When I walked into the barn this morning everyone was acting up. Fatty the pig was in the goat pen, Johnny Cash, my male goat, kept headbutting June the female goat, while she was trying to eat, my sheep Bo Peep was headbutting the scoop as I dumped the feed into her trough, Carl my miniature donkey had pooped next to the main feed bin, so I trampled through that repeatedly, and during all that my three roosters screamed at the top of their lungs. In all honesty it’s like that most days. Meanwhile I was grumpy myself because well, it was morning. When I was trying to not scream back at them, I thought about how they were just being the animals they are and how I bet that’s how God feels about me every day. Here I was grumbling about these beasts that I’d been begging for most of my adult life. I’ve always wanted my own farm and here I am living it out, but complaining about it now that I have it?! Girl, get over yourself. The flesh is never satisfied, we’re subject to the circumstances of this world where everything has become instantaneous, and we expect it just to be perfect all the time. Well guess what? This ain’t Heaven and there will always be obstacles on this side. The pond we had dug has been filling up steadily day-by-day since the dam was completed. There’s a spring back there and it’s doing its magic little by little, accompanied by the water table that continuously seeps water from the ground underneath, but somehow, it’s not fast enough for me. I’m sure proud of the progress it continues to make, but I somehow expect to run out there and find an oasis every day. In all actuality it already is, but not the way I see it in my mind. I have to keep reminding myself, it’s a pond, your pond, do you even realize this is your dream coming to fruition?! Patience! I learned a long time ago that patience isn’t something to pray for if you’re not ready to be tested. Like anything we pursue in life, you have to practice to accomplish the end result. I’ve spent years in the pursuit of patience, countless hours in the middle of the night with babies crying, training animals, nurturing relationships that were never meant to be and others that were, trying new things and learning a lot of them weren’t for me, and yet through all of that and many years, there are still times that patience eludes me. I’ve finally come to the conclusion (again), this part of the journey is other worldly, and I doubt I’ll ever be able to have patience at all times, but I still have hope to continue to have more of it and that the good Lord will keep having it with me!
Yesterday I was invited to go horseback riding with some friends and it was everything childhood me had dreamed of. I’ve ridden many horses in life, but most of them were with my late grandfather or trail horses that basically just followed the horse in front of them. It was the first time I was the one in charge of the horse I was riding, and it was glorious! We walked through the river, we trotted on the trail and even galloped through the pasture. I’ll likely never sprint on horseback, but one can aspire right? I’m doing my best not to put limitations on myself, in the spirit of “training not trying” as Craig Groeschel put it. My goal is to have my own horse and maybe ride it like the wind one day, or at least like the breeze… Before I got there the stupid devil got after me again, trying his hardest to steal my joy. “Girl, you don’t know how to do this, you’re going to get yourself killed, and leave your kids motherless. You’re too old for this, you’re going to fall off and break something.” On and on it went while I drove to her house and kept praying that God would shield me from any harm and rebuke the enemy from stealing my joy. It’s crazy how the simplest things that bring us happiness can also be tools used against us by satan if we let them. As I’ve said in previous posts, the dude is sneaky, ALWAYS coming after us. If we don’t suit up in God’s armor, take up our shield, he’ll find a way to get to us. Don’t let him! I’m saying that to myself as much as I am to you, he didn’t win that day, God did, and I lived to tell it! Now I’m powering through the last bit of this traumatic saga my family and I have scathed by.
The morning of the trial was to take place, we all started our days as usual, Ray had some work stuff to do, I had my chores, etc. I came back from the barn to a missed call from the D.A., she’d left a voicemail to call her back ASAP. I could tell by the urgency in her voice, that whatever she had to tell me wasn’t going to be good. I called her back, but it was her assistant who answered. She told me that the D.A. was in court at the moment, but that she’d call me back when she got back to the office. I asked if we were still due in court that morning and she became audibly nervous and vague. She said the trial had been cancelled, not postponed, to which I replied, “Wait cancelled, why?!” She said, “Um I know the D.A. really wanted to be the one to tell you this, but the defendant committed suicide this morning.” I became lightheaded and saw black spots as I processed what I’d just heard, I mumbled some sort of response and hung up the phone. Even suspecting this would be the outcome all along, I wasn’t prepared for it to become reality.
