Last night was the first time I’ve bro­ken down in sob­bing tears in a while. I felt off the whole day, and couldn’t real­ly place why. I mean, obvi­ous­ly I was think­ing of him as usu­al. And I couldn’t shake the feel­ing, despite read­ing the Word or lis­ten­ing to wor­ship music. I watched Joyce and Dave Meyer’s min­istry tes­ti­mo­ny online and won­dered where I am in His time­line for me right now. 

I saw her at a con­fer­ence about 5 years ago. I remem­ber watch­ing her and Dave walk onto stage as wor­ship was going on, and feel­ing respect, admi­ra­tion, and hon­or. She has pro­found­ly influ­enced my life since I was a teenag­er, and I got the feel­ing God saw her as a gen­er­al in His army. I looked at Dave, and admired his con­fi­dence by her side, and the uni­fied team they pre­sent­ed, though she was the one in the spot­light. And, oh, how I longed for us to become that. 

I felt that long­ing when I watched a Lake­wood ser­vice once, too. I saw Dodie Osteen on stage, sur­round­ed by her 5 kids, and knew in my heart of hearts, that’s what I want­ed. To serve in min­istry with my hus­band, and be sur­round­ed by our five kids, also serv­ing. Five kids always seemed … com­plete. I had want­ed that since high school.

Nei­ther of those pic­tures has come to pass, though, and I don’t know that they ever will (espe­cial­ly the five kids part. I’m three kids short, and qual­i­fied for geri­atric preg­nan­cy sta­tus years ago. I don’t see myself as anoth­er Sarah or Eliz­a­beth).

Actu­al­ly, there aren’t any pic­tures I saw in my head that have come to pass. I’m not a CEO wear­ing pow­er suits to my high-rise office, dri­ving around in my sports car. I’m not mak­ing things, whether it’s melt­ing met­al to mold keys or stir­ring ingre­di­ents for a lunch buf­fet (my child­hood Sun­day ser­vice day­dreams… weird, I know). I’m not lead­ing wor­ship glob­al­ly. I’m not fly­ing around the world in a char­ter plane with my kids to feed hun­gry chil­dren (though I only ever saw two kids with me in that pic­ture). I’m not lov­ing on orphans. I’m not teach­ing or writ­ing books. But Plan B is just as good, if not bet­ter than A, right? What about Plan C? D? E? Z?

I have noth­ing now. No house. No job. No plans. It’s a blank page. A com­plete­ly blank page. And I’m wait­ing for His pen to start writ­ing, so the next chap­ter can begin.

Where I am now feels like such a lux­u­ry, though. I’m hid­den in the secret place of the Most High, abid­ing under the shad­ow of the Almighty. How do peo­ple go on when their world has come to a screech­ing halt? How does one func­tion? When I won­der what was the point for the hard choic­es I made (as a sin­gle woman, a mar­ried woman, an employ­ee), I think of the soft spot God has giv­en me to land. 

I have been giv­en the lux­u­ry of time and per­son­al space, with­out the cares of the world. The weight of my marriage’s demise, the lies that were the last 14 years, and my dreams for the future, are all I have to car­ry, because God put me in a place now where I don’t have to keep car­ry­ing the weight of all the family’s needs. I’m no longer the one per­son respon­si­ble for the roof over our head, the clothes on our back, the food on our table, the cars in our dri­ve­way (though mine was the only one that had to be in the dri­ve­way. His was the only one allowed in the garage, since he got the lux­u­ry vehi­cles), the pri­vate school, and all the oth­er luxuries. 

Mid­night came and went, and I was rest­less even in bed. I final­ly gave up and asked God to show me if I had sinned against Him some­how. Was there some­thing I had done or thought, or not done or thought? And sur­pris­ing­ly, no, there was no sin. So I just sur­ren­dered. I told Him I’m an emo­tion­al mess right now, and I need You to help me. Imme­di­ate­ly I start­ed to feel a lit­tle bet­ter, was led to Psalms, and read the fol­low­ing aloud to myself.

Psalms 40 (AMP)

God Sus­tains His Ser­vant. To the Chief Musi­cian. A Psalm of David.

I wait­ed patient­ly and expec­tant­ly for the Lord;
And He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of a hor­ri­ble pit [of tumult and of destruc­tion], out of the miry clay,
And He set my feet upon a rock, steady­ing my foot­steps and estab­lish­ing my path.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;
Many will see and fear [with great rev­er­ence]
And will trust con­fi­dent­ly in the Lord.

