Chapter 6: Deconstruction and a New Belief

            The contrast of the events leading up to meeting my late husband and then falling in love with him was like running down a long dark tunnel and finally coming out into the light.  It was like seeing the sun break through the clouds after a long storm.  It was like breathing fresh air after being in a smoke-filled burning house. 

            Through falling in love with him my heart began to open, “like a rose lifting its petals after a hard rain” (Boundaries pg. 223).   

            We were married for two years and anger came out of me on several occasions that I did not even know was in there. 

When I was in high school my mom “flipped out” several times but I never did.  I always held it together and stayed under control.  I never got angry about anything, literally ever. 

Then I got married and it was one storm after another.  I blamed it partly on my PMS, which does not help, but there is no excuse for the hurtful things I have said to my late husband. 

All of his love and tenderness, opened my wounds.  Like animals emerging from hiding after a bad rainstorm, my feelings finally felt safe to expose themselves.  I have heard that is what happens in love, that a person gets so comfortable that everything they had buried for years comes out. 

I always thought prior to meeting to him that being married would be almost impossible for me given my past.  Trusting men has been very difficult.    My late husband was the first man I ever fully trusted, because he loved and accepted me more than anyone had before.  It was the first time I felt unconditional love.

Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend say in their book Boundaries, “Just as the branch withers without the vine, we can sustain neither life nor emotional repair without bonding to God and others.  God and his people are the fuel, the energy source from which any problem is addressed” (Boundaries pg. 234). 

I struggled with jealousy and inscurity a lot when I was with him.  But God truly blessed me with the most upright man in the faithfulness department possible.  He did not look at pornography, unlike the 75% of even Christian men that do.  He was very faithful to me. 

However, part of me kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Everything else in my life has been a train wreck so I expected that also to become one.  Every other guy I got close to proved to be not trustworthy.  But he was trustworthy and worthy of my love and respect to the end. 

My old beliefs were constructed by a series of events.  My dad molesting me was the foundation.  After our parents divorced, my brother, in his attempt to fill his own God-shaped hole, tried to pursue almost every female friend I had.  Every boyfriend I had from the time I was 13 until I was 25 proved that guys were only after one thing. 

The deconstruction began when I met my late husband, and it is still on ongoing process.  He helped me realize that good men do exist. 

He was not perfect, of course, but it was such a relief to finally be loved in a pure way.  It was like I was in a desert my whole life.  Everywhere I turned I was searching for something, some glimmer of hope, some comfort and never found it.

He was so wonderful, because he was truly a fallen man refined by God.  When he loved me I knew it was God loving me through him.  I have always known God loves me, but God created us for relationship. In Genesis God said, “ ‘It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18).     

My late husband was the most loving, patient, peaceful, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled person I ever knew. 

He constantly reminded me how much God loves me regardless of any performance on my part.  God loves me for me, and I do not have to earn it. 

He reminded me that I have value in just who I am.

I had never felt so connected to another person.  We were connected mentally, spiritually, emotionally and physically.  We sometimes had six hour long conversations.  I could not get enough of hearing his voice or learning about the way he saw the world.  We seemed to never run out of topics of conversation. 

I tend to have more of a sanguine personality and he was more of a melancholic personality.  So I was always trying to point out the positives of life, and he was always trying to help me see things realistically.

We prayed together a lot.  I once read that there is nothing that can draw a couple closer together then praying together.  It is the most intimate thing we can do with another person. 

We were emotionally very connected, because we had both been through enormous amounts of pain, but like the story of the phoenix we rose out of the ashes with a brilliant flash and found new life.  We were both incredibly strong because we had endured so much.  I could not have picked a better fellow soldier to live life with at that time. 

Our relationship truly was a miracle of God, given that we were both survivors of sexual abuse. 

            When my late usband was in high school he was sexually and emotional abused by several high school students.  He was not interested in girls due to seeing the state of his parent’s marriage.  As a result he was mercilessly teased for that to the point that his classmates even said he was a fag or gay. 

