I really didn’t think my first-ever post (2016) was going to be based on the tragedy we are currently facing as a family. My intentions for this website were so noble, I promise. My goal was that I’d be incredibly helpful to all of you, providing all of the information, tips and tricks I’ve learned on this journey regarding all of my kiddos who are dealing with Autism. But every time I sit down to write, the trial we are facing is what’s itching to come off of my finger tips.
So, even though this is probably blogger suicide to jump right in and share about life rather than some helpful “how-to” tips, I’ve got to be consistent with the description of who I am. I’m a self-professed “word-lava(ist)”, and I ooze what’s currently erupting. You just get what you get as it bubbles and flows out in all of it’s array of colors, smells, sounds and sensations. Lucky You!
My heart swelled up into my throat, and my brain completely froze but also sped ahead at lightening speed all at the same time. Could my husband’s words be true?
I was a robot.
I wasn’t there.
I mean, I was physically there, but emotionally, I was gone.
For that moment, my emotions were flash-frozen and tucked away to a part of my being that would be accessed at a later, more convenient time when I was not trying to figure out how to keep my whole world from caving in all around me.
Trying to Make Sense
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| This was the view from our neighborhood park. |
We had sold everything to go to Peru to share this good news of salvation with the Peruvian people. I mean, we weren’t in it for the glory! Sewage ran down our streets and we literally hopped over streams of poo and pee to get from our home to our “combi” (public bus) stop, and every day, we watched a dead dog at the bus stop decay over time until it was literally just dirt.
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| Ella in our Peruvian make-shift “tub”. |
Same story with electricity; and it had a way of always wanting to go out in those early-evening hours just when it was time to prepare dinner or give a bath (which took place in a large plastic container filled with water that had been heated on the stove-top). Candles were also kept on hand in case of such events. We learned the hard way the first time the lights went out, but thankfully a sweet neighbor knocked on our door and offered us some candles to burn for the night.
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| Me and my mom hanging laundry on my roof |
We had trusted Jesus through life-threatening issues in our family time and time again. Our daughter, Ella, had spent time on life-support and endured surgery after surgery, wheelchairs, blood transfusions, daily injections and more (if you’d like to read more of her story, it’s available on kindle and paperback versions on Amazon). I think our family is somewhat accident prone… Or would that be disease and death-prone?! Ha! It’s anyone’s guess! But through all of it, our faith remained in Christ alone; or so I thought.In that moment, at the edge of our bed, as I looked at my husband square in the eyes as he was confessing, I continued to try and make sense of what he was telling me. My brain continued to weigh his past actions and my old memories of him. I had watched my husband give money to help families as they had need. He would give out a thousand dollars at a time when we really didn’t have anything to spare, and it was almost always given anonymously. He went to great lengths to give anonymously. It didn’t appear that there was any selfish ambition attached to the gifts at all.
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| This is Mbolo and Dorcas, our adopted son and daughter in Congo at their jungle orphanage. |
None of this made sense. Yes, my husband was notoriously cranky. He would, at times, laugh in mockery at me when I’d share my heart with him, and other times he’d just withdraw and ignore or pretend I wasn’t there. In other instances, he’d roll his eyes and say, “Why don’t you just go clean a bathroom or something,” when I had asked him to please calm down. Yes, he was rude and had a habit of being short with the kids; his temper led him to mini-fits where grumbling could be heard throughout the house while doors slammed, feet stomped and objects were placed roughly from one place to another. But there was never any physical signs of abuse.
My mind had come to the conclusion that my husband had frustrations from his past, and that no person was perfect. I saw it as my duty to be there for him, to pray for him, and when necessary, to ask him to adjust a poor attitude.
Back to Reality
As my mind focused back in on what my husband was telling me, I tried my best to be still and hear him all the way through. I sat there as he told me how he hatefully abused our son over and over and over again, how he sexually used our sweet little boy and our daughter (on fewer occasions), how he threw them around like little rag-dolls as he pleased. His desire was to inflict pain and enjoy their expression of it… Because of our children’s Autism and language disorders, my husband very honestly expressed, “They couldn’t speak, so I knew no one would ever find out.”