You don’t know this, but I do and feel like it’s worth sharing…. I started this post last week, but after the last paragraph I had to walk away from my computer and just today found my strength to come back. This is still some of the most difficult content in my life story to date. This morning while I was doing my Bible reading challenge I had an epiphany of sorts. As I’ve battled with the enemy over telling these VERY personal details, and fought conviction driven by others and their opinions of it all, I realized that just like plenty of other people’s stories, even biblical ones are horrifying, but important to share so that people can find solidarity and strength in knowing that unimaginable circumstances can be overcome with God in them. In Psalms this morning David was crying out for his enemies’ names to be erased from the book of life (Psalms 69:28) and I remembered what it felt like to be so desperate for justice to have thoughts like that. But here’s the WHY. I’m not sharing any of this to tell you that we were wronged/hurt/betrayed/abused/etc. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. While those things are all 100% pure cold, hard, FACTS, time has healed a lot of it and revealed that life does go on, and as cheesy as it sounds, love and laughter and everything in between comes with it. King David discovered those same things in his journey too, along with all the other hard stories you’ll find in the Bible. Stories about betrayal, sins of every kind, murder, rape, war. God always knew those things were going to happen and cared so much, loved us so much, He still sent His Son to save us all. That’s what got me through the hard things I’m sharing and the reason I’m sharing it. We’re ALL called to witness on His behalf.
After I hung up the phone that morning it occurred to me that here I was again, put in the position to tell my husband one of the hardest things he’d ever hear. What was I going to say? How do you tell someone something like that? I walked outside and saw him unloading some materials from his work van into the shop. My feet felt like they had cinderblocks attached to them as I made my way over to him. The air was already thick with tension from anticipation of the trial. He looked up at me and smiled when he realized I’d come out there, I froze in my tracks. In my mind I could see the realization dawn on him, and he said, “What?” All I could manage to get out was, “He did it.” To which he replied, “He did?” I walked over and wrapped my arms around him, and he did the same. I’m not sure how long we stood there like that clinging to each other, but we finally broke at some point, and he told me to get the kids assembled so we could tell them collectively. When Austin and Erin got here, we all sat together in the living room. I think they knew too, but everyone sat in silence while Ray gathered his composure to give them the news. He had barely gotten it out when my phone rang, it was the D.A. calling me back. I told them it was her and put it on speaker so they could all hear what she had to say. She said, “Hi Melissa, I’m so sorry that this has happened, that he took the coward’s way out. I’m glad though that the girls won’t have to endure the trial and hope your family will find some peace.” There wasn’t much to say beyond that, and we wrapped up the call. There are varying opinions as to how he handled things. I agreed thoroughly that it was cowardly, he’d been forwarned about what prison would be like for a pedophile and that with all those felony charges, he’d likely die in there. But Ray pointed out that it wouldn’t have been easy for him to do what he’d done either and none of us could disagree with that. The finality of it all was too much, we were all exhausted and needed some time to process it. It was done.
It felt as if time stood still for a few days after we got the news. We knew there was a funeral we weren’t welcome at, and that furthered the feelings of blame. The weight of it was suffocating at the very least, and even though we knew it was never in our control, time and lots of therapy were needed for the healing to begin. Time, therapy, support from my family and all of our friends, and most of all, GOD. He was certainly there. I’m not sure exactly how many days had gone by, it felt like only a couple, when I began to feel an overwhelming urge to pray for my father-in-law’s soul. It was with me day and night, in crowds, in private, always. I can assure you that my mind was having a very hard time reconciling these feelings, they were not of me or from me. THAT is how I KNOW God was here. He brought me full circle from very early on after it was all said and done, reminding me with every breath that He has the final say and that I’m to be obedient even if it was begrudgingly at first. While I was grasping for a way to make it make sense, my perspective slowly began to shift. Amidst the utter sadness, anger, disbelief of it all, consideration for the rest of the family became something that I struggled with as well. It was incomprehensible to me that I should care when clearly, they didn’t care about us. But the Holy Spirit wasn’t listening to my reasoning, He was strategically placing all these memories in my path, memories of happy moments, celebrations shared, memories that took a lot of the sting and bitterness I was feeling and turned them into things like healing and forgiveness. It was strange to me that even though no one was looking for reconciliation, it was a thought that crossed my mind many times since then. I began to realize that the work that God was doing in me was for me, and for me to demonstrate in my behavior as an example to my husband and children that we could in fact move on and maybe even begin to thrive again. It didn’t happen overnight, but I can honestly say that’s where we’re heading now. Despite that the past can never be undone, we’ve been brought through the fire, we may be a little more weathered and experienced, but we survived it and are closer to Him for it. In a Beth Moore’s Daniel Bible study that I did years ago, she explained it like this…. 1.) We can be delivered from the fire i.e. it goes away, and our faith is built. 2.) We can be delivered through it i.e. He brings us through it, and we are refined by the fire. 3.) We can be delivered by it i.e. He brings us home to Him, perfecting our faith in Him. It’s not a choice I would’ve made for any of us, but I trust that God brought us through it for a purpose. Maybe that’s to help you or someone you know. This ride of ours has been a wild one, uncommon and difficult, probably unlike anyone else’s, but hopefully someone will be encouraged that they too can be brought through their own fire. Even when it seems unfathomable, He is with us.
Psalms 69:5-6 God you know my foolishness, and my guilty acts are not hidden from you. Do not let those who put their hope in you be disgraced because of me, Lord God of armies; do not let those who seek you be humiliated because of me, God of Israel.