Then a girl, with the help of some stronger guys, pinned my late husband to a locker while the girl forcefully put her hand down his pants in front of several other students in order to publicly humiliate him.  

The effect of this ongoing abuse that lasted six months was so devastating that my late husband suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome for most of his teenage years.  A psychiatrist that he saw after this said he had  the worst case of PTSD he had ever seen. 

My late husband tried to get help from his teachers but they were even more heartless then his fellow students.  He hid outside in the freezing cold to hide from these abusive students several times.  He felt helpless, trapped, and alone with no one to help him.  He felt completely powerless to do anything about the situation. 

Finally one day his grandfather saw him running home from school and knew something was wrong.  His father pulled him out of the public school and put him into a private Christian school.  However, every day going to school he felt like it was happening again.  He was always tense and walking on eggshells anticipating who could possibly abuse him again.

I grew up loving school because it was an escape for the chaos of my life at home.  My late husband grew up loathing school. 

            Thanks be to God’s miraculous healing in my late husband’s life he does not suffer from PTSD anymore.  He passed on to me his knowledge and experience of healing over such a traumatic event. 

In the book Boundaries, Dr. Cloud and Dr. Townsend state, “People who were injured emotionally, who were neglected or abused as children, disguise their pain by overeating, drinking to much, or working too much” (Boundaries pg. 227).

My late husband used to struggle with drinking to cover the pain of the past.  And that was what eventually killed him.  He could not give up using alcohol as a coping mechanism for his pain.
But I know God works out all things for the good of those who love Him.

Scripture says, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies” (Rom. 8:11).  We have the same power living within us that raised Christ from the dead.  Jesus said if we have faith as small as a mustard seed we can move mountains.  It was this power and faith that helped us to overcome our obstacles.

“Two are better than one… if one falls down his friend can help him up, but pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up.” (Ecc. 4:9-10)  God puts other people into our lives to help mold us and shape us.  We are not islands.  It is impossible to grow on our own like we can flourish when we are in relationship with other people. 

It is good to know that God has unfailing love for us, but it is also vital to know that another human being loves us unconditionally. 

 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” (Prov. 27:17).  When I hear this verse I always picture two swords clanking together.  It was hard work to sharpen iron swords in biblical days.  You literally had to hit them and beat them.  So it is with being sharpened by another person.  Sometimes it hurts, but the pain is for our good.  People do not change unless they feel pain.

God uses other believers to point out our short comings when they need to be pointed out.  My late husband held up a mirror to me several times and forced me to look at the ugly parts inside of me that I could change. 

We both went through a lot of pain, but we both knew our past does not justify unloving behavior in our present.

It is very true that sometimes other people can see us better then we see ourselves.  Paul says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently….carry each other’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ” Gal. 6:1-2).  Sometimes we are not capable of defeating sin on our own.  We need a fellow soldier in this battle to fight with us, or sometimes for us.

My late husband’s goal when he met me was to prove to me that not all guys are like what I had experienced.  He certainly accomplished that goal.  I thought all guys lacked self-control and looked lustfully at women.  He did not. 

He truly loved God and understood the main tenants of scripture better than I did and I went to a four year Christian University.  He seemed to hear God in a way that I could not.  He sensed if something was wrong as if God was speaking directly to him. 

He was the most selfless person I had ever met.  He did not care about material possessions.  He did not care about being successful in the eyes of the world.  He generally did not care what people think about him, and he was willing to be unpopular. 

John says, “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn. 2:15).  I must admit I have loved the world.  I loved the attention and praise I got in school from teachers.  I loved being well liked because of my appearance.  I loved having the latest fashions to wear. 

My late husband did not measure his self-worth by the world’s approval and that was encouraging to see. 

Neil Anderson says, “fear of anything other than God is mutually exclusive to faith in God” (VOTD pg. 35).  The Bible says that God is a jealous God and that we should not have any idols above him but for some reason this statement really struck me.  To have a fear of something means that you idolize it.  We do not fear things that are not important to us. 

My late husband seemed to be afraid of nothing. 

I have many fears; fear of the dark, fear of public speaking, fear of failing something, fear of heights sometimes.  

