelity occurred. We bought new rings and wrote new vows to one another and one thing I said to him was that I was sorry that I didn’t wait for him. He was always the one for me. I just didn’t know I needed to wait for him.
In just a little bit my guy is going to whisk me off to a nearby city for some time of uninterrupted communion, just he and I, celebrating our love and renewed commitment to one another. We were briefly separated this time last year and did not spend our anniversary together. We’re planning to gloriously make up for that this year. Yeah baby! :D The emotional, spiritual and physical celebration we enjoy with each other is unlike anything else on this earth. He sends me. I send him. That is the gift and benefit of twenty years of covenant together. In spite of the breach that occurred last year-- perhaps even because of it (Genesis 50:20)-- my husband and I have discovered new heights of intimacy that I could never have imagined. Heights that I believe can only be experienced through the total, selfless giving of oneself to another through covenant love as you grow together. For better or for worse. Our love has stood the test of time through storm, earthquake and flood. I’m his and he’s mine. He’s not going anywhere without me. I’m not going anywhere without him. Glory to God for His wonderful gifts!
Happy Anniversary to us! (And much love to you!)
___________________________________
Sex = Married Love
* Covenant- a formal, solemn, and binding agreement or promise, different from a contract in that "A CONTRACT is an agreement made in suspicion. The parties do not trust each other, and they set "limits" to their own responsibility. A COVENANT is an agreement made in trust. The parties love each other and put no limits on their own responsibility. "
“For this reason a man will leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims…
You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor Him with your body! …
There’s more to sex that mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God- given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body… "1 Corinthians 6: 12-13, 16-20 (Message Bible)
(The subject matter will be a bit edgy but I think this is a message for everyone who is able to understand, regardless of your marital status.)
Today is my 20th wedding anniversary. Yey for us! If you know anything at all about me, you know that life for me and my man “ain’t been no crystal stair.” “And still (we) rise.” :)
For the record I want you to know that I love being with my husband. (You know what I mean.) After 20 years, he knows me. We’ve spent a lot of time over the years fine tuning an already great machine- that one flesh union between us. Of course there have been times when things weren’t all hot and heavy, when we had our “dry spells” but from the time we said “I do,” I recognized this unique gift for what it is. And I thankfully and happily receive it as often as I can. (wink)
So today in honor of marriage… in honor of my marriage, I want to talk about sex. Not your run of the mill, garden variety, wild thang, Have-it-Your-Way-Burger-King style sex, but Sacred Sex, sex the way it is supposed to be.
Now this is my story. I am not concerned about offending anyone because this is life the way I see it. The way I understand it to be. My views are not an indictment upon yours, should your views be different. These are simply that, my views.
I happen to believe that there is a Creator and therefore a created order for things. An intelligent design. (And my man and I didn’t follow it. But I’ll say more on that another time.)
What Sex Is…
Sex is an indescribably wonderful gift to humanity, thought up and given by a wonderfully indescribable Originator (God), to two people (an adult man and an adult woman) who have given themselves totally and exclusively to one another … for a lifetime. In the same way that frosting was designed for cake, the sexual experience was designed for the exclusive, committed life union of one man and one woman. Sex was created to equal married love. It is the sweet and delicious topping on the delicacy of two lives that have been irrevocably entwined, who are in covenant* to be together, no matter what, ‘til death do they part. This is the only manner in which this gift can exist without negative consequences. Like fire in a fireplace, sex gives warmth and comfort and light to a relationship between two married lovers. In its purest experience it is passionate and mind blowing, ecstasy beyond imagination. But experiencing this “fire” without that bond of exclusivity and covenant is like setting a fire in the middle of the bedroom floor. Tho it is a physical act, to the human soul this is absolute devastation in the making. A certain disaster.
What Sex is Not…
Sex is not a recreational activity akin to some extreme sport. It is not a biological necessity like eating, drinking and breathing. It is not even the “best thing” in the world or the best thing about marriage. (It is a wonderful thing to be sure, but it is not the most important thing.) Sure everybody seems to be thinking about, doing it, thinking about doing it, talking about it, writing about it, dreaming of it, watching it (Heaven help us!), or otherwise obsessing over it but sex is NOT the end all experience of life. (And this is coming from a woman who LOVES it!) It is truly wonderful to experience but I just happen to understand that the sexual relationship wasn’t meant to be a come one, come all means to “getting the monkey off your back” (Do people still say that? LOL)
The sex act was meant to be the crescendo of oneness, the explosive experience of being fully known, accepted and treasured: the union of body, soul and spirit between two people who “forsake all others” for one another. It is a kind of worship (the act of showing great reverence, honor, respect , etc.) where two people are “naked” before each other – not just physically but in all ways-- “and unashamed” because they are fully committed to one another. It is the God given glue of marriage, the physical expression of the partners love and faithfulness to one another. I believe it was meant to say, “I want to know you in the most intimate of ways,” “I love you” and “I want to experience all of you and give all of myself to you because I want to and will be with you always.” “What we two have is just for us, just between us…It is sacred [devoted exclusively to one service or use- (as of a person or purpose); entitled to reverence; holy by connection with God]” What we enjoy together is...
Sacred Sex.
