Mary Graham

Trusty Chucks Blog

Rental Property: Before & After

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We never meant to be landlords.

It was an accident, actually. Chris bought a house when he shouldn’t have. When we got married, we outgrew it quickly. The housing bubble burst, and the mortgage went upside down. So it became an investment property that never made us any money. Every year we did our taxes, we sat at a loss, having to replace the water heater or the air conditioner or the furnace or the air conditioner again.

While we never made any tangible income from year to year, our tenants were paying the mortgage payment each month and we were earning equity.

This went on for eleven years.

A few years ago, we realized we wanted to sell the property, but we had renters in the house who told us they never wanted to leave and kept renewing their lease each year. We didn’t want to kick them out so we just kept being landlords.

In May, those never-going-to-leave tenants abandoned the property without finishing out their lease. The wife texted me on a Tuesday afternoon, said they moved out the prior weekend, and would not be paying the rest of the rent due.

We got a lawyer, a lot of extra bills, and a disgusting house to care for.

Eight years of tenants who never did any upkeep or let us know when things were leaking or falling apart left us with an overwhelming mess. After the stress of the last year and how horrible last summer was, we were looking forward to quiet rest with a low key summer. Swimming, reading books, grilling on the patio for dinner–nothing loud or stressful or time consuming. (I even wrote about how lazy our summer was going to be here!)

But suddenly we had a second mortgage to cover, a 30-minute drive to a house that needed a complete overhaul, and no spare time.

The last two months have been hard. Between the financial stress of another mortgage and the investment fixing the house took, things have been tighter than I planned. Chris and I (and my dad) are more than capable of remodeling a house, but it takes time and energy–things we didn’t have much of with Chris working ten to eleven hours a day and kids home from school for the summer.

But we did it. Two months of long weekends and evenings at the house got that shithole into a beautiful, cozy house ready to sell. It was a blessing in disguise our renters disappeared when they did. While I would have said we didn’t have time or the resources to do this, we had exactly what we needed at just the right time to take care of everything that needed taken care of.

You’d think by now I would understand that’s how God works, but I am a slow, skeptical learner.

We listed the house last Thursday night as we headed out of town. We got showing requests almost instantly, and by Sunday afternoon we had an above-listing-price offer. We accepted and are now in the midst of inspections and appraisals and closing on the house.

The weight is slowly being lifted off. I don’t think I’ll believe it’s really over until we hand off the keys, but that we’re so close to being done with landlord status feels hopeful.

Often I don’t feel safe. I’m asked to do things I’m not ready for. I’m required to make choices without clear vision. I’m pushed to live outside my comfort zone and quiet safety.

This house has made everything feel unsafe and stressed. It felt physical, emotionally, and financially draining. We hoped it would sell quickly so we wouldn’t have to keep making two mortgage payments, but we didn’t actually know if it would happen. We just made daily choices about construction, remodeling, and bills hoping we were making wise choices that would benefit us later.

There’s a huge life lesson in that.

DANG IT. Why does everything have to be so hard and full of struggle and teachable?

Whatever. All I wanted to do was share some before-and-after pictures of the house. All I wanted to do was show you where we’ve been the past two months. All I wanted to do was show off some fresh paint and God was like, don’t forget what I did for you in this moment, and so I had to tell you that too. I can’t do anything without Him. Success or fail, He’s there. So, yes, here are some house pictures. But what didn’t show up on the images is God’s faithfulness in the unexpected journey of being landlords, and getting a house ready to sell.

OKAY. Pictures. Here’s what the house looked like once we got it cleaned out. It took us two weekends to empty it of trash, boxes, mattresses, junk, and filth. We paid a cleaning service to come and clean it before we even started work because it made me gag to be in there.

And the afters. These pictures are by Huff Photography so they just look better in general, but also, the house isn’t gross anymore so that helps too. We hired people to fix walls, ceilings, and paint everything, because it would have taken us weeks to get all of that done and professionals were able to do it in a week.

Want details? LUCKY YOU, here they are:

Interior paint: Every room is painted the same Olympus Gray SW 6253 from Sherwin-Williams. All trim and ceilings are just a standard, contractor white paint also from Sherwin-Williams.

Painters: We hired Mike Berry from All-American Painting. If you’re local, I highly recommend him.

Lighting: The kitchen light is from Home Depot (here). All other lighting is from Lowes. Master bedroom ceiling fan here. I can’t find the second bedroom light anywhere online; we got it in the store. Living room ceiling fan here. Patio light here.

Bathroom: We patched the existing tile and grout then painted Rust-Oleum Tub & Tile Refinishing Kit on it and the tub. It made it look brand new. It took two cans to complete the area; I originally ordered one hoping it would be enough. Don’t make that mistake, order two. From Lowes: toilet, vanity, faucet (this is the brushed nickel version; we used oil-rubbed bronze, but I can’t locate it online), mirror, vanity lights, vent. The flooring is American Olean Tranquil Stone in Warm Gray from Lowes with MAPEI Flexcolor Warm Gray Premixed grout (we also used this same gallon in the kitchen backsplash area).

