“Do you know what happens when ice touches a hot surface?
It evaporates!”
Why is it that certain words have more impact than others?
Why is it that some never seem to get purged from the filing cabinet in our mind and are brought to the surface more times than we care to admit?
Is it because of who said them? The tone or inflection in the voice? The context in which they were said?
Or is it because such words were so hurtful and were seared into the memory bank so deep, they can’t help but to surface now and again?
I pass an electronic billboard every Sunday on my way to church. Yesterday, just as I passed by, the words fire and ice popped up and stood out like a neon sign vying for my attention. I have no idea what was being advertised but the fire and ice reference that came to my mind, is the sentence above. Two simple nouns in the English language forever altered in my mind due to the hurtful way in which they were verbalized to me. I truly believe they will be etched there forevermore.
However, what makes the difference now is how I choose to view them. They can be a source of grief and depression or I can look at them as being one of the first steps in the process toward my ultimate freedom from abuse and trauma.
A few years before the message above was seared into the recesses of my mind, my spouse, as he was at that time, was involved in a battle for his very soul. It was not a physical battle he was engaged in but a spiritual one. He didn’t talk to me very often about the warring that went on in his mind, but the few times he did, he said if he couldn’t be hot in his walk with the LORD, he might as well be cold.
He was referring to a passage of scripture found in the book of Revelation where Jesus is talking to the church at Laodicea, which is modern day Turkey. They had lost their first love. This church had become lovers of self and had fallen into apostasy. They had become apathetic. In other words, they refused to continue in what they knew to be truth. They simply decided to reject God and His commands. Essentially, they had become “black sheep christians”. (If there is such a thing.)
“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” ~ Revelation 3:15-17 ESV
This was the battle that raged in his mind. He had become apathetic towards God and truth. He lived in a gray area, of which God is not. God is black and white; absolute; right or wrong; no middle ground.
Once my former spouse made the decision to be cold towards God, his coldness toward me increased as well. My initial thought about his decision to go cold was that perhaps it wouldn’t have been a bad thing because God can work with an absolute. I prayed for the Holy Spirit to convict his troubled heart and bring him back. What happened was quite the opposite. Instead, he withdrew from me even more and spent a lot of time alone. He left the house to get away from me as often as he could and didn’t talk to me very much. At the time, I didn’t understand it but, as I reflect on this scripture from Revelation, his words above, and consider them with everything I know now, it makes perfect sense.
As one who loves Jesus with her whole heart, I have a very difficult time understanding how anyone who’s known perfect love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness, could ever willingly walk away from it. (These are the beautiful gifts received ~ through no merit of one’s own ~ when one becomes a child of God through the blood of Jesus Christ.) When I gave my heart to Jesus, I had the desire to do whatever He wanted me to do and go wherever He wanted me to go. I cannot get away from the fact that my heart belongs to Him…forever. I will be transparent and admit right here that there was a brief period of time when I chose to do some things I knew were wrong. I knew I had made a conscious choice to sin but I did it anyway. I had my reasons at the time and yes, I justified them to myself. Didn’t change the fact that I was 100% wrong! But one morning, as I was stopped at a red-light, conviction hit me like a ton of
bricks. The presence of the Holy Spirit filled my car and if I’d have been able to, I would’ve been flat on my face! Being strapped in by a seat-belt, I bowed my head as far down as I could get it and with tears of grief pouring from my eyes, confessed my blatant sin to my Heavenly Father. I asked Him to forgive my rebellious heart and restore my relationship with Him. And He did! In that very moment, the weight I’d been carrying was lifted. All I had to do was ask.
That’s how I know that I know that I know, if you are a true child of God, you absolutely, 100% CANNOT live in sin because the Almighty, Holy God will NOT allow His children to do so. It is an impossibility. The Holy Spirit will convict. No words have to be uttered. No audible voice from the clouds need reach your ears. (Even though I believe with all my heart those things are possible if God chose to do them.) The Holy Spirit lives inside the heart of every child of God and sin cannot coexist in the same place. The Spirit knows exactly what needs to be done in order to bring repentance and restoration.