But God tells us not to fear.  The only thing we are to fear is God.  We are to be in awe of him and have a reverence type of respect for him. 

Respect was something that was relatively foreign to me before meeting my late husband.  Of course I did not respect my dad, given what he did.  I also had a hard time respecting my mom due to her lack of self-control in some angry outbursts.  Therefore I grew up with a lack of respect for authority in general. 

A few people came along in my life that I did respect for a time; my grandma, a youth pastor, and one teacher in particular.  But to respect someone day in and day out has been a learning process.  To still respect my late husband when I had a bad day.  To still respect him when I was angry at someone else and I wanted to take it out on him.  To still respect him when I was having PMS and felt physically horrible. 

Paul says, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).  I did not perfectly understand how to show respect on a daily basis but I am still learning, and God is still teaching me. 

In many ways marriage is a ministry.  It is both a process of being ministered to and ministering to another.  I once heard an analogy that many Christians are either like a desert or a swamp.  In one case we have more going out then coming in.  We are constantly trying to save the world but we are not being fed ourselves.  In the other case Christians can be like a swamp where we are constantly being fed but we have no outlet.  Marriage, when one is equally yoked, is like a river with an inlet and an outlet.  It is a mutually edifying arrangement. 

God knew what he was doing when he created woman for man.  Scripture states, “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh” (Eph. 5:31).  The only other being that exists of both many and one at the same time is God.  God is three in one.  In marriage we can experience the same type of union that God has with himself, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

God stated “for this reason” meaning that it was due to the fact that woman was taken out of man that they can become “one flesh” again.  Eve was formed out of a rib taken from Adam’s side.  Adam says of Eve, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh and my flesh, she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23).  So in some ways man is not complete without his woman.  There is a symbolic hole in his side until he re-unites with her. 

Augustine once said that it is interesting that eve was formed from a rib and taken from Adam’s side.  If she was taken from his head she could think she was greater then him, or if from his feet that she was less then him, but as it is she was taken from his side to show that we are equals. 

I also find it intriguing that of all the body parts it was a rib, and a rib is close to the heart.  Therefore she would always be close to his heart emotionally. 

Ribs are also the body’s way to protect the vital organs.  If in reuniting and becoming one flesh it is like his rib is coming back to him, it is like she helps to strengthen him by believing in him.  I have learned that there is great potential in women to cause men to excel when the woman truly respects the man. 

I have read several times that the word helper used in the Bible is not meant to be taken as a maid type helper or a servant.  It is the same word used in the Greek to refer to God who helps us in our uttermost times of need. 

Linda Dillow, as if speaking for God, says in her book What’s it Like to be Married to Me?, “Now you…have the same privilege and the responsibility that I have.  I give you one of My names, Helper.  Being a helper is godlike.  As I come alongside you as your Helper, I ask you to come alongside your husband, and fill his respect gas as his personal, private, intimate helper.  Only you will know what respect looks like for him.  Only you can become his intimate ally, his closest companion” (pg. 98). 

Jesus says, “They are no longer two, but one.  Therefore, what God has joined together, let man not separate” (Mark 10:8-9).  My late husband and I were so cemented together that when I almost left him once on account of his drinking I found that I absolutely could not.  It felt as if I was about to leave my liver behind, or something very essential to my existence.  We were completely glued and stuck together beyond a reasonable explanation.

I heard an analogy in a sermon once that the constant coupling and breaking apart with other people is like sealing an envelope and having to tear it open again.  It leaves permanent damage when we do so.  It is also like taking a sticky note and moving it several times.  It eventually starts to loose its stickiness.  God intended for relationships to last forever.

My late husband and I were not perfect by any means.  He was been married before and had a few serious relationships before me.  I also had a few serious relationships before him.  However, God forgives and we helped each other heal from past heartaches. 

Very few people in our society end up picking the right person.  Dating sadly is a process of trial and error.  I love the song by Rascal Flats, “God Blessed the Broken Road.”  Dating certainly can be a broken road in our chaotic society, but once we listen to God’s guidance, we will find the one he wants us to be with.