As you can tell from the title of this post, it is part 2. Part 1ended as our family get-together wound down-- the one where my kids had their dad relate what they already knew, but I didn't. He had been molesting some granddaughters. As I related the events that had taken place over a week's time, I shared how situations like ours usually don't happen the way ours did. At least that is what my therapist told me. After she shared with me, I began to see more and more of God's work behind the scenes. The events included:
1 Girls telling what had happened to them despite being told not to. "It's our secret."
2 Parent's believing their children.
3 The molester admitting his guilt.
4 Adult children confronting, challenging, and demanding the molester take specific actions like resigning positions of leadership, and.turning himself in.
5 The molester listening to his children.
6 The reminder that God would use their dad's destructive behavior to bring about good in our family.
It Doesn't Usually Happen Like That--Part 2
I woke up the next morning after very little sleep, it was a Friday. My husband had already left for the Portland airport. He and a friend were flying to California for a regional meeting. I walked around the house not sure what to do next. Finally I did nothing except stand by the french doors in our bedroom and cry. That is when the phone began ringing. Caller ID showed that it was my husband's cell phone.
I had not spoken to him since the previous night when everyone was leaving. I remember I had turned away from the front door and headed back into the living room, still quite teary from the evenings revelations. I was startled to find that he was no longer sitting by the fireplace where I had last seen him, but standing right in front of me. "I love you so much" he said, then tried to hug me. I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to listen to him. I didn't want to answer him. And I certainly didn't want a hug. I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. I did finally reply, though, "I can't say anything to you right now."
The still ringing phone brought me back to the present. Still not wanting to say anything to him, I let it ring a couple more times. Finally, I gathered up enough courage to say, "Hello."
"Hi," he said. "I just want you to know I have been praying a lot, and I want you to know what I am going to do. Our son was right. I need to resign from all my positions. I'll talk to _______ , the president, at our meeting tonight and give him my resignation. I am also going to tell ______, the friend he was traveling with. When we get off the phone, I will call Pastor and tell him I need to resign and why. Then, on my way back to town on Monday, I will turn myself in."
I can't begin to fathom the mental anguish he must have gone through to reach the decisions he did or, for that matter, to carry them out. In the Christian community he was highly respected for his integrity, looked to for his leadership and consensus building abilities, and loved for his generosity and humor. Now,everything people believed about him would be destroyed. He had fallen and he had fallen hard.
I took heart in what he had told me, but wasn't sure he was being honest. Was he just saying what he thought I wanted to hear? Did he think he was softening the blow I had received the previous night? This was the first time in our entire marriage that I had questioned his words. But, he did exactly what he said he was going to do. He resigned all his positions and turned himself in.
"It doesn't usually happen like that." What often happens is the molester never returns home, or runs his car into a tree come where. Neither of those things happened.
As I said in a previous blog, my husband, while tuning out the Spirit in many areas of his life, had not become totally deaf. Prayers were being answered, and my husband was listening. He was now admitting his deeds to not only the family, but also to others. He was taking responsibility for his actions by resigning from Christian leadership positions. And by turning himself in, he was prepared to accept prison time.
What I write next does not fit under the heading, "It doesn't usually happen like that", because this is probably what really happens. Remember, I am typing these words four years after the fact. At the time of the above phone conversation with my husband, I did not see it with the grace I do now. I could not see the Lord's hand at work in him at all. My pain was too great to even start considering what my husband might have been be going through. Back then, I thought only such hateful things as, "Losing your positions and your esteem serves you right, Jerk." and "I hope you rot in prison, Buddy."
A loving, forgiving, compassionate, understanding wife had vanished. I had been wounded, my family had been wounded, my grand kids had been wounded--especially my granddaughters. Also wounded to some extent were friends and acquaintances. One of my sons related his feelings this way (a paraphrased version), "My dad became a suicide bomber tonight. He blew himself up and critically wounded everyone around him." Well, It took me a couple years to realize how deep my wounds or anyone else's were. As for my husband's wounds, in my eyes they had been fatal. They were of no concern to me.
As I have shared before, God had been working behind the scenes leading up to the grand unveiling of my husband's deeds. He had also been working to bring about the events I share in this blog. I had planned to wrap this up by saying once again, "What a faithful and awesome God we serve." Amen. But, that is not what has happened.
Writing some of those last paragraphs has caught me by surprise because I have never expressed myself in those terms before. In fact, I almost didn't write them as they sped from my mind to my finger tips. Anger and, yes I must say it, hatred were revealing themselves. I wanted to backspace quickly, never allowing the hateful words to get on the page. I didn't want to admit that those feelings even existed. I wanted them to stay suppressed and denied along with the resentment, mistrust, bitterness, and depression I suddenly realized made up an emotional cesspool.
So now, I must swallow my pride and admit that those feelings were and, to some extent, still are present. I hadn't been just ticked off, disappointed, or sad. I was full of emotional poisons. Admitting them is one thing, but I still want to suppress them. I know they are ugly, but they are also deadly. I guess some real work will have to be done now. Only this work will be mostly on stage and not behind the scenes. "Lord, I have a sewage problem I need fixed. There is a lot work for you to do. Actually, there is a lot of work for me to do. Together, we can and will do this."
Now, I really am closing, and still saying, "What a faithful and awesome God we serve."
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