2010

Bill.

From His cross, Jesus looked down, blinking back the blood and perspiration that streamed from His forehead and stung His swollen eyes to see only one of His disciples standing there, faithful.  Though John did not understand any more fully than the other disciples the events that brought their master to this ignominious, crushing death, the "disciple whom Jesus loved" followed Jesus all the way to His death.  Summoned by name, John came close to the blood-soaked wooden cross - close enough to hear the Savior's labored breathing and maybe to be splattered by the sweat of His dying.  "Behold, thy Mother."  Into trusted, constant, reliable hands, Jesus committed His own mother.

Peter should have been there, too.  After all, he had seen Jesus heal the lame, give sight to the blind, raise the dead.  On a high mountain near Jerusalem Peter and John had seen Jesus transfigured before them, giving over for an instant His earthly body for His heavenly one.  The night before the crucifixion, at the Passover meal, Peter proclaimed passionately that he would follow the Lord anywhere!  Fight for Him!  Then things got hard. Counterintuitive. Peter strikes Malchus, a soldier, with his knife that evening, and severs the officer's ear - an ear Jesus lifts from the ground and restores to Malchus. Clanging swords, Judas and his kiss, loud shouting - all became confusion as Jesus was led away, and Peter could not understand what was going on.  He did not see Jesus again until the next morning when he turned and looked into the eyes of his master in the same instant when Peter cursed and denied for the third time that he knew Christ.  The morning rooster's crow penetrated the dewy air, and Peter ran in shame to hide.

I am Peter. Bill is John. Faithful. In his own confusion, still following Christ through our crucible of pain.  Still loving me when I was unlovable - even absent.  He is not perfect.  He made some heart-wrenching mistakes in the process with Mother and Daddy; but, Bill never ran away; he just kept looking at Jesus.

And, Bill walked.  Miles.  And listened with his hand in mine, to my sorrow, heartache and confessions.  We tromped about California searching in our conversations for an elusive clarity that would not come full circle.  Why?  How to repair it all. Mother. What to do with Daddy. No answers. Talking in the same circles in which we walked.  Tirelessly, Bill's heart tried to be open - to offer up solutions, or at least, consolations.  Lesser men would have removed their walking shoes and grabbed the remote.

When Mother and I brought Daddy home from jail, Bill did not recoil from the sight and touch of him, but endured the guttural wailings of a man sorely in need of mercy when I could bear to hear it no longer.  Bill loved Daddy, too; and his love was ripped and tattered as mine was.  But Bill saw Daddy's need; was sorry for his great sin, and held the man.

In my time of wandering in the far country of my rebellion, taking my life into my own pitifully ignorant hands and nearly throwing it and my family away, there were times when I wished Bill would "play the man."  Maybe he should have. I do not know what would have happened had he gone "gladiator" in the situation.  What I understand now is that Bill was clinging desperately to the side of a sinking ship, praying for mercy from a God who alone had the power to right it.  Daily, my husband walked alone with God during his lunch break. Touching me was like grasping a dead, withered stick that looks alive until, with the slightest pressure, it disintegrates into brittle, dusty pieces.  Bringing life-sap back to me was beyond my man's ability. Only God knew how.

Before the onslaught of cataracting anguish in 1985, my heart was overtaken by my God and my husband.  I was desperately in love with both.  Imagining I could feel such cavernous estrangement from them was impossible.  I would never change!  Like Peter, I would swear to stay the course!  Then life sabotaged my journey with a brutal assault, leaving me near death, struggling for breath, bruised and quaking.  Blocking my way now was a mountain of pain, doubt, fear and loss.  I could not see around it or over it.  Moving past it was too great a task; so much to contemplate that my wounded spirit wished to die rather than even attempt the feat.  Shame put its icey fingers around my shoulders and bowed my head, whispering that I had created the mountain somehow and would never conquer its height.  Stripped of forward motion, I seemed for years to roam zombie-like in circles doing what I had always done before but with a fractured heart and a perplexity of spirit that I could not even articulate.  I did not know what God was doing - could not see that He is good.  Already winded from the first collapse of faith, I stood near the rubble mountain and beat my breast as I watched my friends struggle against death and lose.  So, in my running from the unconquerable ascent before me, I ran also from Bill.  How could he possibly understand and fix what I had not even begun to comprehend myself?

"Please bring her back to You, Father," was the heartcry of my husband.  Not "bring her back to me," for in returning to the Father, I would surely find again my love for Bill.  They were intrinsically bound together.  The day I told him I no longer loved him, he sank down into the deepness of the white overstuffed couch in which he was sitting and deflated. "I don't know what to do, Kay. I can only pray." Swallowing hard, he said, "I would go to hell for you -to know you loved God again."  Hell. Forever.  I heard what he said, but the extravagant and ferocious love behind those words did not permeate my heart until I had very nearly thrown Bill into Hades.

