Worship

From Rubble to Restoration

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Posted by Dave

On October 25th, I had the opportunity to speak at my brother’s church. He recently became the Senior Pastor of a church in Huntington, WV, and had been preaching a sermon series called “Broken” during the month of October. He asked me to share my story as a part of this series. I have to admit that this was a very surreal experience. It had been nearly 5 years since I stood behind a pulpit in a church, and this time around my family looked very different. The other thing that surprised me is how healing the whole experience was. My brother asked me to share with the church for a reason, but one of the unintended circumstances from last Sunday is that it was another moment of healing in the life of our family. It revealed yet again the twofold principle that has evident during this journey:

-God will use external circumstances to bring you to a place of repentance and humility.
-Not only will He use those external circumstances, God will use your own mistakes and faults for His glory if you let him.

During the message, I shared this quote from author Ken Gire: “When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn’t put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project – a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.”

Adding to the amazing timing of last weekend is the fact that October 25th would have been the 18th anniversary of my first marriage. Talk about shards of raw material being used for a new project… I’m so thankful for healing, restoration, and memories of a broken past. It is a constant reminder of how my loving Heavenly Father works.

The video from this service is below (note: there were some technical difficulties around the 18:00 mark, but they inserted a slide showing the points that I spoke about).

The End

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Rocky

Posted By Dave

“How did I end up here?” was the question that the voice in my head kept asking. I came home from work to see only my clothes and open space where some of the furniture used to be. Sadness, anger, frustration, it all washed over me. I was like a fighter who had taken a right hook that I didn’t have a chance to brace for. As I crumbled to the canvas, I was pissed and hurt. How does 13 years of marriage, three children and a home together, a life built together, end up here? Sometimes there just isn’t an explanation. Sometimes there just aren’t any answers. Sometimes bad stuff happens to people who tried to do everything right. It doesn’t make any sense.

After the separation began, my boys would go spend the agreed-upon days with their mom. Instantly, a house that was full of the sounds and activity of a young family was as quiet as a funeral home. Appropriately, I felt like I was dying inside. Toys left where they were played with last. Their clothes in the laundry, Capri-Suns in the refrigerator. The TV left on the last channel they watched, the baseball laying in the front yard. I couldn’t wait to talk to them, but despised having to tell them “Good Night” over the phone. I missed them so bad, I felt like someone was using a vacuum to suck the life out of me. I would lay there in bed and be enveloped in the silence. It made me sick to my stomach. It was in those times that I began to experience the love of my heavenly Father like I never had before. I have been a Christian since 1997, yet I discovered during those lonely nights that my faith had never been tested like this. I began to beg God to make His presence known, I was having a real crisis of faith, wondering if all of the stuff I had said about Jesus through the years was really true or if I was just repeating what everyone else was saying.

I know now that it is all true. I can’t explain it in words so that anyone else would understand. I just know because I’ve sensed the presense of my Savior in times when I just wanted to curl up in a ball in the floor. I know because I was broken down and stripped of everything that I held dear, and yet still knew that there was a reason for it. I know because He waited for me to ask Him for forgiveness before He began to reveal His new plan for me. I don’t ask “why?” anymore. That’s because I know the answer. It wasn’t so I could start over. It wasn’t so I could get answers to all of my questions. I’ve learned over time that the specifics don’t matter. Who did what, who said what, who was wrong and who was right, none of it matters. I spent plenty of time being self-righteous about my circumstances, and it still left me empty. The reason I don’t ask why anymore is because every day I live this life completely differently than I did prior to the day my first marriage ended. It is encompassed in this quote from author Ken Gire:

“When suffering shatters the carefully kept vase that is our lives, God stoops to pick up the pieces. But he doesn’t put them back together as a restoration project patterned after our former selves. Instead, he sifts through the rubble and selects some of the shards as raw material for another project – a mosaic that tells the story of redemption.”

The End was The Beginning for me. I made the choice to get up off of the canvas, spit the blood out of my mouth and get back in the fight. The fight for me was to figure out what I did to cause what happened and fix it. I went to counseling for months to open up those places that were in the shadows and bring them into the light. The fight for me was to lead my sons through a traumatic situation. I could not leave them behind as I jumped back in the ring, I had no choice but to be a healthy Dad for them. I fight for them every day, even when they aren’t with me. Someday they are going to have to fight too. It is my job to be their Mickey, to prepare them for the day they are going to step into the ring. Now the fight for me involves my young marriage to a woman who is my Adrian. I refuse to let my past or my enemy win, and that means fighting for what is good and right. Even though my greatest fears were realized, they were also defeated the moment that stopped trying to control what wasn’t mine begin with. Freedom and power are my assets thanks to Who I serve, not who I am.

It all began the day that it ended.

The “M” Word

/ Hope and Dave / 1 Comment

Mom Blocks

Posted by Hope

Why would I take my pain public? I am not the only one to face infertility. Others live with the hurt I have, and much much worse. You may read this and wonder how or why I’d say the things I say. I’m positive if you were given this same set of circumstances, you’d be a superstar and rock this job like a champ! Me, I’m like the fat kid in gym class that is horribly uncomfortable in the spandex shorts and undersized tee! It’s gonna just kind of hang out there, y’all.

So many ways to make a family in this day and time. With technology and science, there are so many ways we can blend under one roof. Let’s not forget those who chose to be defined as a family without children. I received a reaction to my statement that Dave’s boys “are not mine” in my previous post. I will expand more on that point in a later post, but for now, know that there is a healthy understanding and respect for the title “Mom”. In their life, that position is filled.

