With A Little Help From My Friends

My best friend told me once that she struggled with why God allowed us to come to her community and church if it was going to result in so much hurt to people she loved.  Her straight-forward honesty is one of the things I love most about her, so this statement did not catch me off-guard or hurt my feelings.  It made sense that she felt that way.  My husband and I had met her and her husband about fourteen years prior in a “Nearly Married/Newly Married” Sunday school class.  It was like my soul had an immediate connection with hers, and that seemed true for our husbands as well.  My oldest was a baby then and the only child among us.  They treated him like family, and we saw them more often than a lot of our actual family, who lived an hour and a half away.  We were together several times a week, with lots of laughter and good times.  I was devastated when some health issues required them to move back home, closer to their families.  We still made an effort to get together for birthdays, holidays, and vacations.  And when we did, it was like no time was lost.  Eventually though, with the addition of more and more kids in both couples and my husband taking on more ministry roles and seminary work, our schedules didn’t allow us to get together as often.  

Years later, her pastor met with my husband to discuss an open ministry position at their church.  Though my husband had not been looking for a change, he felt a connection to this pastor and his vision for ministry, and we started a new chapter.  One that took us literally right up the street from our dear friends.  After looking all around town for a house that met our needs, the one we loved at first sight was within one mile of their house.  

Sometimes God moves ahead of you, preparing the way for what you don’t yet know you’ll need.  Perhaps the answer to my friend’s question was that God allowed us to come to her community and church so that in the worst days of my life, I would live within minutes of my best friend and have the love and support of some of the most wonderful people I’ve ever met.  

I made a lot of decisions back then based on the assumption that my husband would come back home, and when he did, I wanted people to be able to forgive him and mend their relationships.  For that reason, very few people knew the full extent of my pain.  My best friend and her husband were the two who witnessed first hand how badly the kids and I hurt.  Having been betrayed so deeply, I held a lot of people at a distance, unsure who I could trust anymore.  The few women who made it into my circle of trust were from my discipleship group at the time.  We had laughed and cried together for over a year.  They had seen in my countenance the worry that consumed me for months when I couldn’t speak of my concerns, and when the news came out, they were at the ready with prayer, scripture, and encouragement.  One in particular was also ready with wit and humor that my sad soul so desperately needed.  God knew when he formed that group how I would need those very people and their stories, some of which included infidelity, to help me when my story took an unexpected turn.  

I didn’t tell my family at all for a very long time.  Believing my husband would be with us again for holidays and family gatherings, I wanted them to go on as they always had, without the tension or hurt.  I learned long ago that you can forgive someone of a wrong done to you much easier than your family can, so I just didn’t want them to know.  My church family, however, already knew because they were hurting too.  They had loved and supported us through the years and during my husband’s transition from associate to senior pastor.  They had loved and supported us through the loss of my grandmother that raised me and when we lost our baby boy in miscarriage just a couple of months before the affair started.  The people of the church loved my husband, not just as a pastor but as a friend and sometimes, it seemed, like a son or a brother.  He led the church through a Renew remodeling campaign then led it into a discipleship program that had tremendously increased the number of people involved – not just from our church but in the community.  That discipleship program promoted community ministry projects every two months, so there were multiple outreaches done throughout the year, mobilizing people outside the walls of the building.  He was a funny, gifted speaker whose Gospel-driven sermons could engage members of all ages.  He rallied behind the children’s ministry and weekday program but also went on senior adult trips and enjoyed visiting the elderly in their homes.  Every member, young and old, loved that man, so every member was hurting alongside me when he walked away from the grace we all had extended.  

For a church to act in grace during a time of such tremendous shock and pain is a testament to their relationship with the Lord.  It’s no wonder my kids wanted to go back there after my husband left.  It was the church they’d grown up in.  They knew they were loved, and the people were the hands and feet of Jesus to us.  They brought in food, helped occupy and entertain the kids, fixed things around the house.  It seemed like anything that could break down waited to do so once my husband walked out the door.  Toilets, pool parts, the dryer, a water line to the fridge.  Little things that I had taken for granted all the years my husband was there to fix them, but little things that felt like really big things when the rest of the world seemed to be crumbling already.  

Some of the ladies drove me to OB appointments when my best friend couldn’t, and they insisted on giving me a baby shower even though it was my fourth child and despite the situation.  My six-year-old asked why it was called a baby shower when the baby wasn’t even here yet to get a bath and couldn’t stand for a shower.  I tried to explain to him that people “shower” the mom and baby with gifts and love.  I didn’t yet know how true that explanation would be.  It was as if the ladies of the church took all of their own hurt plus all the hurt they felt for the kids and me and channeled into a showing of love.  I opened gifts for about an hour and a half.  The most beautiful baby girl clothes.  Hand-made blankets and burp cloths.  Baskets and decorative things.  The travel system.  So many wonderful gifts for baby girl and me.  And gift cards that I held onto over the next six months and used for the kids’ Christmas gifts that year.  

We loaded my van and numerous ladies’ trunks with gifts for the short drive from the church to my house.  My living room floor was piled with baby things, and I stood looking at it all, amazed and truly humbled by how much God’s people loved my family.  My work friends had given me a wonderful shower earlier, and thanks to my best friend and her husband, the pack-and-play from my coworkers was set up in my room.  The baby would have a place to sleep, but I had no gumption for much else.  Her things were beautiful but also bittersweet because they were a reminder that my girl would be home soon, but her daddy was gone.  

He had painted the nursery before he left, but I had done little else to it since then.  I could barely stand to look at it as I passed going to the boys’ rooms because it was the last thing he did that seemed to express love for me.  I was content to let the baby sleep in my room until whatever time I had time, energy, and desire for something more in the nursery.  

Sometimes God sends a friend that is just pushy enough to get you moving when He knows you’ll end up regretting your lack of effort.  Such a friend came to me about the nursery.  She felt it was important to get the baby’s room ready and that it would make me feel better.  She volunteered to head up the project if I gave input.  Since I was lacking the energy to fight her, I agreed but turned over the reins to her.  She went to work.  Literally.  She sanded and painted a crib and dresser that her kids had outgrown so that my baby girl could have the white furniture I had hoped for.  She made wall-hangings that coordinated with the bedding and mixed them with beautiful things from my showers to decorate the walls and shelves.  She made a perfect space for us to bring the baby home when the time arrived.  And time was drawing near. 

My body felt the effects of late pregnancy.  I hurt, and my legs were pitting with edema.  I was exhausted from months without sleep.  The cesarean was scheduled, and arrangements were made for who was taking me and who would later bring the kids and grandmothers to the hospital.  There was a schedule for who was staying with me at the hospital and who would stay with me for the first week after baby and I came home.  

I had always been a planner, but this was one time that I hoped my husband would wreck my plans.  I wanted so badly for his return to make all my plans unnecessary.