Wood floors: We didn’t have in our budget to refinish the floors even though they were in desperate need of it. We used the Bona Hardwood Floor Care System to get them looking as good as we could. I cleaned everything with the Bona Hardwood Powerplus Deep Cleaner and then sealed them with the Bona Pro Series Hardwood Refinisher. I only had time for one coat, but each coat improves the shine and finish. This stuff is magical. (I strongly encourage you to buy the mop kit if you’re going to do this. I have it but accidentally left it at home so I scrubbed the floor and refinished it on my hands and knees. Please don’t do this. Just don’t.)

Kitchen flooring: Many of the original tile we put down in 2006 was damaged or coming up. We repaired or replaced all the broken pieces and then used a commercial-grade floor epoxy from Sherwin-Williams. This is not available at your local store, you have to visit the commercial warehouse to have it tinted and mixed. Also, it is NOT very cost effective. Ripping up the existing floor and redoing the whole thing would have taken us days which we didn’t have. So the extra money saved us tons of time. I would say just replace the floor if you have that option, but if not, this is what we used.

Kitchen backsplash: Standard subway tile sheets from Lowes with MAPEI Flexcolor Warm Gray Premixed grout.

Kitchen countertops: The countertops were structurally fine, but were really worn and faded in spots. We used Rust-Oleum Countertop Resurfacing Kit in Sandstone to paint them. It went on easily and as long as you use a foam roller to apply it, it goes on seamless and dries perfectly. If you don’t have new countertops in your budget, use this for an easy fix. (Disclosure: I don’t know how long these will hold up. Review sound favorable, but we are selling this house so we won’t actually live with this to see how the wear and tear goes.)

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Maybe we’re just not listening

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How do we know what the weather will be? Ellie asked as we were driving down a bumpy country road.

The weather people go to college to learn about weather patterns and then they make predictions. So it’s really an educated guess, because we don’t really know exactly what God has in store with the weather, I replied.

She processed through this thought for a minute then replied almost to herself, Maybe He’s telling us and we’re just not listening.

I kept driving, and we settled into silence as her words sunk in.

She’s probably right. Not specifically about the weather, but about God, about how He’s probably communicating with us more than we realize, about how we’re not paying attention enough to hear it.

Greg Boyle in Barking to the Choir says, “When imagining the sacred, we think of church sanctuary instead of living room; chalice instead of cup; ordained male priest instead of, well, ourselves. But lo–which is to say look–right before your eyes, the holy is happening, even if you are hesitant to believe it.”

We think God can speak to us in church, but we never think He can speak to us as we drive down 1000 North heading toward the city for dinner. He can speak to us in the quiet, but of course He can’t speak to us in the loud room full of children and chaos.

But what if He can and He is and we’re just not paying attention? What if we’re just not listening?

I’d say our phones make it hard for us to see.

I’d say our televisions make it hard for us to hear.

I’d say our schedules make it hard for us to notice.

I’d say our relationships make it hard for us to be aware.

If we took the word “luck” out of our vocabulary and replaced it with “God showing off” or “God reminding me He’s caring for me,” we’d start to become more aware of the everyday spots He’s showing up and clamoring for our attention.

Luck says no one is paying attention or in control. Showing off says my Father sees me.

Luck says I don’t matter and this coincidence doesn’t mean anything. He’s caring for me says I matter.

Sometimes the luck-that’s-not-really-luck is just for our joy or thrill too. If you’re a parent, you know how amazing it feels to make your kid smile or laugh. The Father is the same way, taking joy when He fills us with wonder or thrill.

Maybe He’s telling us and we’re just not listening.

Allowing our eyes to be wide and our ears to be open takes practice. We live in a world consumed with distracting us. Our society says do more, talk more, fill every moment with noise and living.

And that’s how we drown out His presence and His voice, when we leave no space for it. Of course He’s telling us things, we’re not here to do this alone, but we think we have to. And if we’re never really listening and looking for Him, are we experiencing everything we’re made to?

It’s easy to talk about sin and its hold on us when it’s pornography, when it’s pride, when it’s addiction or love of money. But the Enemy is sneakier than we could ever imagine; what if his biggest scheme of all is keeping us busy, blind, and deaf? How likely are we to truly understand God’s authority or power or wonder if we aren’t even paying attention enough to realize its extent? The Enemy can easily keep us quiet about something we only vaguely know about and rarely see.

Maybe He’s telling us and we’re just not listening.

I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along the line, we were told God was pretty black and white. He spoke to us through prophets, but they’re all dead now. He did miracles, but those are all in the Bible. He might move your spirit, but you’ll need to be in church for that.

