My Mike?

     I'm out on the front porch at my favorite time of day, when the sun starts its dissent, but not before it abandons its part in casting shadows across the landscape.  I can barely see the screen from the piercing rays but it's worth it.
     Mike and Michael are out "inquiring" with the neighbors about a great big deer "rub".  McKala just put on some chicken to slow cook.  Melody, Macklynn, and Madalynn brought in acorns from their scamper in the woods and decided to make "art" with them.  Madalynn used so much glue that her "designs" are airing out here on the porch with me.  Megan called me after church, where Miranda was supposed to be with her, BUT Miranda was told she had to work ...and before I go any further, I'll spell it out once again, but more acutely, just how strongly I feel about dining out and unnecessary shopping on Sundays.  You see, Miranda started her waitressing position under the spoken provision that after a couple of Sundays, she would be off for them.  She since has been told that she "will" work every Sunday or won't work at all.  Please, keep that in mind next time you go out on a Sunday and what it looks like to non-believers who very likely "know" what the commandments have to say about keeping The Lord's Day holy.  So many were happy to side with Truett Cathy on marriage; why not on Sunday work?
    Back to Friday.  It began with a trip to the Orthopedic doctor for Mike.  He's been flown back to have his leg looked at after a fall off a stepstool.  When he told me, I thought, "You're kidding me?!"  He was having such a good week, calling me with stories and songs.  There's more to the sweet irony of it, but that'll be another tale for him to tell.  In the meantime, I can say that through what he thought to be a "detour" of a flight, which he barely connected with the second part of, he got the last seat on the plane and it was next to a man who, by the end of the flight, prayed the prayer of salvation.  Wait a minute!  My Mike? 
     I had to wait in the car at the doctor's office because we're just not sure where the "repo man" will show up and before we come across what we "should" be driving, like something with no payment.   I brought along a book I'd started.  I felt compelled to read it because my friend who just miscarried for the fourth time handed it to me.  Interesting note is that I had bought it for Megan at a discount store last year, but neither of us had read it.
     The book is "Choosing to SEE" by Mary Beth Chapman, whom I would be honored to meet one day.  I knew the subject matter of the book and maybe avoided it for that reason.  Once I got started, it was a breath of fresh air to see how open and real she is.  As I read about the adoptions and then the pivotal day, May 21st, I cried several times, reaching into the dash where we keep extra restaurant napkins, forgetting that all that's been cleared out.  There was nothing in the car, so I pulled my fleece jacket to my face, which was no help at all.  The make-up I was careful to put on that morning for Mike was running down my face.  Finally, I stretched my shirt far enough to soak up some of it.
     He and I had a small lunch, ran a couple of errands, and took the long way home.  He's hooked on KLove now.  Wait a minute!  My Mike?  yeah, (smiling), yeah ...The lyrics, "How many times have I cried out, 'God, please take this?'" came across the waves and the crying I learned to suppress, which was only evidenced by tears, began.  I have a vivid memory of an afternoon a few years ago when we lived tucked away in the mountains.  I don't know what had gone down that day between Mike and me.  I only remember the snow falling everywhere, ground covered in many inches, no one around, bundled up in snow gear ...and hitting my knees hard in the middle of the driveway pad.  I screamed out to God, pleading for Him to do something, to show Himself.  I suppose it would've echoed across the ridge if not for the air saturated in snow flakes.
      He heard me that day and every other day.  The proof was sitting there in the car with me on Friday.
      Somehow though, I must've become content to be the "martyr".  After all, "God and me" had a good thing going.  I was His brave soldier.  Although my communication with Him still channeled through my husband, it wasn't like it is now.  Mike is right smack where he's supposed to be and it's taking some getting used.  Subordination, believe it or not, really isn't a problem for me.  Relinguishing part of the role as disciplinarian, coordinator, and spiritual guardian isn't as cut and dry as you'd think, though.  Well, I guess on the "obeying" front, it is.  The book I have, "Me?  Obey Him?" isn't talking about God; it's talking about our husbands and now that my friend, who passed along the "Choosing to See" book to me, has read it and also sees no error in it, I know that I have to keep sharing it and trusting its Biblically grounded message. 
