Routine day. Nothing special. Just trying to get home from another grocery store trip. Cool early spring day with few buds poking through and the grass hinting at green again. Singing with the CD as I enter my subdivision:
“So take it away
My life!
My pride!
My heart!
It’s all yours now
Take it away
My fame!
My feet!
My family, my career
Take it away
Take it away
It’s all yours now
So take it away
Take it away
It’s you I wanna live for”
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Brandon Heath / Chris Stevens / Toby Mckeehan
Steal My Show lyrics © Essential Music Publishing, Capitol Christian Music Group
I had heard this song and sang along so many times. This time the lyrics hit me hard. Am I willing to give up all those things for God? Whoa…That is really strong stuff…hard core…serious. Could I give up all of those things if asked? I like to think so,……but….. but… Then I hear the question. The voice I know above all others speaking. My Shepherd. “Would you give up [your husband]?” Wow, you were in on this thought session God? I was sure it was just me and Toby wrestling with that thought. I knew the question was real. I knew I had to answer. I had to reach way deep down. Down to where roots grow. Down to where I am basic. Down to where I know Who is God and who isn’t. I said “Yes, God if you asked me to I would give up [my husband]. I would not want to. I hope you don’t ever ask that, but for you God, Yes I would”. No thunder claps. No lightening strikes. No chorus of angels. Yet this was a moment of monumental proportions in my life. I arrived at home and started unloading groceries. Back to the mundane of daily life.
Looking back I am awed and humbled that God asked me. He asked me if I would given up the man I had loved for nearly 30 years. God did not take the question nor my answer lightly either. I thought of the conversation again in the next couple of weeks. I admit to fearing something bad would happen to my husband. Cancer, car wreck, crazy work accident—you know the thoughts. I shoved them all out and convinced myself it was a test of my faith—yeah you know an Abraham moment without the hike and alter building. The faith test was yet to come. It happened two months later.
A bit of back ground first….My husband and I had fallen into a coexistence. Neither of us was making much effort to connect with the other. It was as if we were roommates that slept back to back each night. I knew we were in a bad relationship place, but just couldn’t seem to move; to try to fix it as I had when we hit difficult patches before. We had been hit with multiple tragedies and changes in a three year period ranging from the deaths of a sibling and father to becoming empty nesters, and placing my mother in a nursing home after prolonged illness and recurrent hospitalizations. We were both emotionally wounded and depleted. Instead of coming together as we had in the past difficult times, we seemed to have drifted apart. I didn’t understand why. I knew I was tired. In the past, I was always the strong one that held it together. The one that prayed for God to lead and work us through the tough time. The one that confronted problems and tried to find solutions. I was so emotionally exhausted this time. I was barely hanging on myself and had no to strength to hold up another. I did not believe my husband was attempting to fix us. I was sure he was drifting along until I made the move. I thought he was in the same emotional and depressed situation as I. Unfortunately, I had no inkling as to how he was trying to fix the problem for himself. I found out on Mother’s Day 2017.
As our usual pattern on this holiday, we took my mother to her church from the nursing home. My sister, her daughter, my husband, our daughter, Mother, and I filled a pew. My husband was in a terrible mood. He had been for weeks and it was worse with anything that had to do with me. He obviously did not want to be with us that morning. Looking back, I am not sure exactly why he went. He didn’t even try to hide his mood from my sister and niece as he usually would. We went to lunch and had the usual extraordinary wait for a table on the day no mother should have to cook. It was late in the afternoon when we finished and my husband’s mood had deteriorated. My daughter said she needed to run to the mall to pick up something to complete my gift and my husband was quick to choose to ride with her. Mother wanted to return to the nursing home for her nap. My sister, niece, and I took mother back, tucked her in, said our good byes, and I headed for home.
I was the first to arrive and a bit later my husband walked in without our daughter. I could hear in his voice something was wrong—He was utterly dejected. I inquired about where our daughter was and he said she “needed to go for a drive”. He spoke to me from the kitchen, and was hesitant to come to where I was in the living room. I kept asking what was wrong, and he finally came in to the living room. He sat on the edge of his usual recliner. He said “I need to tell you something and I don’t know how”. I replied “It is usually best to just say it”. He said the last thing I ever expected to hear “I want out.” I couldn’t comprehend “You want out?” He said “Yes, I can’t live like this anymore.” Shock doesn’t begin to describe my response. I knew our situation was bad and began to apologize for it being such. I asked if he wanted to work on us as we had needed to in the past. He said he didn’t want to. When asked he admitted to having met someone online and wanted to be with her. I found out later that he had made a huge mistake while texting the other woman and our daughter at the same time. He had sent a text intended for the other woman to our daughter. The text was quite obviously not intended for our daughter. He then begged our daughter to not tell me. She told him either he could tell me or she would. He came into the house upset that he was discovered.
Over the next few days I found, from his old abandoned computer, that my husband had been planning to just walk away. He had purchased his plane ticket a month earlier and was making some prep to leave to go be with the other woman who lived across continents from us. Wow, was this what God had been preparing me to receive? God knew of the online affairs (yes, more than one I discovered) that had been going for over a year. I am guessing some definite spiritual line had been crossed in March when God asked me if I would give my husband up. There was no other way to save my husband and ultimately me without this severance. Over two years later, I am able to see this. At the time I only knew my world as I knew it had fallen apart.
Although it hurt incredibly, I know now that the finding out like I did was God moving to protect me. Had my husband completed his stealthy exit plans, I would have had no idea he was leaving nor where he was going. I had a few weeks to discover the full truth and prepare before he left. I would have been left with a terrible financial mess that I had no clue existed. I would have had to try to complete a divorce across two countries which would have been complicated and taken a much longer amount of time. We agreed upon a settlement and he was able to sign all he needed to prior to leaving. I was able to liquidate some assets that gave me some financial breathing room.
Was any of this easy? A resounding NO! It hurt beyond any emotional pain I have experienced to this date. Was God there? A resounding YES! He was there through it all. God asked me if I would given [my husband] up to and for Him. When I said I would, for Him alone, I fully believe God honored my commitment to Him. I do not have all the answers though over two years have passed, but I do believe God is at work and will continue to work. I have complete faith in Deut 31:6 that God will “never leave you nor forsake you.” and Matt 28:20 “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” I believe Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.” The waters and the fire did not disappear because I believe in and am committed to God. The waters did not sweep me away and the fire did not set me ablaze because God was with me. I didn’t always see Him at the time. Looking back I can. Hindsight is usually 20/20 …..even for seeing God. I can see His preparing me by asking me a question. I can see His providing for me financially. I can see Him comforting me. I can see him giving me strength to complete the tasks I needed. I see him giving me wisdom for writing a fair divorce settlement. I see Him working to make my now ex-husband agree to the settlement without a blink of an eye. I see Him in the hugs, love, and support of my friends and family that gathered around me. I see Him working with my ex husband to bring a prodigal son to a right relationship with Himself. I see Him so many places.
The question now is, knowing all of this would happen, would I, could I answer the question God asked the same way I did over two years ago? Yes, I would. Final Answer.