Grace and Truth

I grew up in a version of the church that talked a lot about grace without actually believing it. God forgives our sins, BUT if we keep sinning, clearly we aren’t sincere in our faith. God forgives our sins, but we still have to sleep in the bed we made. God forgives our sins, but only the sins we committed before we believed in him.

As you can imagine, the focus on my spiritual life wasn’t God. It was perfection. And when your focus is perfection, eventually you’ll fail. And when you fail, there’s no safe place to fall, so shame tells you to put up a front, flog yourself daily, and get to work trying to fix the harm you did.

My church also talked a lot about marriage, and how hard it was supposed to be, and how the woman was supposed to submit and suffer long because that was her lot in life. Everyone was expected to get married, and if the person you married deceived you…well, that was on you, too.

I cannot ever remember reading the verse in Ephesians that follows the one about wives submitting…you know, the one about husbands loving their wives more than life itself (Ephesians 5:25). When I read that at 40, I was absolutely floored. I thought the husband did what he felt was best and that “best” usually came at the expense of the woman and kids. I had no idea what love should look like.

My 20’s found me floundering. I’d never had much luck with boyfriends, and I felt tremendous pressure to be married so I could be a “real” person. A colleague introduced me to her brother-in-law, who was returning to the area after four years in the Air Force. He was good-looking, intense, and seemed to be heading down a very successful road. I figured this was it.

There were massive red flags, but of course no one ever told me how a man should treat me. He was selfish, his temper flared over the most insignificant things, his expectations of his new job were unrealistic and he quickly resigned. He mostly spent that summer playing, and he expected me to pay for most of it. He was controlling. He fought with my parents. He wanted me to turn my life inside out for him, and he wanted it to happen on my dime. His philosophy in life was best summed up as "What's in it for me?"

I was confused. He forced me to apologize for things I hadn’t done. He professed his love for me and took it back the next day. From day to day, hour to hour, I never knew what he would say or do.

He professed to be a Christian, but he felt sexual purity was an antiquated notion. “No one actually waits for marriage,” he insisted. I resisted. He persisted. When he got into a fight with his grandpa and had to move out of the home he was renting (for free), he insisted on moving in with me. I was afraid of losing him and I caved. I caved on the sex eventually, too. And then shame moved in and took over.

Shame told me I was damaged. After we had sex, he told me he had an STD that he hadn’t revealed before. He seemed remorseful, and besides, I knew no one else would want me. Shame told me to fix my mess, so I married him. I married the man who told me he didn’t understand why people with money would get married. I mean, if you have everything, why get married? He didn’t have everything – or anything, really – so he married me.

When he lost jobs, I took on more. When babies came and he refused to help or couldn’t cope with the crying, I stepped up to the plate. When he raged at me for all my imperfections, I worked harder to get everything done. I resented him and felt that he wasn’t doing his share, but my upbringing had told me over and over than any married person will feel like they’re giving 90% while the other only gives 10. No one had mentioned a 100/0 split, but I figure it worked out the same. Either way, I had to hide my sexual sin from my parents and the world, so I kept scrubbing the outside of the house and making excuses and doing more.

It took almost 14 years for someone to explain to me that what I was experiencing was abuse. It took 14 years for someone to suggest that I was precious to God regardless of my decisions and my past. It took 14 years before I realized that my husband did not love me, that he possibly wasn’t capable of loving anything or anyone. And even as those realizations crept in, I stopped short of begging God to fix it. After all, Jesus died to forgive sinners, but in my mind, my sin didn’t count. It happened after I knew God. I knew better and chose anyway.

A huge part of healing is staring down the past unflinchingly. It was physically painful, but the more I sat in God’s presence and listened, the more I began to understand where I went wrong. And yes, I realize that no one EVER deserves to be abused. I did, however, make a mistake that helped me fall prey, and it’s important to recognize our mistakes so we can try to avoid repeating them. The act – sex before marriage – was actually symptom of a deeper issue. I didn’t trust God. I believed in Him. I believed he could do miracles. But I didn’t believe he wanted to do miracles for me.