Little tiny box, meet our God.

God, meet our little tiny box.

Once we got Him in that box, our eyes got used to seeing only what we thought we should see and our ears got used to hearing only what others told us we should hear. But that’s not how God works. It’s not how He works in the Bible stories we read so we can infer that’s not how He works now.

We know God’s character doesn’t change, He is the same today, tomorrow, and forevermore. So if we take that truth and apply it to our lives today, we know He’s still speaking to us through wise men and women, He’s still doing miracles every day, and He’s still talking to us if we listen.

Maybe He’s telling us and we’re just not listening.

If this sounds crazy to you, don’t take my word for it. I’m not that smart, I’m just telling you what has been evident in my life through studying Scripture and pursuing a relationship with Him. I’m not doing anything special or unique. I’m not doing anything not available to everyone else.

“I don’t think the way you think.
    The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
        God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
    so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
    and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
    and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
    producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.
-Isaiah 55:8-11, The Message version

If God’s telling us He doesn’t work the same way we work, why do we keep looking for Him in the same places we’d be? If God’s telling us His thinking is beyond our thinking, why do we keep assuming we know what’s on His mind and what He’ll do?

Maybe He’s telling us and we’re just not listening.

I think listening starts with knowledge. You can’t hear what you aren’t aware of. So we begin listening to His Word, getting to know God’s character and love, and then we see and hear differently. Better. More like Him.

Then, maybe, when He is telling us things, we will be better at listening.

burning down

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(A note: I wrote this in the fall of 2017. I’ve been rummaging through my drafts and half-written pieces trying to see if anything is worth finishing.)

What’s great about your life burning down around you is you see who can walk through fire and who lets the fire consume them.

Because both of those things are happening right now.

I don’t blame those who are going down in the flames. I am not shocked by the people lying down because it’s too hot, it’s too hard, it’s too intense.

I get it.

Sometimes I think about surrender too.

But then someone comes through. With a text message of a verse they’re praying over my family. With a song they’re singing as they bring our broken hearts to God. With a package delivered to my front porch to help encourage or care for me. With food to feed my kids and give me a moment to rest.

The ones who are battling the fire with me, those are the ones who will be invited to the rebuilding.

And the rest, the rest, I wish well.

I have gotten a lot of advice through this season I’m stuck in. It has all been with the best intentions. I am humbled and overwhelmed with the love and encouragement we’ve been given. All four of us.

I don’t take all the advice I’ve been given. I will say thank you. I will say I appreciate you. I will say I’m grateful. But to gain influence in my life, that’s a different story.

When you’re struggling to stand, it’s really obvious who is dragging your lifeless body to the foot of the Cross and screaming prayers for you. When you’re not sure which way is up, it’s really obvious who is storming the throne of the Lord with words you can’t say for yourself. When you can’t feel your legs, it’s really obvious who is getting down on the ground to cover you with His love and mercy.

You can’t fake that.

You also can’t expect it from everyone.

Here’s what is weird to have to say out loud, but it’s become apparent I need to:

You can love both Chris and I during this mess. There is no side to pick. We’re all on the same team. We all want the same outcome–health for our family, recovery from addiction. We’re not against each other. We’re against the sin and brokenness of this world and how tight Satan’s grip is.

If you’re fighting against one of us, if you’re fighting against the experts who are trying to help–why?

I know this says more about you than either of us, but dang.

Here’s what I’m learning about hard, necessary change:

Some people who love you will fight it.

It doesn’t make you wrong. If you’re seeking Godly counsel, spending time with wise therapists, reading books, and doing the scary, heartbreaking work of changing dangerous patterns and cycles in your life, some people will not like it because they need you unhealthy.

Unhealthy people don’t like healthy people. That’s too exposing for them. That requires them to do hard work too.

Let the people who are most vocal about your changing, the people who want to stand in the way the most, go down in the flames.

You don’t wish them harm. You don’t talk bad about them. You don’t do it publicly and loudly, but you let them go. The truth is we are not meant for everyone. The truth is some people are just with us for a season. The truth is sometimes it’s family members that cause the most damage and are the first ones who need to go away.

People have a way of showing you their true colors when things are on fire. Trust what you see. Trust what they’re telling you with their words and actions or lack of. People always show you who they are eventually. Believe them.

Then let the dangerous, unhealthy ones go.

My parents love Chris. They love our family and want Chris to be healthy and sober and present with us. But they have also made it clear they understand the reality of this situation, that it is much bigger than we imagined, and they will support me if I decide to end my marriage.

Their hearts will break, but truthfully, they’re already broken. I’m not sure anyone can make it out of this wildfire without a broken heart. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like there can be a positive or a bright side to anything.

