Testimony Part V

This is Part 5 of my testimony.  The first four parts are listed in the previous posts.

As I ended the last post, I signed off with the glow of the earlier joyful days.  It is so bittersweet to remember the days of a new baby and a marriage I was madly in love with.  I finally had a family.  I finally was loved and belonged.  My husband, while quiet, showed me every day that he was committed to me and our little girl.  Each smile, each time her tiny hand reached out for us, we melted.  The three of us grew together and life was a dream come true.

We were in church every time the doors were opened.  My husband, Mark, would lay in bed next to me and tell me how happy he was.  I was so joyful in the Lord, and felt like a "real" Christian for the first time in my life.  I don't know why I just couldn't stop the nagging fears and feelings of insecurity from invading my perfect world.

The first time I had a classic "panic attack", I was about thirteen.  It went hand in hand with my descent into the dysfunctional relationship I had with Wayne.  I distinctly remember being in the car with a woman counselor who I was in a one-on-one discipleship program with.  All of a sudden, I felt that I was going to be sick.  I didn't know what to do, she opened the window so I could get fresh air, and drove me home.  As soon as I was alone, the feeling of panic went away.  This panic developed into a  phobia driven lifestyle, which would plague me for over two decades.

The first few years with my new little family were wonderful, and yet, I was still debilitated with social anxiety and intense jealousy of my husband.  I was so afraid he would leave, I sometimes pushed him away and was suspicious of everything he did.  I began to have irrational fears of being in crowds and public places to the point of having to leave the church services a few times during the message to go into the bathroom and splash water on my face.  I couldn't go out to dinner or be in a mall without being near an exit. I was so thankful for the grace of God, yet I hated myself for being so weak.  The Christianity I lived back then was one of duty and guilt - not because of the teaching at my church, but because of my inner battles and sense of self-loathing.  I translated my own disgust with myself to God's view of me, and I just kept working harder to be good enough.  The burden I lugged around in my fear-filled frame was eventually too heavy for me to carry.

When my baby Shelli was five months old, I had my first miscarriage.  I didn't know I was pregnant, and as the nurses wheeled me into surgery for a D&C, one let out her secret to the other one that she had just learned she was pregnant.  Her face went white when she realized I was losing a baby, and I comforted her by telling her I didn't know I was pregnant, so it was ok.  Inside, I was aching.  John, my pastor, and Gram and Grampy's son came to the hospital that day.  I loved him so much for that!  I don't think he every realized what that meant to me that day when everyone else acted like it was just a bump in the road.

A little over a year later, God blessed me with my little baby Danny.  He grew to be such a delight to me and his father!  Every day with our two little children was such a blessing.  We grew as a family and went through the first tooth, first day of school, first little league game and first girls' sleepovers.  Still the panic and jealousy pervaded my inner soul.  Still I worked as hard as I could to be the  best Christian possible.  I worked hard at being the best, the prettiest, the thinnest until one day, the world came crashing down.  I had two little children and I was under 100 pounds due to starvation.  I was admitted to the hospital to gain weight and for a complete mental "breakdown". Ten weeks later, I was released.  Embarrassed and angry at myself for losing the control I thought I had, I forged on, battling my weight and my inner demons.

As I worked at "arriving" spiritually, I nagged my husband to join me in my quest for perfection, begging him to pray with me and to be a better man.  He worked tirelessly night and day as a police officer and I kept the home fires burning, but was scattered and unorganized, secretly belittling myself for not being a good cook, a perfect housekeeper, a supermom.  On my quest to earn God's approval, I determined to read through the Bible in less than a year.  The first time I read it, I gave myself "brownie points" for accomplishing my goal in only five months.  I constantly compared myself to others, either chiding myself for not measuring up, or letting my pride get in the way if I thought I "did" Christianity better than those around me.

The second time I read the Bible through, I was sitting in my chair, absentmindedly rubbing my round belly, pregnant for the fourth time.  Shelli and Danny were four and two years old.  Finishing the chapter, I stood up and immediately began to hemorrhage.  Bent over in pain, I ran to the bathroom to get a towel, called Mark and rushed to the hospital.  The ultrasound showed that the baby was ok, and the bleeding subsided.  The next day, we went for a second ultrasound and were told the baby had died sometime in the night.  My options were to wait for my body to "deliver" the baby in the next week or two, or to go in for a procedure.  My belly was full, and the baby was gone.  I wanted the baby out.  The surgery was scheduled, and I fell asleep to the anesthesia with tears coursing down my face.  The next moment I was awake and led to a chair to sit for a while.  My hands reached down to my flat, empty belly.  Mark came in, knelt and put his head on my lap and cried.  Over the next few months, we turned completely to the Lord, and I praised myself inwardly for handling everything so well.  My faith grew and yet my concept of grace was still so wrong

Graced a year later with baby Michael, our miracle, life was busy and we were blessed!  I did my best to be a great mom, and the kids grew.  We built a house out in the country, Mark worked hard to provide for us, we became foster parents, and I threw myself into helping kids who needed to know they were loved.  I created a "Welcome Wagon" for new kids entering the system and became president of our area Foster Parent Association.  We took in adoption babies, and became an assessment home, helping to place kids with the right foster parents.  We had kids ranging from 2 days old to fifteen years, with our own three children lost in the crowd.  Our marriage became strained, and we began drinking to "destress" at the end of the day.  I began taking my panic medicine, and went to my room when things became too overwhelming.  When the foster kids were home with their parents and our own children with with their grandmother, Mark and I drank to get drunk.  We couldn't keep up the facade of the perfect family and marriage any longer.  We stopped going to church and fought each night behind closed doors, plodding along and accomplishing what we needed to do during the day to get by.

I heaped more and more on our plates, trying to be good enough, then blamed, accused and resented my husband for having nothing left for me at the end of the day. We sold the house and moved back to our old town in an effort to make life easier.  Then the end came.  I filed for separation because the fighting was too intense and I couldn't live with all the pressure I had added to our marriage.  There were angry confrontations.  Mark moved out on Christmas day.  The foster children moved on.  I had failed everyone, and Mark was awarded temporary physical custody of the kids in the first court hearing.  Shelli and Danny wanted to be with their dad because I was an angry, out of control mother they didn't recognize.  Michael left after I packed his backpack and gave him a picture of me to carry with him.  I was broken.  I wanted to die.

I called Gram and told her I had nothing left to live for.  She called Meredith and they brought me to her house.  I sobbed, trying to tell them I had no future.  All my energy spent to be perfect had made me emotionally and physically bankrupt.  Meredith pleaded with me to realize that this was not "the end".  Nothing they said meant anything to me.  My kids were gone and I was utterly alone.  They brought me back home where I was met with an ambulance to take me to the hospital.  I was admitted and was kept there for ten days.  During that time, I walked the halls a hundred times a day as a caged animal might.  I could barely breathe.  There was nothing waiting for me when I got out.  I didn't even have a ride home.  My sister called to encourage me, and I told her she was dead to me because of her honesty regarding my impending divorce.  I severed every relationship and burned each bridge my family tried to build for me.

Dear Father,
I didn't realize it then, but you were there, walking those hallways with me, willing me to live, to turn to You, to give you my pain.  I don't understand Your mercy and Your patience, and there are no words to thank You for Your love through it all!  Dear Lord, these words have been so difficult to write, and only You were there in the midst of all the chaos, loving us all!  God, Your grace is truly amazing.  Thank You for giving me new life so I can look back and testify to Your love through it all!  In Jesus' name...