My heart was frozen in my chest, nausea swept my being, and my brain was rattling off data much like you’d imagine a mission control computer screen might list information as it rapidly receives and processes it.
⦁ Call the case worker
⦁ Call the Pastor
⦁ Call the Police
⦁ Ask my husband to leave
⦁ Will he leave willingly?
⦁ How long should I give him to collect his things before he has to be gone?
⦁ Will the police link me to this horrific crime?
⦁ He will lose his job
⦁ We will lose our house
⦁ My foster/adopt children will have to go back to their sending state
⦁ Child Protective Services might take my biological children too!…
My brain just kept rattling along, shooting out questions and problems that needed solving.
When my husband finished listing off each of his offenses, a tremendous level of clarity and control that could have only come from Jesus flooded my being and I very calmly, very boldly told my husband,
“You have to go. You have one hour to call whomever you feel led to confess to and to gather your things, but then, you must be gone.”
We both went into a robotic silence. He got right up and jumped on the phone, confessing to our pastor while I sat on the floor collecting my thoughts. I had to figure out what was next.
The rest of that day is a blur. At one point the police were at my house as well as Child Protective Services. My kids were all questioned. My darling children were shocked and terrified. I had some dear friends come to stay with them while I spent time on the phone with case workers and our pastor to give as much information as I could and wait to hear what decisions would be made.
The Battle
I also recall a moment that day when I was laying on my bedroom floor weeping at the horror of what had happened in my home, right under my nose. I wept at the gravity of the situation. I wept at what I was losing (my marriage, my kids, my husband, his job, our home)… There was literally nothing left to lose. It was all going to be gone. Once you lose your husband and kids, there’s nothing left that matters!
But in that moment, it dawned on me…this was a spiritual battle. Just as Satan had targeted Job in the Bible, I felt he was targeting me, trying to get me to deny Christ. He had shot flaming arrows at me in the past. He had tried to get me to take the life of my child to preserve my own life, but that hadn’t worked because the faith that Christ had provided to me at that time had shielded my heart and given me courage to push forth in Christ’s strength even risking my own life.
He tried to discourage my faith by taking the lives of my African baby boys through Dysentery, but Christ sustained me then too. He tried to detour me from my passion for Christ by hindering our fully-finalized adoptions from completion in the jungle by causing our kids to be abducted by a wicked man, but Christ saw me through! He tried to get me to lose hope through 12 years of being antagonized and belittled by my husband, but again, Christ had won the victory. It just seemed to me that in this situation he was amping up his battle strategy. He wasn’t out just to knock me down, he was out for blood; to the DEATH.
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| This is Kabimba (age 3) and Djemba (8 months old) who we were in the process of adopting when they passed away because of filthy drinking water contaminated with Dysentery. |
“I will never curse God!”
In that moment, I knew that no matter what, my only hope was Christ, and Christ alone. Truly, the verse where the Apostle Paul says, “to live is Christ and to die is gain,” became my reality. I prayed for Christ’s return, and that if He did not return soon, that He would be glorified in this horrific situation.
Refiner’s Fire
Believers often use the analogy from Scripture of a Believer being like gold refined in the fire until they come out as a new, pure chunk of shining gold, but in this circumstance, I’ve thought of myself as a caterpillar in a cocoon. I know, it’s super silly, but I have been so totally bound up in this situation; I feel totally incapacitated. I’m out of commission. There is nothing I can do to control this situation at all. Not one thing. Yes, the burning fire in gold’s refining process illustrates the pain and agony of the purification that’s going on, but the cocoon represents both the hidden element of the process as I’ve grieved pretty privately (until now) and the restricted nature in which it’s happening, the caterpillar is literally bound tight within the cocoon and unable to alter or hinder anything that’s going on.
