Tears flowed down Vanessa’s beautiful black face. She gripped my hands as she related her
painful story.
“Elaine, I need God to help me get through this; please pray
for me,” she began. “My husband Gary is
white, and we’ve had a beautiful and happy marriage until five years ago. I’m a breast cancer survivor, and doctors
said I should have a hysterectomy so I won’t get uterine cancer. I went through with it. Of course, then I couldn’t have any more
children, and he blamed me for that. Our relationship started to fall apart, and these
past five years have been a wild roller-coaster ride of a living nightmare because
of all the emotional abuse he’s heaped on me.”
She made deep up and down roller-coaster motions with her hands and dabbed at her eyes.
“Don’t get me wrong—Gary wasn’t entirely to blame for the
deterioration of our marriage; I bear my share of it. We’ve both done and said things we
regret. But Elaine, he’s a Christian,
and I just can’t understand why he’s acting the way he does. I feel so confused, so unloved and tossed
aside. Gary always defended me to his mother, who
was very much against us getting married in the first place. He always stood up for me; we loved each
other, and for years we had a great marriage.
“What is it with holidays?
Is he trying to make it as painful as possible? The day before Thanksgiving last year, he
told me he’d found someone else – someone younger. Two days before Christmas, he announced he
was moving out. Then the day before Mother’s
Day this year, he served me with divorce papers. I didn’t want this divorce, and tried to get
him to go with me to counseling, but he was stubborn. Two days before what would have been our
twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, our divorce was final.”
Vanessa paused and wiped her face with a tissue and tried to
compose herself. After a bit she
continued.
“I refuse to medicate myself with drugs or alcohol, or withdraw
from church, stay to myself, and do other things I’m tempted to do, but it is
just so hard. I have never walked through anything so dark
and terrible in all my life. I
understand why people turn to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. But I know that’s a dead-end street, and I’m
not going there.
“Our two children are suffering so much. Daniel is nineteen, has moved out and sees Gary at work; he’s
very angry at his dad and struggling with substance abuse. Amy is twenty-one
and lives with me. I feel like I’ve
failed my children… Our once happy home is split in two. My daughter is slipping into depression, and
I feel so helpless to know what to do for her.
I know I need to find some help for her.
I find myself watching way too much TV with her...I know I have to go to work and keep moving…
I just want our family relationships to somehow be restored even if we’re
divorced… I want our children to have a good relationship with their father.
“Gary said he wants to buy another house, and wants our
current townhouse to be put into my name.
Just last week he was so angry because the refinancing on our townhome
is taking longer than he'd like, and he blames me for that too. The truth of the matter is that the
refinancing difficulty is his fault because he inadvertently didn’t make the
mortgage payment within the allotted time because he was out of town due to the
death of his father. But I just can’t
reason with him. It starts a huge fight,
and I’m just so tired.”
My mind was reeling as she unburdened herself. How my heart went out to her! I prayed with Vanessa and told her I was so
proud of her for not giving up, and for being in church every Sunday instead of
staying home and withdrawing. I told her
she was a beautiful woman who has a lot to offer. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to put
arms around someone who’s hurting and cry with them.
Vanessa inspires me as I see her Sunday after Sunday
standing in her usual spot in the church sanctuary and worshipping the Lord
with upraised hands. I know she truly is
giving a sacrifice of praise to her Savior, and my heart goes out to her.
How could this happen to a once-happily married Christian
couple? How could a Christian man, who
once stood up and defended his wife to his own mother, now turn on her? What foundation of offense was laid, one
plank at a time, until he became a prisoner in a house of bitterness?
Do you see why I have such a passion and heart for children
and the family? Why I am so vehemently
against anything that would destroy God’s plan for marriage according to the
Holy Scriptures? The world is reeling with sin and pain. Scenes like this scenario
are written in hell, and as mankind agrees with the devil, it is
established.
Stay free of taking offense, dear reader. Don’t become a prisoner in a house of
bitterness. I love you.
*Names have been changed to protect identity.
Copyright © 2013
Elaine Beachy
No comments:
Post a Comment