2001 - The Year of Pain

My husband became more and more angry. He was always upset at someone. Often that someone was me, sometimes Zachary, usually it was Christopher. His anger got so bad that he began to call us terrible names. He started talking about how he wanted us dead. He would punch holes in the walls when he was really angry. Once he even pushed Christopher down a flight of stairs.

I was so torn. A good Christian wife, I thought, would stay in this marriage. She would pray for her husband. She would endure this life. A good mother would make sure her children were safe. I knew that Christopher would never be safe in the same house with his father. I felt like the two loves of my life were at war with each other. I could be a Christian and sacrifice my life for my Lord, but that felt like I was also sacrificing my sons, especially Christopher but also his brothers who would grow up hearing and seeing so much anger. On the other hand I could sacrifice my ministry, my passion for leading and loving teens, to keep my children safe, but would the Lord still love me if I made that choice?

I cried out for help. I asked our pastor for counsel. He suggested I pray more for my husband. Of course I had been praying for years, and his anger was getting more and more scary. I went to my doctor because when he yelled at me or the boys I actually became dizzy and my vision blurred. My doctor was concerned that my health was in danger. He stated that with those symptoms and the ulcer I was getting, that I would not live more than another year or two. When I told my Mom about this appointment, she became sick to her stomach and offered to set the boys and I up in an appartment for safety. A couple of days later, she was in the hospital. She had an aneurysm burst in her brain. She was in a coma. My best friend, my mommy, could no longer help me. I felt more alone than I ever had in my life.

Finally I talked my husband into going to a Christian Marriage Counselor. I told her how he scared me. I told her what it was doing to my health. She spoke with my husband and asked him to repeat what I had said. He was unable to remember it. She asked me to repeat my medical symptoms and told him that he was going to be asked to repeat them. I did but he could not. When he left the room, the counselor told me that God would not want me to stay in that relationship. She told me that she knew our lives were in danger. She told me that my husband was not capable of understanding the depth the effect of his behavior on his family.

This was just the thing I needed to hear. I could leave. God could forgive me. God could still love me. It was ok to be a good mother and protect my sons. I only wished my Mother could understand that I was leaving, that I would be safe. I still had hope for my marriage. I hoped that with a separation, my husband would see how his behavior was hurting our family. I prayed he would change.

Things got worse. He began obsessing about me. He would even come into my home when I wasn't home and take my underwear out of the hamper to smell them to see if I was having an affair. He would come over and say he wanted to kiss the boys good night, but he would just start yelling at them, calling them names. If I had thought things were scary before, now they were a nightmare. Separation would not be enough. I needed to file for divorce and get legal custody of the kids to keep them safe. I began to save my money to do this. In the meantime, I was able to get a domestic violence victim's grant to move to an apartment and get myself and my kids safely into a home that he did not have a key to. For the first time in years I felt genuine peace. I knew that I needed that sort of peace in my life. I knew I would never live under the same roof as him again. I knew that I was finished with trying to be what he wanted me to be. This is the day I gained my independence. This was the day that I showed my sons that I was strong enough to keep them safe.

My middle son, Benjamin, who had never been the victim of his father's wrath was very angry at me for leaving his father. He told me that until his father came home, he would not say he loved me. He kept this up for six months. My heart felt like it was being torn in half. I was trying to keep them safe the only way I knew how, and this was costing me Ben's love. Zachary was also very upset, though he was still very loving to me. Their father told them all of the time to pray that I would take him back. He told them that the divorce was all my idea and he wished we were all together, one big happy family. He ensured that they would blame me for leaving or blame God for not answering their prayers, but they would never blame him.

Christopher couldn't have been more happy about the divorce. He blossomed over night. He became a totally new person. He laughed more, he talked more, he even grew a full five inches that year. In every way possible Christopher beamed when taken out from under the anger of his father. He began complaining about having to visit his dad's house every other weekend. I wished I could protect him from that, but our divorce hadn't gone to court yet and my lawyer said it would be illegal to keep Christopher away from his dad.

The church I had served so lovingly for so long, abandoned me. People I had considered family sent me hateful letters. The two hundred people I had served selflessly for six years no longer spoke to me. My boss told me that I had given up on God's ability to heal my husband of his anger. He said that he trusted my husband's ability to minister above mine.

In 2001, my mother who had always been my best friend became less than a shadow of the woman she once was. She went from being the strongest woman I knew to being wheelchair bound and unable to speak or remember anything for more than two minutes. My church abandoned me. My son, Benjamin, hated me. I gave up my home. I lost my ministry. Who was I now? It seemed all of the ways I would have defined myself before were no longer true. I wasn't a wife. I wasn't a daughter in the way I had been. My son hated me and I didn't feel like much of a mother. I didn't feel like God loved me anymore. I felt utterly alone in the world. I had thought that 2001 was the worst year I would ever have in my life. I coudn't have been more wrong.