Blessed [for­tu­nate, pros­per­ous, and favored by God] is the man who makes the Lord his trust,
And does not regard the proud nor those who lapse into lies.

Many, O Lord my God, are the won­der­ful works which You have done,
And Your thoughts toward us;
There is none to com­pare with You.
If I would declare and speak of your won­ders,
They would be too many to count.

Sac­ri­fice and meal offer­ing You do not desire, nor do You delight in them;
You have opened my ears and giv­en me the capac­i­ty to hear [and obey Your word];
Burnt offer­ings and sin offer­ings You do not require.

Then I said, “Behold, I come [to the throne];
In the scroll of the book it is writ­ten of me.

“I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your law is with­in my heart.”
I have pro­claimed good news of right­eous­ness [and the joy that comes from obe­di­ence to You] in the great assem­bly;
Behold, I will not restrain my lips [from pro­claim­ing Your right­eous­ness],
As You know, O Lord.

I have not con­cealed Your right­eous­ness with­in my heart;
I have pro­claimed Your faith­ful­ness and Your sal­va­tion.
I have not con­cealed Your lov­ingkind­ness and Your truth from the great assembly.

Do not with­hold Your com­pas­sion and ten­der mer­cy from me, O Lord;
Your lov­ingkind­ness and Your truth will con­tin­u­al­ly pre­serve me.

For innu­mer­able evils have encom­passed me;
My sins have over­tak­en me, so that I am not able to see.
They are more numer­ous than the hairs of my head,
And my heart has failed me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to save me;
O Lord, make haste to help me.

Let those be ashamed and humil­i­at­ed togeth­er
Who seek my life to destroy it;
Let those be turned back [in defeat] and dis­hon­ored
Who delight in my hurt.
 
Let those be appalled and des­o­late because of their shame
Who say to me, “Aha, aha [rejoic­ing in my mis­for­tune]!”
 
Let all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let those who love Your sal­va­tion say con­tin­u­al­ly,
“The Lord be mag­ni­fied!”
 
Even though I am afflict­ed and needy,
Still the Lord takes thought and is mind­ful of me.
You are my help and my res­cuer.
O my God, do not delay.

Psalms 46 (AMP)

God the Refuge of His Peo­ple. To the Chief Musi­cian. A Psalm of the sons of Korah, set to sopra­no voic­es. A Song.

God is our refuge and strength [mighty and impen­e­tra­ble],
A very present and well-proved help in trou­ble.
 
There­fore we will not fear, though the earth should change
And though the moun­tains be shak­en and slip into the heart of the seas,
 
Though its waters roar and foam,
Though the moun­tains trem­ble at its roar­ing. Selah.

There is a riv­er whose streams make glad the city of God,
The holy dwelling places of the Most High.
 
God is in the midst of her [His city], she will not be moved;
God will help her when the morn­ing dawns.
 
The nations made an uproar, the king­doms tot­tered and were moved;
He raised His voice, the earth melt­ed.
 
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our strong­hold [our refuge, our high tow­er]. Selah.

Come, behold the works of the Lord,
Who has brought des­o­la­tions and won­ders on the earth.
 
He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth;
He breaks the bow into pieces and snaps the spear in two;
He burns the char­i­ots with fire.

“Be still and know (rec­og­nize, under­stand) that I am God.
I will be exalt­ed among the nations! I will be exalt­ed in the earth.”
 
The Lord of hosts is with us;
The God of Jacob is our strong­hold [our refuge, our high tow­er]. Selah.

As soon as I start­ed read­ing Psalm 46, the sob­bing began. I could bare­ly make it past verse 1, feel­ing the rejec­tion yet again. 

His actions over the last 14 years have proven how lit­tle he thinks of me, and that’s the truth whether I include the infi­deli­ty or not. His words did as well; I just didn’t rec­og­nize it at the time. 

And now I have both words and actions with this final rejec­tion – just throw­ing me aside with­out both­er­ing to put in any effort, or go to coun­sel­ing, or even com­mu­ni­cate with me – to emphat­i­cal­ly final­ize how mean­ing­less I was to him. No one should treat any human with such lit­tle respect. He said he couldn’t have sex with me because to do so would be only to ful­fill base urges, and he had too much respect for me to use me so. Where was the respect when he had sex with every­one else, though?