Since I didn’t trust him with the desires of my heart, I wasn’t willing to wait for God to provide. Instead, a man appeared who flattered me and took interest in me, and I “took” my own blessing. Not unlike Sarah, who thought perhaps God had forgotten to provide an heir and gave Hagar to her husband instead, I figured I would have to go out and get what I wanted.

Furthermore, that command about sex isn’t there to ruin us. It’s there to protect us. My husband’s refusal to honor a Biblical command should have be a clear warning sign that he wasn’t under the headship of Christ. Friends, you can love Jesus and say the right things and look like an amazing Christian, but someone who trusts God and lives under his headship will obey the Bible. Even the hard stuff. What I know now, as I work through the hard journey of obeying God through forgiveness, is that God’s commands are always for our own good, even if they seem archaic and unrealistic. If we’ll lean in and obey, He’ll meet us there. But at 26, I didn’t know. I didn’t think I was valuable anyway. I certainly couldn’t afford to be choosy.

At 26, I was afraid to stand still and wait. Life was passing me by. At 40, life is still passing me by, and I’m still afraid to stand still and wait, but I’m doing it. I have young children now, and I understand just a tiny glimmer of how God parents us. I tell them all the time, when they try to dart out in traffic or hide from me in a rack of clothes at Kohl’s, that I need them to obey me so I can protect them. That “WAIT!” is to keep them from becoming a pancake under an SUV. That “Stay close to me,” helps me make sure the people they encounter are safe. Of course, I’m fallible. But God isn’t. If my children should trust me, how much more should I trust God?

I’ve learned so much, but I’m still knee-deep in the consequences of my sin. In spite of my sin, God blessed me with three amazing babies. But now we’re all trapped in this cycle of verbal and emotional abuse. The cycle of revolving jobs and constantly wondering if we’ll be provided for keeps us all on edge. We never know what will trigger an outburst of his temper.

I’ve met with a divorce lawyer, and unfortunately our family court system will do little to nothing to protect women and children from abuse that can’t be documented with bruises. I think I could muster the courage to leave, quit homeschooling, and return to work in a new field, but I can’t wrap my mind around sending my kids on overnight visits with a father who likely won’t care for them if they get sick at night, who can’t be bothered to follow laws about carseats, who doesn’t see the harm his temper does to his children’s spirits, who speaks lie after lie over them and then turns into fun, playful dad on a dime, leaving them just as confused as I was in the early days.

Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time mulling over our predicament, turning it over in my mind, pondering what sacrifice will be required to atone for my sins and set us free. And then it FINALLY hit me: that grace God gives, the grace that promises to completely erase our sins? That’s for me.

I fought it for a little bit. This is not something I did before I knew you, God. In fact, this is something I did when I was finally starting to wrap my mind around how much you loved me. I was right on the threshold, and I chose to turn away and do my own thing.

And a still, small voice said, “This. This is exactly why I died. For you. For the sin you’ve suffered for since you were 26. You don’t have to whitewash it and cover it up. That’s shame telling you to do that, not me. Look deeply into your past, let me help you learn from it, and hand it over to me. My grace is sufficient…even for this. Especially for this.”

And do you know what grace does? It gives you the permission to tell your story, even if your mom and the perfect people in the church hear it. It gives you the permission to tell your friends and your pastor what really happens behind closed doors. It gives you the permission to say you don’t know what to do next, that you feel pretty trapped and exhausted and useless. It gives you permission to pray that the deep, deep hurt that controls your husband will somehow lose its hold, so your kids don’t have to live through divorce, while simultaneously praying that God will do anything necessary to let you live the next fourteen years of your life with joy, not constant crippling anxiety. Grace helps you realize the secrets you’ve been told to keep for over a decade aren’t serving God, and it’s safe to throw open the doors and windows and let in the light. Grace promises to protect and provide for you, regardless of what your husband does. Grace promises to speak for you, when the man in front of you hears you beg him to be kind and tells you you’re an entitled bitch.

Grace gives you permission to quit holding it in and let the tears flow. It gives you permission to be weak. It gives you the audacity to hope, even though, especially because, you aren’t perfect.

I’ve served perfection for long enough, and it’s gotten me nowhere but trapped. I’d rather serve my good, good Father. I'll take grace any day. I wish I'd accepted it sooner.