Small Town Kid

I grew up in a small town.  I grew up in a poor family.  I don’t regret either as it has helped define me as a person to this day.

As far as faith goes, I would consider myself to have been agnostic.  My family did not attend church very often, as a matter of fact I can only recall a few occasions in which I ever stepped into a church as a child.  In my later teenage years I dated a girl who attended a Lutheran church.  So I did attend a church on a very irregular basis as I got older.  Nothing really changed until 2003.

In 2001, I had been married for nearly three years. This was also the year that my wife, Christine, had accepted Christ into her life.  This didn’t bother me as I was still agnostic in my views and Christine never really pressured me on this topic.  I even started attending church in hopes of trying to make a “decision” on this issue.

In the summer of 2003, my life took a crazy turn.  We had an 18 month old daughter at this time and I thought all was going well in our lives. One summer day Christine come home and told me that she had just had an affair with a family friend.  It had just occurred the night before and the guilt had forced her to come forward right away.  Needless to say I was very shocked, numb even.  We both agreed that we would stick together and work it out but it became very clear within a few days that it was just not going to work.

Christine moved out, took “my” baby girl away, and moved in with her parents who lived an hour away.  I was crushed.  I was mentally and physically exhausted.  Thank goodness, I was surrounded by various God believing people, including some neighbors and even people from the church that I attended very irregularly.

By this time, Christine had made it very, very clear, that she wanted a divorce.  I had also convinced her that our daughter should live with me until Christine had found a place and was settled in (so our daughter was living with me).  I had also attained an attorney and was planning on fighting her for full custody.  I had even filed the paperwork for the divorce as I wanted my story heard first (planning ahead).  We also had our share of arguments about the whole incident and it looked like it was going to be heck of a war.  I was ready!

On one particular night, our pastor (Brett) was visiting to check on me.  By this point, I was beaten up, frustrated, angry, sad, and just about every other emotion one can think of.  Brett started talking about what he believed and then started asking me what I believed.  We talked for some time and eventually Brett left.

After Brett left I became enraged about the entire situation.  In my mind I had not caused any of it but I was sure on the losing end of everything.  I was thinking about losing my daughter, losing my house, and losing everything that I understood to be my lifestyle up to this point.  I became so enraged that looking back at it today, I was probably close to having a breakdown.  I started to yell, curse, and even challenge that “God” that supposedly loved me so much.  I dared God, if He was real, to show Himself to me - if there was ever a time of need, it was now!  All of sudden, I thought I was having a heart attack.  I felt a numbing feeling in my arms, a pain in my chest, and dizziness (typical signs).  Then a sense of calmness overwhelmed me.  I thought that was it, I was going to die right there.  Once I realized I wasn’t dying, I felt drained and just headed off to bed, not really thinking about anything else.

The next morning I woke up pretty early, because Christine was coming over to pick up our daughter for a few days.  I got our daughter dressed and we went for a walk around the block just so we could spend some “daddy/daughter time” together.  It was during this walk that I began to process the previous night’s ending.  It started to dawn on me that maybe, just maybe, I had received exactly what I had demanded.  I wasn’t really as upset about the whole pending divorce or life change as I had been.  As I was thinking about my discovery, I started to realize that this “gut feeling” that I had come to recognize at work when I was getting into a sticky situation, was telling me to stop fighting.  Stop fighting what?  Stop fighting with Christine!  So it was right there, walking around the block that I decided to end it.

I called Christine.  I told her that I didn’t want the divorce, and that I was stopping the process that I had started.  If she wanted the divorce, SHE would have to file for it.  I also told her that I was not going to fight for our daughter.  I just wanted Christine to promise that I could see our daughter whenever I wanted to.  She promised.  I think I surprised her with my sudden change of attitude…

So the process continued.  So did my process of changing from agnostic to a believer.  I began to notice things happening around me that we nothing short of miracles;  unexpected money to help me pay bills, people offering support out of nowhere, things happening in Christine’s life, work stuff, and several other things that happened. 

At one point Christine had found a place to live.  It just happened to be across the street from a Christian daycare.  She asked me to meet her there one day in order to tour it and to get my approval (this was something that we had agreed upon earlier).  I met her at the daycare where we were given a tour, provided with enrollment paperwork, and introduced to some of the staff.  Now mind you, up until this date our daughter had never been placed into a daycare.  Christine had stayed home by her choice in order to raise our daughter away from a daycare.  Ironically now, it was this same woman who wanted to place her in a daycare so willingly.  The entire tour was extremely hard on me.  Yet, there was nothing I could do.  My family, my daughter, was slipping away from me and I felt helpless to stop it.  What a horrible experience!

Since we were so close to where Christine’s new place was she invited me over so I could see where our daughter would be living.  As we arrived (in separate cars of course), the first thing I noticed was that there was no grass, no playground to play on, nothing for a child to do in my mind.  Our house had a large backyard and several parks in the area.  My daughter was being taken away from me and being put in an apartment!  As we continued down the sidewalk towards the secured entry way, we overheard some lady on the second floor yelling at someone, cursing so loudly that we could hear it very clearly outside.  I recall saying under my breath, “Nice place you got here” to Christine.  I was just devastated that this is what my daughter would consider home.  We continued into the building and finally arrived at the apartment door.  Christine opened the door and we all went inside.  I immediately noticed all the furniture that was once at our house was now inside her apartment.  The apartment itself was pretty clean but I still felt very uncomfortable.  I directed my attention back to our daughter and began to play with her.

We were off in a bedroom playing when at some point I came back into the hallway to see what Christine was doing.  As I came into the hallway I saw that she was sitting with her legs folded and her head down.  I guess it was nature or habit but I went over to her and to see what was wrong.  I found that she was sobbing and upset.  I asked her what was wrong.  Christine started talking about she had been feeling that she was “swimming upstream” lately and against the grain and she was tired of fighting.  After a short time, she asked me what I thought if she wanted to go “home” to our house.  After a brief amount of shock, I told her that she was welcome to come home if she wanted.

So that night, I got my wife back!  So that night, I got my family back! So that night, my life had changed once again!  This time, it was for the better.  Christine came home and we attended marriage counseling to figure out exactly what went wrong in our marriage that led up to this horrible mistake.  Christ along with a lot of forgiveness has helped heal our marriage and repair what we had broken.

As of today, we have another child who was conceived shortly after Christine’s return home.  I thank God to this day that He allowed the affair to happen.  I realize that may sound strange to a lot of people, but if the affair had not happened I don’t know where my faith would be today.  I am a stubborn person and I think something tremendous had to happen in order to get my attention.  Not too many bigger “slaps” could have happened than this to get my attention.

The cool thing about this thing is that Christine was being led down her own path during this whole thing.  Although I will not speak about her story directly, there were many doors that were opened and closed that led her back to our family. 

My prayer is that some people will learn from my story.  That some people can recognize God in their lives before something this big happens.  But I know that there will be some, like me, who must travel the hard road and learn for themselves.  For those of you who must take the hard road, know that there are others who have “been there, done that”.

Thank you God for what you have done, are doing, and will do in my life!

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