It is in the little things we do to cherish one another every day
It was my second time around and his third. He brought a keen sense of humor to our marriage and three daughters. The youngest of which I had the privileged of helping him raise.
Soon, I realized I had brought all the seriousness and most of the responsibility to the marriage. I also brought two teenage boys, so we immediately had three teens, a preteen and his two-year-old. Our full-time parenting was for the baby girl. She was my bonus.
She was the second child her mother abandoned but not the last. I worked hard to protect her and try to keep her from feeling rejected as I did. We tried to let her mother take part in her life. Over and over, she would disappoint her daughter and even use her.
The mother went to jail and would call to talk to her baby girl. I told her to take time and prayed for her to get her life in order. Within two years, the mother was imprisoned for breaking and entering our house. Where she stole some electronics to sell. It was after Christmas, and she used part of the money to buy late Christmas presents for the baby.
The mother’s name was Brenda. Her father called me and shouted profanities at me because she was going away for several years. He informed me that my husband and Brenda’s marriage was invalid. Because she never divorced her first husband.
Brenda had a long rap sheet and several pages of aliases by the time she was locked up. She had even used my name to try to get a job. The police and the District Attorney wanted her behind bars. The police had chased her for several weeks before finally getting her. At the beginning of all this, she had been so bold she went to the police station to get an ID card. Which pissed off the police chief.
My sons were living with their dad a couple of hours away. I would go get them every other weekend. I had custody but no child support. He dragged me down the hall by my hair when I asked for a divorce. Next, he demanded that I get paper and a pencil, and he would tell me what I could have. Then he told me I would be dead before I got child support from him. I knew he had one woman’s husband beat up, and I knew he could be cruel.
Our new marriage was made hard by trying to navigate life with the exes and the children. He had one wild, mean ex-wife and the first who seemed glad I was in her girl’s life. And I had one ex who wanted to prove he was mean.
As I thought of where I was going with this article, I looked into the dark hole that was the first few years of our marriage. One I wanted to walk away from. Ours was a marriage full of missteps, but I thought I was obeying God when I met him and wasn’t giving up. I sought counsel and took my vows seriously.
For years I attended church alone or with any of the children that would go with me. I taught Sunday and Bible school and served where and when possible.
I learned that abused people make bad decisions because their sense of trust is broken. We make wrong choices sometimes because it’s familiar, without conscious thought. At some point, we come to realize that we can’t trust our judgment. But inner or emotional healing is available and not hard to access now.
One day, I asked God why he sent me a man who drank. I can still see His smile as He said, “What makes you think I sent him to you?” I answered, “I prayed for a husband, and he was there.” God laughed and said, “And where did you pick him up?” I meekly answered, “The Moose Lodge.” God can redeem, and He knew I would choose this man before I did.
Here we celebrate 37 years of marriage, which is one of blessings. With the restoration of my oldest son into our lives, we have a Brady Bunch. His are the three girls, mine the three boys. We have twelve grandchildren, and four great-grandsons, with another great-grandson due in October.
Yes, those first years were hard. And yes, I did consider asking for a divorce when his business failed, and we lost so much materially. But, like life, marriage is an adventure that the two of you go on together. There are highs and lows, and there are lessons to be learned. We have made each other better people.
“So what God unites let no one divide!” (Matthew 19:6b TPT)
Our faithful God saw us through four teenagers at once. Through the deaths of my in-laws. Then my brother and, two weeks later, my best friend and I had shingles during the last two of these. God walked us through my husband’s heart bypass surgery, a stroke, and my kidney cancer diagnosis.
We are trying to understand why the two most troublesome of our children have ended up back at home.
For if a believer fails to provide for their own relatives when they are in need, they have compromised their convictions of faith and need to be corrected, for they are living worse than the unbelievers. (I Timothy 5:8 TPT)
His middle daughter will be forty-nine next week. She has returned in the last month with the clothes on her back and is in poor health from years of smoking and drugs. A couple of years ago, I asked God how this woman-child would get His Word. He said, “She has you in her life.” So I know the reason she’s here. I pray that she can feel peace and joy from my presence. I want to be able to offer her hope and healing for that hurt teenager. As she was forced to have an abortion at fourteen by her mother. This happened while I was away for the week because I would have been fighting for that life.
The other returning child is my youngest son, soon to be fifty-two. He has been the one to do most of the work on the house and buildings over the twenty-nine years we have lived here. He and his second wife separated, and he came to live in the rec room in the barn about eight years ago. His wife died during the pandemic from complications from drug use.
He works as a handyman, but he is a master carpenter. He is a strong believer and drug user, so he prefers the barn to the house. He got hooked on opioids for back pain due to his spondylolisthesis. It was diagnosed when he was about ten. And the plan was to have surgery when he was around fifteen years old. His father refused to sign the consent for the surgery. And as an adult, he decided not to have the surgery. He said he talked to several people with bad outcomes.
I pray for his deliverance from the drugs and the pain that brought on the need for the drugs. He attended church with me once, right before the pandemic. He and his wife attended a small church regularly. Before the nightmare of opioid addiction and the separation. God sent him to help us around here, as we often need a plumber or some other handyman skill. At the moment, I have him helping me redo the kitchen cabinets. The house is over a hundred years old, and we always seem to have a project going on.
Before the pandemic, my husband had been joining me for Sunday service for several years. He was reluctant to return to in-person service. I knew we needed community, so we have been attending a new church. We are going to a meeting on Sunday to see where we can serve.
Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another and then pray for one another to be instantly healed, for tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer! (James 5:16 TPT)
I am excited about the possibilities my God offers me at this age. And yes, I am still working to complete the assignment to publish a book on the Holy Spirit. And already have another task assigned, which may be even tougher. “Teach humility.”