When my former spouse made the conscious choice to walk away from the Shepherd of his heart and into the arms of the world and the enemy, it was something I could not wrap my mind around…then. But now, as I reflect back on those grievous days, I’ve had to look at the facts before me and compare them with the truth of God’s word.
Perhaps it wasn’t hard for my former spouse to walk away from the Shepherd of his heart because Jesus wasn’t the Shepherd of his heart.
The truth in the following passage of scripture cannot be denied. (bold type mine)
“For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding Him up to contempt.”
~ Hebrews 6:4-6 ESV
Here’s my paraphrase:
It’s impossible for those who once became aware of Biblical truth…have consciously experienced blessings and the goodness of God…have witnessed the convicting work of the Holy Spirit…have understood the meaning of the gospel…then with full knowledge, mindful experience, and full revelation, reject the truth…have concluded the truth about Jesus to be false…have no hope of being saved…they can never know more truth than what they had when they rejected it…
Which begs the question…were they ever saved in the first place?
It’s taken me a long time to come to this mindset. I wrestled with this passage of scripture and lived in denial for a very long time.
I didn’t want to believe it. It was heart-wrenching! I didn’t want it to be true…
And yet, there it is. Absolute; no gray; just plain ol’ black and white truth.
And the questions? Oh, so many questions.
What about the time he seriously considered leaving the military to go to seminary?
What about all the Sunday School classes he taught?
What about all the times he went to the altar and wept over the struggles in his life?
What about the devotions and prayer time we had together every morning before we left for work?
What about all the times he preached at different churches and presented God’s word with such fervor and conviction?
As a matter of fact, I remember the time he preached this very passage of scripture at our church in Newport News, VA. He even used an illustration about our daughter and the day we introduced solid food to her for the first time. A new taste can be a strange sensation for a little one. There were times I’d put the food into her mouth, she’d taste it, and some may have even gone down her throat a little, but then she’d spit it out. She tasted it, perhaps even took some in, but eventually rejected it. How ironic that he ended up being the subject of the very passage of scripture he preached on that day?
Which begs the question…was he ever saved in the first place?
I just couldn’t accept it.
No.
It didn’t make sense.
Then.
But it makes sense now.
Since we went our separate ways, I’ve had a lot of time to think about our 35 years together. We met and married within a six-month period of time and I was very young; just barely nineteen.
I lived a very sheltered and humble lifestyle. Most of my growing up years were done in a small town in Oregon of not much more than 2,000 people. My graduating class had 80 students. I wasn’t popular but I was well-liked by my peers. I only had one very close friend. We went to different schools but she was my world. She understood me like no one else did. (Still does!) I was a good student with a fairly good head on my shoulders. (I missed graduating with honors by only one point! That’s devastating at the age of 17!) I never had a pull towards the world. It just wasn’t something that appealed to me. I knew I wasn’t the prettiest girl or destined to be any boy’s heart-throb but I was loved, valued, and affirmed just for the simple fact that I was me. I was secure and knew who I was.
My parents were self-employed cabinet makers so it was either feast or famine at our house but I never felt deprived or like I needed anything more. I was perfectly content to spend time walking down our gravel driveway, humming some kind of tune to myself, or running through a field of tall grass with the breeze blowing on my face and through my scraggly, long hair. Sometimes my walks would take me down by the creek where I threw rocks in the water or watched, and even caught, a salamander or two.
My maternal grandparents lived right next door so I’d spend as much time with them as I could. I sat on their couch and snapped peas or green beans with my grandma while my pappy sat in his recliner next to the wood burning stove and smoked his pipe. We watched a lot of sitcoms on TV together. Their favorite one was Sanford and Son. (A silly show about an old man and his son running a junk yard.) I can still picture my pappy sitting in his recliner, hear their laughter, and smell the burning wood as it mixed with pipe tobacco and Old Spice. Oh, how I miss them!
