Dumped

I have to tell you this story. Chloe, our eleven year old, was taking a spelling test yesterday. When I gave her a word she said, “Is that one word, or two?” I laughed, because I knew that she was kidding. Then, she recalled a story from third grade. You have to know the background to understand: She was in a third grade class of just three kids. We home school, but the kids were going to an enrichment class. This was the first time the school offered a third grade class, and attendance was low. Chloe is not comfortable with big expansive lulls in quiet, so while the teacher was administering a test about the extensive study they had just done on volcanoes, she gave the three children the word “volcano,” to write. That’s when Chloe asked her, as she did to me yesterday, “Is that one word, or two?” She said the teacher stopped dead in her tracks, turned to her in complete and utter disbelief and said, “Oh, come on! You should really know this by now!” I love that story. It is so like Chloe to fill up the air with her beautiful voice, just to pad the silence so no one feels uncomfortable.

Well, I want to write my blog about being dumped. Have you ever been dumped? I know it’s a weird thing to write about, since I’ve been happily married for sixteen blissful years, but being dumped one time in particular has left a sting that affects me still. I have to be honest, I’m a pretty sensible person. The way I view being dumped, or dumping someone is generally very logical: Why would you ever want to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you?

Well, this one time I fell in love hard. In fact, it was like no other love I’ve ever experienced, still. (I hope Rick doesn’t get jealous). Upon waking up and upon drifting off to sleep, I would have His name on my lips, and constantly throughout the day, I would say almost to myself, “I love you,” as if He could hear. You see, if He were around, I would have wanted Him to hear the whispers of my love for Him.

I would even drift off to sleep, purposely intent on dreaming about eventually living in His house. He had told me once that He would prepare a room in his house, just for me. I imagined that it would be filled with things that I loved; an art easel, a writing table, big billowy white curtains, tall hovering redwood tress right outside an opened window, and maybe even a view of the ocean. I dreamt that this room would be my place to worship Him even more.

As time went on, I memorized His letters to me. I memorized every nuance of our time together, and when He brought me gifts, gifts beyond my wildest dreams, I was giddy. He actually introduced Rick and I. And, when I had miscarried the sixth time, He helped me out, comforting me when words would no longer come from my mouth when I tried to talk to Him about it. In fact, I will never forget the time that Rick and I kneeled on the side of our bed to implore Him for Sophie, that last and ninth pregnancy: Every time I opened my mouth to configure words, any words to explain the pain in my heart, or the deep longing I had for this unknown child, only sobs came out. Then, He brought us Sophia – her name means “wisdom,” which is a gift He had given me that ninth and last pregnancy.

Well, as time went on, I got used to Him. My love did not die for Him, but it did not strengthen either. I let other things take up His space and instead of drifting off to sleep with His name on my lips, my mind drifted off to sleep with worry and dread of the coming days. I was so overwhelmed that I could barely think of Him at all. And, when I ceased to get the things I wanted, I was convinced He’d forgotten all about me, because I did not see His presence and I never heard His voice, even when I called.

I’ll be honest, I don’t know who dumped who, but I have my guesses. I know what people mean when they say they just drifted apart, something I never thought possible before. I have begged Him to return. I have felt His absence and nothing has been good since He’s been gone. Really, it’s been three long years of struggling without Him. I keep calling Him, expecting Him to answer any day. Pathetically, I have remnants of His love letters all over my house, taped to a window, posted to a door. They sting my heart.

And, I know it might seem kind of creepy, but we even go to His house and hang out sometimes. You’d think all this time spent in His house, I’d see Him, but strangely enough, I don’t. I still hear from our mutual friends, though. Regardless of what they really think, they are so kind, and though they might not really believe it themselves, they keep telling me that He’ll come back. They are cheering for me, though I know some aren’t. You see, I know it’s sinful human nature for some to give into the secret delight when someone else is suffering, someone they thought of more as a rival than a friend. That’s why “a friend loves at all times” (Proverbs 17:17), and some just gloat over your failures.

Recently I met someone, a woman who didn’t know me at all. In this brief interaction she pummeled me with self-righteous advice. Quite a bit younger than me, she told me that she had a lot of experience, “probably more than most,” and she knew that the only answer to anything is prayer. In this interaction, she assumed that if I had problems I wasn’t praying – how little she knew of me. Our interaction was brief, because every time I started to talk, she shut me down with, “Pray, pray, pray.” She literally interrupted me several times and cut me off with her sing-songy advice: “Pray, pray, pray!” As I excused myself, I hoped that “Pray, pray, pray” would always work out for her, because if it ever stopped working, she might feel the way I did. She might begin to wonder what she’s done wrong.

She might wonder what sin she’s done, maybe without even knowing, that continually keeps her God away. She might envision that like a lit citronella candle that keeps away mosquitoes at night, her sin has wafted into the nostrils of her God to keep Him at bay for three long years. By the way, I have prayed. I have had others, much godlier than me, pray. I have fasted. I have been anointed with oil and prayed over. I have sought Godly counsel. I have repented. I have introspectively examined myself until I am blue in the face. I have prayed scriptures. I have memorized scriptures. I have cried from the depths of my heart to my omniscient, omnipotent God, but sometimes it’s not about what we do. Sometimes, most often, it’s not about us at all.

I love that my friends, those not excited about my dismal spiral downward, pray for me, and continue to heap prayers upward to heaven with arms jutted skyward, grasping for answers and reprieve for our family.

Yesterday, I read the story of Joseph to my second grade class. You know what I loved about that story that I’d never noticed before? When Joseph was brought from the dungeon to interpret Pharaoh’s dream, he interpreted it quickly and the Pharaoh accepted it as fact, and immediately he elevated Joseph to a place of power within the palace. The part I find striking is that everyone involved would have to wait seven good years before seeing seven difficult years of famine to know if Joseph was right. Yes, Pharaoh, a non-believer of Joseph’s God, had to wait seven years to see if Joseph’s interpretation of the dream was accurate, but he empowered Joseph to his second-in-command anyway.

Can you imagine waiting for seven years to see if your decision was a right one? What if Joseph was a swindler? What if he had used the Pharaoh’s paranoia and superstition to manipulate his way into the palace and into power? Well, Rick and I did not have to wait seven years to find that we had been swindled in our business deal. We did not have seven good years. We barely had one good year and though I love God, I don’t know think I could patiently wait for seven years to find out anything, and yet, that’s the funny thing, because I am. Who can know if this is the first three years in a string of what will eventually be seven years?

I have said jokingly before that I am not a long sufferer. Well, in hindsight, I have found that I am. After nine miscarriages in ten years, we finally capped off our family with our little Sophie. And, there are other things for which I’ve waited what seemed like forever to be remedied, with weeks and months turning into years. Much to my dismay, I am a long sufferer. I don’t like it, but it’s the deal.

I feel very much like someone God has dumped. Dumped into the bottom of a cistern sold as a slave, I am wondering over the Sinai Peninsula to an unknown land. I am tired of the terrain and don’t know the language. I have a foreboding feeling that this treacherous journey will never end. Rubbing my backside still from the abrupt fall, I know, in my heart, that God is still in control.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on
your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and
he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:4-6)