I remain unsure as to why my ex-husband chose to confess to me that day. He said it was because he felt convicted and wanted to repent and be right with Jesus. Oh, how I pray that’s the case! My heart SCREAMS ferociously within me, longing that his motives would be pure, but because of his other actions and words that have taken place since that day, my heart has remained perplexed. All I can do is hope that Jesus has brought about a sincere repentance. Until Heaven, all I can truly do is trust that Jesus knows his heart and trust my ex-husband to Him.
I felt so alone, so crushed, so confused as to why this all happened. We’ve got to be able to talk about this sin with Believers who will protect us, provide love, support and healing through the reading of God’s Word.
Why Share My Story?
My goal in sharing this is not to throw my ex-husband under the bus. My goal is very specific and intentional. Since this has happened, I’ve had a number of women come to me with similar situations having happened to them. They’ve expressed a sense of shame, a sense of failure, of grief beyond description, and they’ve even been blamed as part of the problem, and I believe it’s because there’s not an accurate understanding of this issue in our culture. Even some of our churches have a difficult time handling such situations. There’s a secrecy surrounding this sin that creates a sense of entrapment for the victims because they’re encouraged to protect the perpetrator because of his “repentance”. I believe Scripture advocates the opposite. Jesus encouraged sinners to come into the light! Paul confronted Peter about his compromise with the circumcision group and he didn’t do it privately, he did it publicly to keep the problem from growing further.
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| Men, one of the lies of the evil one is that your sin won’t effect anyone else, but the truth is that it will destroy your life and everything you’ve worked for. It will tear out your wife’s heart and instead of loving her like Christ loved the church, you’re loving yourself at the cost of destroying your wife and losing your soul. |
So What Do We Need to Do?
There seems to be an epidemic of “Believing” men who have addictions to pornography, who are having affairs, who are lusting to a degree of being on the hunt for the next object to contemplate in every single moment, and who are even moving their desires to children! (I’m not ignorant to the fact that women can fall prey to these sins as well, but in the situations I’ve encountered recently, they’ve all been men) What I really want Christians to hear is that forgiveness does not wipe away the perpetrator’s responsibility in the crime, and it does not take away the consequences meant to lead the offender to sincere repentance and eternal life! My suggestion is this:
Ephesians 5: 11 says
“Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.”
John MacArthur writes in the “John Macarthur Study Bible” regarding vs 11, “The Christian’s responsibility does not stop with his own rejection of evil. He is also responsible for exposing and opposing darkness wherever it is found, especially when it is found in the church.”
1 Corinthians, chapter 5, goes on to exhort Believers to expel the wicked one from among them, to not even eat with such a one! What’s interesting is that the entire chapter addresses the issue of sexual immorality, but not outside the church, it’s referenced inside the church! There was a huge problem in Corinth, and it was contaminating the whole body! Paul states in vs 6 that even a little “leaven” (or yeast) leavens (or rises) the whole lump of dough, and he warns them to purify their church body, even going to the extent of delivering “such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (vs 5).
The point being, to allow the fleshly consequence in the hopes that the sinner would be brought to a point of repentance and ultimately to Salvation in Christ so that he can live for eternity and be brought to reconciliation, as much as possible, with man! I’m not out to push away the sinner in a total and forever rejection of him, or else I’d be condemning myself, because we’re all sinners! But, I am saying that we need to take sin seriously. Because guess what, if we’re all just white-washed tombs, dressing up only the outside of our issues, but neglecting the heart of the matter, we don’t do anyone any good. In that case, we’re just walking dead men, living like ticking time bombs waiting to go off and create devastation; we might look good on the outside, but on the inside death and destruction are laying in wait.
