In late 2007, having just come through some of the most tumultuous and trying times of our lives, we found ourselves dazed and crushed. We suffered numerous attacks against our family and we were exhausted.
A violation occurred against one of our kids, leading to a pool of lies, deception and broken relationships. My husband, Craig, was experiencing stress and burnout in his career. His motivation to practice medicine was just not there any longer. It seemed as though it had been robbed along with other precious things in our lives. He was feeling a complete overload.
This was definitely not normal.
Our lives had been very active as leaders in many social and civic arenas, but we were burnt out and all of our emotion and energy was drained. We were surviving, but were ready to give it all up and just quit.
We were hurt by people in the church. Instead of experiencing love, we were subjected to harsh judgment, desertion, gossip and ridicule. Devastated and slammed with rejection, we just wanted to run away. We were at the point of selling out and moving away.
Our lives were a literal nightmare.
There was no joy, and life was looking very depressing from the inside. All we knew to do was hang on and hope that things would pass and somehow we would survive. Praise God we had a very strong marriage, and our love for each other and our kids kept us going.
Eventually, we were introduced to a loving church in our neighboring town and found new relationships and fellowship; but we entered them with a guarded heart. Their powerful praise and worship was such a source of comfort to us that we found ourselves at church as soon as the doors opened.
Unfortunately, we weren’t able to carry the emotional high with us from one service until the next. Life was still like a bad dream, from which we couldn’t wake up. We were still in shock over what had happened to us, and our family continued to deal with the ripple effects of it all.
We didn’t understand that Christ was with us, that the hope of glory was in our spirit.
We didn’t even understand what the spirit was or how it related to us. We only knew God intellectually and emotionally. As a result of our lack of wisdom, we were scrambling to make it daily, wondering if the sun would ever shine on us, or if we would ever be able to move forward and live life as before.
The friends we had left would say, “I don’t know why God is allowing this to happen, but he must have a plan for your good. Maybe he is trying to teach you something.” One well-meaning person even said there was a dark cloud over my husband, whatever that means.
Truth is, we were getting our butts kicked by the enemy, and we foolishly thought that was God’s will. I didn’t understand everything, but somewhere inside of me I just knew that God was good and there was more to Him than what I had come to understand. Maybe the way others and myself had been taught to know Him… was wrong.