On Friday, October 10th, my doctor sat across from me and explained that due to endometriosis I need to have a hysterectomy to address the horrible pain that is plaguing me. Since I couldn’t have children anyway, to him, it made sense to move this direction. This news sent me into a tailspin for days. I couldn’t think, sleep, eat or process a rational thought without applying extreme effort. I have exactly two weeks left to process the loss of my reproductive system. There is part of me that has been begging for this day for decades. Then, there is the woman deep down inside that is grieving terribly. You see, I wanted to have children.

I’d like to think that this means there’s a countdown to the sadness and when I emerge from that hospital on December 3rd that I will have left behind all of the pain. Gone will be the days of slipping into a fantasy about what my own child would have looked like, been named, what their voice would sound like and what they would want to be when they grew up. Left behind would be the dream of them running to me with a skinned knee and being the first person to celebrate moments of discovery with. I romanticize the idea of motherhood alright. In my heart, it is sacred. In my intellect and experience, I know better. I’ve watched the reality from a distance and laughed at the comedy of my fantasy. They talk back, ruin good furniture, change your plans and sometimes end up blaming you for all the things that go wrong in their life. Inevitably, that would’ve been my kid. The Alanis Morrisette song “Ironic” comes to mind when I think about the reality of how my whole Mommy journey would’ve gone.

The fact is that I am more than my body says I am. I have more than I will ever need. I have three little boys to impact with my love. I can be an example to young women in my sphere of influence, can speak into their destinies, provide counsel, guidance and become a “mother” to many. This is truth. But there are days, like today, when the reminder of that tiny package with my DNA on it will not be handed to me. That brings me back to the dark of the soul. The ache that hurts into my bones. Its weight can feel crushing and leave me physically spent.

Supernatural things happen in this kind of grief. It is only here, in hurt like today, that I can be reminded of what is needed to get me off of the floor. It is only by the strength of God that I can walk through a day like this knowing it is just a day and that the hurt will pass and life will move forward and I will be stronger tomorrow. I can allow myself these moments to purge the pain and then exhale, straighten once again and continue the march.

What awaits me? How long will it take to heal? Will I change? Well, I guess that remains to be seen. For now, I’ll take each moment as it comes. While I wait, I worship. Regardless of my pain, regardless of my preference, I worship.

Family UnPlanning

/ Hope and Dave / 2 Comments

Posted by Hope

Family planning is taught early in today’s public education arenas. Beginning in grade school, we learn the function of our sex organs and how they operate (…are supposed to operate). I don’t recall my teachers discussing any of the things that can disrupt fertilization or that conception is actually a complete timing miracle. My sisters and I were raised “not to”. Heavy petting could lead to pregnancy and dad would kill us. So, don’t. I spent most of my young adult life casually planning when my children would make their appearance. It didn’t go as I had planned.

I was told in the second year of my marriage, at the age of 27, that IF I wanted children, I’d better begin trying. After three months of negative tests, I started asking questions, then plunged headlong into two years of fertility treatments. I daydreamed of life as a mom and looked forward to my own brand of Brady Bunch chaos (funny, they were a stepfamily too).
Yes dear friends, I prayed, believed, had faith, fasted, had anointing oil poured on me and prophecies spoken over me all believing for complete healing. I broke curses, renounced unknown sin, repented until I felt bad for feeling human and still was not healed. Finally, after the last negative test result, I became suicidal.

That afternoon, I spent my time thinking about my death. I was shaken sober by my soul screaming that my body did not determine my value. I got up off of the couch, walked into the nursery that I had prepared and gathered up all of the parenting magazines, baby toys and a few baby books and threw them into the garbage. Shaken by the realization that I had sunk to that depth, I spent the next few months dissecting my life with God and made changes in my warped understanding of what a woman was supposed to BE. Through years of building an intimate relationship with God, He tenderly addressed my hurt. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurts. It hurts often, but in time, living with the hurt became easier by getting to know the God who walks through it with me. Even in this special place, it never addressed the big question……WHY?

Commuting home one day, I was pouring my heart out to God in worship. I was out of words, out of prayer, out of strength. As I sang aloud the words to the song that came on, I began listening to what I was singing, “You deserve it all. And I give everything. I have no intention of holding anything back from you.” I broke. The dam burst. I cried from the floor of my soul. As I emptied my grief onto my dashboard and cried with no sense of propriety, I realized in that moment, the WHY didn’t matter anymore. In that moment, the need to understand was of no consequence. I sat in the strong presence of the Lord, knowing that one day, I would understand it all, but it would be diminished in the light of eternity. I embraced the moment and allowed Him to replace my deep need, with Himself. I felt peace wash over me in that moment and the next few days following. Up until that time I felt like God owed me an explanation. If I was going to continue to give my life to Him, it seemed like a fair deal to ask Him to show me why the “Giver of Life” had CHOSEN not to give life to me. But when I was out of fight and in the raw broken place of hurt, it just didn’t even matter anymore. In the breathless place of grief, all I needed was Him. For my very life. And He responded, big.

Years later, as my first marriage died, God reminded me of that place as I navigated separation and divorce. I lived in a broken place for a season again, but this time, with the knowledge and awareness of His faithfulness and sovereignty. I eventually healed and found love again. My second husband has three sons. I am now a step mom. Many believe that I now have my “children”. Although they provide me with an inexhaustible opportunity to love, they are not mine. I am confronted with that regularly. Living in this delicate balance of vulnerability and selflessness has been a challenge. I have failed, but I have conquered too. I lose ground and gain it on a weekly basis. But the dance is so beautiful.