Questions

This past week has brought many ups and downs as you very well know. More downs than ups. I’ve had plenty to mull over in my mind. And I have so many questions. Questions for God mostly, and probably answers I may not ever know.

I’m the type of person who likes to “think” that I can figure things out, that I can figure people out, what makes them tick, what drives them, what leads them to fall. I like to believe that I have a sixth sense in a sort of way, perhaps a gift to read other people and know they have pain they are hiding, or that they feel worthless, or they have never experienced God’s huge love for them. And I want to help them. I want to share that love with them. I want them to be able to see their value in this life and beyond.

I suppose there is some sense of feeling in control when you “think” you know these things about others. What I am experiencing fully in this situation is the complete loss of control. This is reflected in my nightmares. Terrifying dreams that wake me up gasping for air, screaming, even praying out loud for my life. When I dreamed I was in a space capsule that was careening out of control and crashing, not only did my own screaming start bringing me to the surface but I began praying in my dream. My own voice woke me up as I realized I was actually praying out loud for God to save me. When I realized I was awake, I continued praying, by now the tears had come and the paralyzing fear of not having control had consumed me. I prayed out loud to God for half an hour at least. Words spilling out of me and slowly but surely I was able to come to a place where I could realize my value, where I could see that my God is a bigger God than the fear that had so gripped me. By the time I was able to slip back into sleep, I had also prayed for a lot of other people who need prayers as well.

Many people don’t understand why women who are abused go back to their abusers. They hear about and see the damage done by the abuse (only if the abused woman has come out of the closet so to speak), but they don’t see the Dr. Jekyll personality, the good side, that the woman fell in love with in the first place. Or many who know the abuser only see the Dr Jekyll side and have not experienced the Mr. Hyde side as the woman in the relationship has and therefore they think she is the crazy one, making it all up for sympathy, making it all up for attention. But I digress. What I want to get at, what I want to try and explain is why I specifically never gave up.
There is something in me that wants to believe in the best. The good side was there, and the good side was very worthy, very valuable, giving, loving, generous. When he didn’t have his walls up, when he wasn’t running from his fears, when he wasn’t transferring blame for the things he felt guilt about, he was the sweetest, kindest most loveable person I had ever known. When you experience that, you know that goodness exists in that person. You know it, you’ve seen it! You’ve felt it! But you also know that life has taught this person some cruel lessons, just as you have learned some yourself. As Mark Batterson says in his book “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day”, “I think most of us are shaped, for better or for worse, by a handful of experiences. Those defining experiences can plant a seed of confidence or a seed of doubt, a seed of hope or a seed of helplessness, a seed of faith or a seed of fear.”

When the seeds that are sown in our lives lead us to feeling bad about ourselves, we use all kinds of defense mechanisms to hide the fact that we feel less than, that we feel worthless, that we feel not good enough. The abuser often uses transference to deal with these feelings. Make it the other persons fault. The person abused often takes on this blame and as a result feels even more worthless. We think we deserve where we are, the situation we are in. We don’t have the energy to fight our way out, because we learned early on that we aren't worth the fight.

Something inside of me not only wanted to fight for me, but it wanted to fight for him too. Something inside was telling me something different, not only was I worth it but he was too. I knew I had goodness somewhere. And I knew he did too. He had shown it to me, even if in just bits and pieces here and there, for periods of time that never lasted long enough.

After I experienced the wonder of God in my life and especially after I learned just how valuable I was to God during Break Through, I knew without a doubt that Bill was just as valuable to God as I was, no matter what mistakes he had made. No matter what mistakes I had made. I found forgiveness for him, for myself and knew that I was forgiven and set free by God. Call it that “gift” I felt I had, I knew that Bill did not forgive himself (and perhaps not me either) and until he could see and experience the same awesome love that God had for him he would be trapped. I’ve always known that no matter how hard I try, I can’t change him. Time and experience has allowed me to step back and let God do his work. Trust that God was doing His work. And while God was doing his work there, he was also doing his work in me.

Here is where I seem to have gotten tripped up. I felt God telling me he wanted our family back together again. This wasn’t something that was easy to accept, but I did always have that hope for Bill. I always had that dream that he would be set free from the chains that had defined him for so long. And IF he could be set free, than there was a possibility that we could restore our relationship. I went through ups and downs when I felt like God was telling me to reach out for Bill, to wondering if I was making it all up in my head and perhaps it was just my own hope.

If God really wanted me to get back together with Bill, why am I in this place of hurt right now? Didn’t God know this was going to happen?

If it was my hope and not God’s will, am I wrong to believe that Bill deserves to know God’s love? Is it crazy to believe that he can get there? And is it crazy to believe that if he were to get there, that he would want to share that with me, the one that I believe he does love, in spite of all the walls he’s put up to hide it?

Let’s go a step further. Bill and Alicia have expressed their belief that God put them both in that motorcycle class so that they would meet each other. Destiny so to speak. If that is true, if God intended for them to meet, didn’t he also know that I was going to get hurt? Did God want that? Or was it just an unintended consequence? Or perhaps, God is in actuality exposing me to one of my greatest fears by putting me right in the middle of it… my fear of being alone. If their meeting was destiny, is the lesson for me to face my fear of being alone? Is this the good that God is making out of the bad?

What if it wasn’t destiny? What if it was free will that brought Bill and Alicia together. Bill had the free will to make a choice. The grass looked greener over there. It was new and exciting over there. All the transference habits he had learned so well in the past kicked in and he was able to make all kinds of excuses for his behavior. Excuses for why leaving me was the right thing to do. Excuses for why choosing her without even knowing her was the right thing to do. Excuses for believing this is what God wanted him to do. Did God really want him to hurt me like that? Especially in the manner in which he chose to do it, with the lies and the betrayal. Did God want him to hurt his kids like that?

The thing is, God did know all of the above was going to happen. He knew the story from the beginning and he knows the ending. I do know that God will take what has happened and weave his magic into it. I will grow. I will develop a closer relationship with Him as a result. I will be able to reach out and help others in the future. I do believe that is what God wants me to do with this.

I will always believe that God can work a miracle in Bill. I will always believe that God can change his heart. But I have to let God do that. I have to let Bill be willing to let him do that. I have no control in that realm.

I will concentrate on what I do have control over. Me. In time I will forgive. In time I won’t hurt so much. In time I will let go completely. And as the questions without answers raise to the forefront of my mind, I will hand them over to God. And I will trust Him.