Sex was not intended to be a means to an end for people to “relieve” themselves and hope for the best-- even sex by yourself misses the point. (Yep I said it.) Anyone who has experienced sex apart from covenant knows full well what I am talking about. Whether you will admit it or not. Something inside you tells you it ain’t quite right. I don’t care how drunk or high you were, how horny, how “in love” or how “committed,” if you’ve ever gone there with someone who wasn’t exclusively and eternally yours, you’ve felt that “morning after” pang of regret (if only for a moment). Even if you didn’t fully recognize it for what it was, you knew that something just wasn’t right. Yes, in the beginning it feels good. You “need” it. Maybe you even think you “need” the person. But when the “relationship” (if there even was one) ends, you know deep in your soul you just lost something of yourself. (see 1 Corinthians 6:18)
Because you see there is a divine order.
1. Covenant commitment (‘til death do we part) => (yields) 2. Sexual experience ( the gift of sacred union) => (yields) 3. Relational health and stability (We together are in this for the long haul.)
That’s the way it’s supposed to be anyway.
A few months ago I read the most astute and profound comment on this topic in a Facebook discussion and I must share it with you. The conversation was about covenantal versus non covenantal sex and the commenter stated something to the effect that-- There is no such thing as non covenant sex. When people go around from partner to partner, they always end up unfulfilled because what they are looking for (in a non-covenantal union) DOES NOT EXIST. Sex was created as a GIFT in MARRIAGE. If you are having it any other way than under that circumstance, what you are experiencing is a counterfeit.
An imitation crabmeat sandwhich.
A knock off designer bag.
A simulated plane ride.
A game of tennis on the Wii.
All those things can be nice and good. But they are FAKE. Not the real thing.
Once again I’m just telling you what I know.
Before I married I had my share of FAKE sex. -- I write that with shame and regret. (Having enjoyed the freedom of marital unity and sacred sex --- the REAL THING -- for two decades now I can tell you that put up against the imitation stuff, there is ABSOLUTELY. NO. COMPARISON.) I was a girl raised in the south by an old fashioned mother who told me simply “Don’t do it.” That was pretty much the extent of my sexual education. At least from my Mama anyway. I managed to obey her out of sheer fear until I was almost out of high school. But when I ended up with a boyfriend who I thought really “loved” me, well you know what happened.
[Now there are volumes I could say right here on this. I have a passion for the education, wholeness and well being of young girls and women but I won’t digress to all that right now. I just want to say that when a girl grows up without a father, or with one who is mentally or emotionally unhealthy, she is set up for relational/sexual failure. A father is a girl’s first exposure to male love. He is supposed to teach his daughter how she should relate to a man. If he fails at this, she usually becomes a marked target for sexual misuse and abuse. Yes, she has choices. But (like me) she will often make bad ones as she “looks for love in all the wrong places.” But I’ll talk about all this another time when I can devote an entire post to it.]
I am horrified at some of the things I hear that people are doing in the name of sex these days. I won’t get started with the perversion of child porn and the like. I am sickened and grieved by what some people have decided is “normal.” Does anyone truly believe that sex with a child or an animal is ok? And what about cyber sex and the kids who are “hooking up” or the college students (and adults as well) who have “friends with benefits”? I read recently that in the decade of the 60s there were like 3 or 4 sexually transmitted diseases. Now in 2010, there are like 58!!!!!! (Check me out on this stat for yourself. I’m going from memory as I don’t have time right now to verify it specifically.) If sex is whatever we want it to be, somebody tell me what is up with that!?!
Beloved, I promise I have an entire book in my head on this whole matter. Last December, Travis and I rededicated our vows in a mini ceremony at the church where his infidelity occurred. We bought new rings and wrote new vows to one another and one thing I said to him was that I was sorry that I didn’t wait for him. He was always the one for me. I just didn’t know I needed to wait for him.
In just a little bit my guy is going to whisk me off to a nearby city for some time of uninterrupted communion, just he and I, celebrating our love and renewed commitment to one another. We were briefly separated this time last year and did not spend our anniversary together. We’re planning to gloriously make up for that this year. Yeah baby! :D The emotional, spiritual and physical celebration we enjoy with each other is unlike anything else on this earth. He sends me. I send him. That is the gift and benefit of twenty years of covenant together. In spite of the breach that occurred last year-- perhaps even because of it (Genesis 50:20)-- my husband and I have discovered new heights of intimacy that I could never have imagined. Heights that I believe can only be experienced through the total, selfless giving of oneself to another through covenant love as you grow together. For better or for worse. Our love has stood the test of time through storm, earthquake and flood. I’m his and he’s mine. He’s not going anywhere without me. I’m not going anywhere without him. Glory to God for His wonderful gifts!
Happy Anniversary to us! (And much love to you!)
___________________________________
Sex = Married Love
* Covenant- a formal, solemn, and binding agreement or promise, different from a contract in that "A CONTRACT is an agreement made in suspicion. The parties do not trust each other, and they set "limits" to their own responsibility. A COVENANT is an agreement made in trust. The parties love each other and put no limits on their own responsibility. "
“For this reason a man will leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24
“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims…
You know the old saying, “First you eat to live, and then you live to eat”? Well, it may be true that the body is only a temporary thing, but that’s no excuse for stuffing your body with food, or indulging it with sex. Since the Master honors you with a body, honor Him with your body! …
There’s more to sex that mere skin on skin. Sex is as much spiritual mystery as physical fact. As written in Scripture, “The two become one.” Since we want to become spiritually one with the Master, we must not pursue the kind of sex that avoids commitment and intimacy, leaving us more lonely than ever—the kind of sex that can never “become one.” There is a sense in which sexual sins are different from all others. In sexual sin we violate the sacredness of our own bodies, these bodies that were made for God- given and God-modeled love, for “becoming one” with another. Or didn’t you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don’t you see that you can’t live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body… "1 Corinthians 6: 12-13, 16-20 (Message Bible)
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