     To my chagrin, I wonder how long I delayed providence by pondering, being deceived, on maybe, just maybe, if someone else would love me.   How can we be "obeying" anything or anybody when we're second guessing with a back-up plan?  Now, I feel quite the fool.  How easy is it to love a man of God?  How hard is it to love a man who's not "of" God?  What am I getting at?  I didn't love Mike well enough when he was at odds with his Maker.  From time to time, I'd fathom what it'd be like to be in a peaceful relationship ...with someone besides him.  I wasn't a good soldier, after all.  Maybe that's why accepting this new "situation" is hard for me.  I didn't fight the good fight.  No matter who thought I was this good thing or that, I wasn't pure through and through in my own thought life.  In so doing, I doubted that God "had my back".  I perceived my own plans, my own uprising.  That's how I wound up in an emotional affair with a childhood friend.  I fought it, not even speaking to him at first.  Soon the floodgates of my sadness opened and he was gladly there to contain them.
     Somewhere in the middle of a few weeks of conversation, I decided that I would take Mike up on the next time he said he couldn't live with me anymore.   Much to my surprise when that day came, God intervened and grabbed hold of Mike's brokenness in a way that I couldn't deny.  At the time, even though I knew how good a thing it was, my heart felt a cruel twisting of fate.   I'd finally stood up, wasn't scared, may've found a "friend" who shared my interests and who found value in me.  But I knew, beyond knowing, that it wasn't to be mine.  It never was.  It never is when it's not in God's timing. 
     See how much more beautiful this all would be if I had a clear conscience, a peace, a true heart?  See how much easier it would be for me to accept?  All these years I just wanted to have Mike's approval, to gain his praise, "his" acceptance.  Perhaps that would've been easier for him if I hadn't done one the most despicable things anyone can do.  Very early our marriage was a disaster.  (That's why going "The Vow" route with my old calendar I found didn't recall what I wished for).  I don't remember feeling a sense of retribution.  I was just consumed with lust, so much so that I brought its filth into our own dwelling, seducing another man under the roof that my husband was gone working for.
     I've written about this before, not sure which title it's under, but the other details lie there.  I wasn't as specific though about "the act" until today.  I'd say I wish I could erase it.  Finding myself as that base of a person is what brought me to salvation, though.  In all my accomplishments and pride, I'd never understood just how bad I was and what I was capable of.  I took heavenly forgiveness on readily.  I knew I was different afterwards.  Mike said he did, too ...but for me to expect him to truly and thoroughly forgive here on earth where he hadn't even gotten his "own self" right with God, was expecting miracles that weren't ready to be realized.  If you're contemplating doing something that would devastate someone else, just remember that they may say and try to forgive you one day, but you will live with the fall out, the way I did for 17 years.
     I hadn't anticipated rehashing all this, but I suppose it'll make its connection where it should.  Anyway, yesterday we took a 2 1/2 hour ride to Michael's final game of the season.  I took Mary Beth Chapman's book along.  I had to see how she got through the death of her 5 year old daughter and the profound sorrow of her son who was at the wheel when it happened.  I cried ...and cried ...and cried ...and cried.  I cried in the car and finished crying field side.   I've never read anything like it.   Even 2 years later, she was only getting by as God's lamp at her feet led the way.  Her candidness confirms that my own is justified, that people don't need to think Christian life is one of ease.  It's hard, really hard. 
     The huge confirmation for me, though, was that no matter how much misery I've had, no matter the daily in and day out of mental anguish; I have never had grief, the finality of grief.  That is something I can not dismiss.  I can't be too careful to pray, too careful to consider God's plans for the day, too presumptuous that I "need" something ...because I haven't suffered the worst pain.  I have to move forward cheerfully.  Listen, you've got to rid yourself of unthankfulness, discontentedness, hatefulness, even grouchiness ...before you have a "really good reason" to experience these feelings.  After I got my bearings straight and as we watched the boys compete, I announced that I would be nice.  I got some funny looks, but I meant it, even though I flubbed it up some already this morning.  "Nice" before may've been to stay under the radar, out of trouble.  I wish I could remember the name of book I borrowed several years ago, back in Georgia.  The author said there was a night she cooked pork chops, maybe, but either way was something her husband really liked and when he came home he didn't want it.  She took it personally, as I have time after time.  So, was that meal for his pleasure or for hers?  That's what she asked herself.
     You know, as I'm out here rocking in the dark in this chair, I used to want someone to grow old peacefully with, to "point our rocking chairs toward the west".  I still want that, but God has once again outdone himself.  He's granted me someone and some way to do bigger things.  I've told my friends that I get disturbed when my teaching plans, as meager as they are, get sidetracked.  I used the think it was an attack.  But because it's always for the exchange of something better, I'm convinced that God is about to show this family something it couldn'tve comprehended, that no institution could ever educate enough for, that nothing in history has been like.  We're on the cusp of something, something good.  Rocking chairs may never have been in the plan ...except to rock babies, especially those who don't have the luxury of good health or good mothering, just like Mary Beth Chapman does.