We were members of a Southern Baptist church across the river in Washington. I was very active in my youth group, sang in the youth choir, and went to church camp at Mayfield Lake every summer.
My life was full of love and laughter. I’m sure there were hard times but it was the only life I knew and I thought it was pretty great. I never felt my life lacked anything.
How could I have known it lacked anything if I didn’t know I didn’t have the thing it lacked?
I met him on a Sunday and life as I knew it drastically changed.
I lost her.
The Jenny I was.
I’m finding her again, slowly. The young, secure Jenny I was, ended up pushed down and suppressed from the time I said “I do” until the day I realized “I don’t”.
In between those two revelations were years of desperately trying to become someone I wasn’t. From the very beginning, I was told there were things I had to do in order to ensure my husband was successful. I had to do certain things and act a certain way as well as eat whatever food was put before me, whether I liked it or not. I had to keep up appearances so everyone would see what a good and supportive wife I was.
As an officer’s wife, there were certain people I couldn’t be friends with. Even other young wives and mom’s I met at church. I could see them and interact with them at church but I couldn’t go out to lunch or to the mall as friends. It’s called fraternization. I understood it but I sure didn’t like it. That was a very hard adjustment for me.
I had to attend fancy parties and socialize with people who were better at it and even more comfortable in doing so than I was. I always felt awkward. Imagine putting Pippy Longstocking in a ball gown. That was me.
I was always afraid of doing something or saying something that would embarrass my spouse. Like the time we were seated at a fancy meal in the officer’s club with a bunch of other couples from our battalion. I cut into the cherry tomato in my salad and the juice shot across the table! Why did that always happen when I tried to be so careful and why was the table cloth always white?! I was mortified! I was afraid to look up to see whether or not the Major sported a tomato juice stain on his dress blues!
There were officer’s wives evening events I had to attend as well. One in particular was called the monthly coffee. The officer’s wives took turns and we rotated each month to a different house so I had to be the hostess a few times. They were nerve-wracking because not only did I have to prepare all the food, while being mom to two little girls, I had to ensure my house was spotless so I didn’t end up being dubbed a “lousy housekeeper” or a “lazy spouse”. I was always afraid I would end up being the subject of the latest gossip so I kept my head down and my mouth shut.
I actually enjoyed living on post. Everyone who lived around me were like-minded and had to deal with the inevitable my-husband-is-out-in-the-field routine. It was nice to have others who understood the struggle of doing things alone. I always felt secure in the fact I knew there were MP’s who patrolled the housing area and that my kids had a safe environment to play in.
We moved ten times in 18 years. (He’d already been in the Army for two years when we met.) That’s a lot of change in a short period of time. Over the years, it became harder to make friends because I knew before long, we’d be packed up only for it to start all over again at a new duty station. It’s very easy to become secluded and keep people at a distance.
It was a world I tried so hard to fit into while at the same time, not compromise my convictions or who I was. I never felt I fully accomplished it. Oh, I was a very supportive spouse. I encouraged and cheered on my soldier to be successful. And he was. He was a very decorated officer. Yep, I did all the officer wifey things, picked up and moved whenever I was told to do so, birthed my babies in military hospitals, raised them the very best I knew how, and taught them about Jesus. I ironed uniforms, sewed on name and rank tags, cooked, cleaned, paid the bills, tried to smile as we said good-bye, again, then earnestly prayed for him as he walked out the door. I was both mom and dad a majority of the time.
It was very hard at times but one good thing did come from all those years as an Army wife though. I grew up. A lot. I became very independent and learned to do a lot of things on my own. I had to. I had to do it to survive. I didn’t have my family around to lean on or to help me and he was gone all the time. We didn’t see each other very much and when we did, we didn’t have much to talk about outside of the weather or what was for dinner. He couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about his job much and my life centered around church, my kids/grandkids, household things, and my job. Whenever I started to tell him something the Spirit had shown me in God’s word or if I’d written something new for my blog, he was disinterested. If it had to do with Spiritual things, church, or the Bible, he didn’t want to hear it. We lived in two different worlds most of the time.