Like a man with an incurable disease who puts on a happy face for friends and family, Bill rarely revealed his deep concern for our marriage.  Walking in faith is quite courageous.  There is no falling down and playing dead on the battlefield of trust.  One afternoon Marlana came over to pray with and encourage me.  My plea was for an authentic relationship with Christ-wanted to know Him as He knows me.  Otherwise, it was just a religious exercise that could not change me, much less save me from the mess I had made. I was sincerely not trying to be difficult; I wanted God to reveal Himself to me in my situation.  If I were to get over the mountain, it was not going to be on my own power.  But, difficult, I was!  That day particularly.  Before leaving, Marlana found Bill, who had just come home from work, up in our bedroom near the bathroom sink. I followed her at a distance and walked in just as Bill took a sobbing breath and put his head heavily down onto Marlana's shoulder for support.  He did not cry - he merely collapsed for a moment.  Took refuge in a trusted friend. I tiptoed away, understanding his grief, but unable to assuage it all alone.

From the hotel room where Marlana prayed the night away with me, I went directly to Bill's office.  He had no idea where I had gone the day before - where I had spent the night.  Hope was shining a very tiny ray of expectation in my fresh-washed soul, exposing a longlost love buried deeply in the detritus of shame and loss.  The beginnings of warmth - a remembrance of the joy of touching and being touched by my God and my man.  Just a thought, really, that it might be possible to get to the other side and run free again.  My fingers worked the numbers on my cell phone, calling Bill out into the parking lot, with hope. Nothing more.

Reticently, Bill walked toward me, wondering at my disheveled appearance and swollen eyes.  I took his large familiar hands in mine. "I hope we can start over.  I know I have a long way to go."

Tears sparkled in my man's eyes and he grabbed me, kissed me and held me tightly.  "I have prayed so hard for this moment." Into my ear he said, "Yes. Yes, we can start over."

With all my heart I wish I could say from that day forward we took up where we had left off in 1985. But, I had so much work to do.  For months I read the Bible, profoundly wise books by great Christian authors, and lay on my floor face to the carpet sobbing sin, doubt and fear into its threads.  It would seem I made progress up the mountain and then I would slide all the way down again.  Hope coaxed me back up onto my feet and I would will myself to try once more.  It was during this time I found Micah 7:8-9 in my Bible.  "Enemy, do not laugh at me. I have fallen, but I will get up again.  I sit in the shadow of trouble now, but the Lord will be a light for me.  I sinned against the Lord, so He was angry with me, but He will defend my case in court.  He will bring about what is right for me.  Then He will bring me out into the light, and I will see Him set things right."  This became my life verse. Over and over, hour after hour, I would quote it...begin to believe it.

Bill did not hover over me expecting me to change immediately. There were no daily quizzes about my feelings for him or God.  I was only capable of crawling toward the mountain and touching the edges of its base.  No running jumps to scale it full on. Surprising emotions would grip me at the most inappropriate times...dinner with the family, a play, during my daily workout...and I would be immobilized.  Had Bill expected warmth and wholeness from me immediately, I would have been too overwhelmed, I think, to live.

During those months of prostrating myself, God did make Himself real to me, giving me guidance from the Bible that was nothing short of stunning.  Especially these verses from Zechariah 4.  "This is the Word of the Lord...'You will not succeed by your own strength or power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord All-Powerful.
Who are you, big mountain? ...you will become flat, and Zerubbabel will bring out the topmost stone, shouting, 'It's beautiful! It's beautiful!'"  Then the Lord spoke His word again: " The people should not think that small beginnings are unimportant."  This after I had expressed to God that I thought I would never get up the mountain looming before me. It was taking too long and my efforts often counterproductive. After reading these verses I felt a  deep assurance that I would, like Zerubbabel, either see the mountain flattened or persevere to its top and find that "It is beautiful!"

Bill had a yearly trip to Las Vegas with his company and I usually drove to meet him there.  Hearing from God again seemed virtually a new thing, though entombed and slowly resurrecting were the prayers I used to pray and Bible verses I had memorized dancing around the edges of their grave. Whispers of rebirth that excited me for no small reason.  God must still love me.  Bill did. No small miracles.  All I could talk about was what was going on within me - imperfectly manifesting, but churning and deliberating even in my sleep.At the Mon Ami Gabi restaurant in the Paris hotel on the Strip, Bill listened to me for endless hours as I tried to synthesize my spiritual journey.  Never once did he say, "I already knew that" or "This can't be new to you, Kay.  You used to teach all of this."  No. He listened while I gushed clean water for dirty.  Somehow he loved me enough to hear me without judgment.

Bill was my protector in the battle for my life.  That is what William means, protector.  In war, real men stand, uncowering, and trust their leader, faithfully following orders. They are the kind of men to which other warriors entrust their mothers. I know God loves me. But I will ever be convinced God saved our home because He loves my husband.

Bill.