Part of my heart in this is for the men, to create an awareness for what they are facing in this very digital day in age. Dating aps, explicit ads on t.v., at-your-finger-tips pornography are all hounding them day and night, gnashing at their heels, seeking to devour them in sin. The Bible says that Satan is like a roaming lion seeking for those he can devour (1 Peter 5:8). So, we’ve got to fight this!!! What can we do to take up our cross and follow Jesus? That question can’t be just on a daily basis, but on a second by second, all out battle against sin! Men, are you living as bond-slaves to Christ and giving up everything to follow Him, even willing to give up your own lives? This is a fight for your souls! Are you willing to battle even if it costs you personally? Socially? Financially? Comfort? Pleasure??? Your answer is the difference between life and death.
Matthew 16:24-26a
“Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?”
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| 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” |
Psalm 46:1
“God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble.”
It’s so crucial that these women understand that their husband’s sin has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with the all-consuming hole of selfish sin. A pit that we can all fall into is thinking we weren’t enough to keep our husbands focused, or our service wasn’t selfless enough, we weren’t available to them enough, we weren’t beautiful enough, we weren’t fun enough, etc… But none of that is true. Not one piece. The problem is sin! Who do we think we are if we think we can save our husbands anyways?! We’ve got to move out of the way, and let God be our husband’s Savior!
Women, the craving for sin in your husband is like when a person is considering buying a new car. Before they get the car, all they can think about is the car. They look at pictures of it, they plan vacations they’ll take in it, they think about how they’ll look when they pull up at their high school reunion in it, and they even begin to think that things will just be better when they finally get that new car. But a funny thing happens as soon as they get the car…. It’s not enough. They want more. Nothing is necessarily wrong with the car, they just want more because the stomach of greed can never be satisfied. As we’ve all heard since we were itty bitty, nothing can fill our “God-hole” but God, Himself! When we try to cope by filling our hole with anything but God, we have to keep adding more and more and more, and it’s never enough.
So, when I say that the issue is not your inadequacies, women, what I want you to hear, is that the issue is sin. Run to Jesus for the protection and love and provision only He can provide in this time of grief. Let Him tend to your wounds and cover you with His wings of protection. Cling to the fact that He intercedes on your behalf even when you don’t know what to pray for, and He does it with groans that words cannot express! He is your Father and His purpose is for His glory and your good.
Romans 8:26-28
“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
So What’s Next?
My story isn’t over. Not even close. (And neither is yours) Fast forward four months after my husband’s confession. I’ve had to give testimony to police, to Child Protective Services, to Detectives, to the Prosecutor and Health Care Professionals, I’ve had to take my kids in for sexual abuse exams and interviews, I’ve taken them into the prosecutor’s office, I’ve prayed and prayed and prayed and sought wise counsel and kept my nose in the Word and come to a point of walking the road of divorce, my ex-husband has gone to jail and been released on bail, and is currently awaiting sentencing, and I’ve been prepared to testify should this go to trial. All five children have been placed with me, and I’ve been given sole custody of my biological children, but this is an ongoing saga… I have no clue what’s going to happen to my ex-husband or to me and the kids. There has been fear in the process, but the Lord is working on that in me because true love casts out fear!
Jesus is showing me that HE alone holds my future, that HE holds my cocoon, and that none of this is out of His hands. He is actively bringing beauty from the ashes, and even though the ashes, the cocoon, the fire (no matter how you brand it) seem overwhelming, Jesus is creating all things new. I know I’m still right at the beginning of this process, but even so, I sense that I’m beginning to emerge from the cocoon. I’m not the same as I was. Not even close. A transformation has happened. A boldness is present. A new life and confidence in Christ is emerging. A peace and joy and thankfulness that surpasses understanding are my companions because we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37)!
I think I knew that Jesus was going to be glorified in this, and I realized that He was refining me and sanding off the rough edges, but I didn’t anticipate the new wings He was giving me to fly above the storm! In that cocoon, I didn’t just get my edges smoothed. I was changed, totally transformed, and I’m still in the process of becoming who God wants me to be – a precious child of the eternal King. In that, is the knowledge and peace that Jesus, the Author of creation is the One providing for me and my little family, so whom shall I fear?! After all, if God is for us, who can be against us (Romans 8:31)?!??
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