Once he retired, I thought things would get better because he was hired on at Redstone Arsenal as a government contractor with the Missile Defense Agency.
Woo hoo for a regular 8 to 5 job!
Not so fast, Jen!
Being a government contractor meant site activation in several different places around the globe. And when he left, he was gone for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. He called me every day but I missed him terribly. The night before he’d leave on a long trip, I sat on our bed and watched him pack. He always assured me he’d “be back before we knew it” and our relationship was “more than good, baby”. I believed him. With all my heart…I believed him.
Little did I know that once his plane touched down on foreign soil, he lived it up like a batchelor. He was safely tucked in on the other side of the world and what I didn’t know, didn’t hurt me. He lived in the Marriott Hotel with every amenity possible, hooked up with another woman he called his wife, and hung out in bars with the guys he worked with. He was part of what was called “the good ol’ boys club” and they protected each other. Had I known about it while it was actually going on, I wouldn’t have believed it. He was the best liar I’ve ever known and would have made up some lie and convinced me he’d been set up or that it was someone else’s fault. I was so blind when it came to him. I didn’t want to believe the man who told me, “we’re more than good, baby”, was actually a pathological liar who’d convinced my girls that I was “toxic and couldn’t be trusted”.
“Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.”
~ James 3:11-12 ESV
I was none the wiser. I trusted him. I believed him. I vowed my entire existence to him as well as my never-ending loyalty. Even when my gut told me something was very, very wrong, I believed him.
No.
None of it made sense.
Then.
But it makes perfect sense now.
The Holy Spirit within led me to the answer.
I went to the book that is truth from cover to cover.
The inerrant word of God.
I was led to the gospel of Matthew, chapter 5.
Better known as The Sermon on the Mount.
Verse 11…
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on My account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
~ Matthew 5:11 ESV
Finally, it all made perfect sense.
When my former spouse described our relationship as fire and ice, it was the greatest compliment he ever bestowed upon me.
If the worst thing I ever did to him during our marriage was evaporate him with Jesus, I consider it a great and humbling honor.
As I read the words of Jesus above, with tears streaming down my face, I realized, he didn’t reject me for me…he rejected the Jesus who is within me! I was a constant reminder of what he was running from. It’s why he didn’t want to come home right away after work. It’s why he left the house all the time. It’s why his trips were extended time and time again. It’s why he began a separate life overseas…so he could do all the things he couldn’t do around me. He wanted to live in the world and he knew I couldn’t/wouldn’t do that. As I said before, I tried at one time to live in the world for him and not be accountable for my actions.
I.COULD.NOT.DO.IT!
(Side note: I’m not making excuses for him. This realization does not negate nor excuse all of the grievous things he did to me and my kids. He will answer to Almighty God someday, as will we all.)
I think my heart will always be grieved by the way our marriage ended. We had some fun times together and I have some good memories. He did make me laugh. My prayer is that he will come to true repentance one day…before it’s everlastingly too late.
There’s a story that’s told about the nature of a pig. You can take him out of his environment in the mud, give him a bath, and even put cologne on him to make him smell real good. He may even strut around the barnyard for awhile and perhaps, even look as if he enjoys his new found way of life. But, eventually, that pig is going to go back to his previous environment in the mud because that’s his nature.
He said he was tired of pretending. Oh, he tried real hard to be the husband and dad everyone told him he needed to be. He put on the suit, the mask, and even carried a Bible in his hand to complete the charade.
Oh, yes indeed.
He played the part well, for a very long time.
But when the final act was over and the curtain fell, he made a quick exit, stage right, and went back to his previous environment.
Because that’s his nature.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to Me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
~ Matthew 7:21-23 ESV