I’m repeating this because it’s important:

You can love both Chris and I during this mess. There is no side to pick. We’re all on the same team. We all want the same outcome–health for our family, recovery from addiction. We’re not against each other. We’re against the sin and brokenness of this world and how tight Satan’s grip is.

And then I want to make it about you too, in case this post feels too close for comfort, in case this burning building resembles your life too:

There is no picking sides in the argument, disagreement, divorce, betrayal, lies you’re in. We’re all on the same team. We all want the same outcome–health, safety, happiness, love, acceptance, joy, freedom. We’re not against each other. We’re against the sin and brokenness of this world and how tight Satan’s grip is.

Remember whose team you are on. Remember who is on your team. Remember we might lose some people in this mess, but those people probably needed to go anyway.

 

 

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a million little things happening at just the right time

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“Fear is good. The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” -Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art.

I am scared and nervous to say this out loud. I’ve been testing the waters, sharing with people, for a few weeks now, and it has not gotten less scary.

Things you should know about me:
-I have a plan for everything. Even my plans have plans.
-I am not a risk taker when it comes to finances. We have retirement plans I think about often, long-term financial goals, and safety nets set up at every turn.
-I have had a job and a steady paycheck since turning 16. I am currently 36, and, while math is not my strong suit, that means I’ve been working non-stop for 20 years.
-I like working; I’ve been the main breadwinner our entire marriage and have a sense of pride about that.
-I work hard; teaching, tutoring, full-time job while in college, part-time jobs if I felt like I had too much free time, writing and blogging nights and weekends in between teaching and parenting and coaching.
-I never stop; maybe it’s an Enneagram 8 thing, maybe it’s an oldest child thing, maybe it’s an anxiety thing. But I don’t stop doing things. Projects, writing, home remodeling, cleaning, creating, traveling, reading, I am always working on three things and getting ready for the next ten.
-I am making this list to make myself feel better and to justify (to myself, and possibly you, too…) what I’m about to tell you.

When I learned last fall that my school was closing, it didn’t feel real.

Then this spring when I had time to process what was happening, it became very real.

Today is my last day of school. I’ll spend the afternoon at field day at a local park then I’ll come home, work on finalizing my grades, and finish up a few loose ends. I’ll turn my laptop and teaching supplies in on Tuesday.

I’ll be officially without a school or a job.

And I won’t be applying for a new one.

We are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. -Ephesians 2:10, NRSV

I am a writer.

I don’t say that to brag or boast. It’s just what I am. I can tell you with absolute certainty I was created to write and encourage and say hard things and point people to Jesus.

We’re all created for that last one, but I know the way I’m supposed to do it is through writing words.

And so I’m going to do it. Full time.

I’m taking this God-given skill and pushing into it really hard and with lots of focus to see what He wants to do with it. And what’s scary and exciting to say is the SECOND I let myself imagine not going back to teaching next year, things started happening. Things that non-believers would call coincidence, but Jesus followers know has absolutely nothing to do with chance.

Things like the renters who have lived in our rental property for eight years suddenly abandoning the house and breaking their lease at just the moment when we have the resources to get the house ready to sell. At just the moment the Indy market is hot and we could make a pretty substantial profit. At just the moment when the profit could cover our mortgage for a year while I go after a scary dream.

Things like all the interviews I had for teaching jobs being cancelled and not rescheduled. It felt too irresponsible to just decide to not find a new job without at least sending out resumes and accepting requests for interviews. But then after things were scheduled, interviews were cancelled. All of them.

Things like Chris getting a new job in the spring and for the first time in his life, he has health insurance and retirement and all the things we’d need if I was to give up my job and benefits.

And a million other little things happening at just the right time.

Yesterday in my counseling session, I told my therapist it almost felt defiant and dangerous to not take this jump. Like I would be saying no thanks to all the answers and things God’s giving me that I have been begging for forever. I’ve written about hesitating when God answers my prayers before, and it still feels silly to question but I’m doing it anyway (see list above for explanation).

“I do know from many of my interviews with people who have embraced a God-given dream that it’s not uncommon to feel some strong reservations to welcome that dream. A voice inside rises up in protest and questions, Who do you think you are? As David Benner suggests, we learn to distrust our desires; we assume that they are too much or too selfish to admit to ourselves, let alone anyone else. And yet what if our desires are the most direct access to the subtle work of the Spirit within us?” –Starting Something New: Spiritual Direction for Your God-Given Dream by Beth A. Booram.

My friend Brittany heard my tentative whispers to this career change and immediately sent me the above book. I was scared to read it, because what if this book leads me to the answer of no? What if working through this process shows me I’m just being lazy and selfish and dreamy?

But the opposite has happened. That book has set a fire inside of me. Or as the book says, I “immediately felt a distinct blend of deep fear and deep joy.”

That’s what this is. Deep fear and deep joy. Simultaneously.

Last month during my morning quiet time, I read the David and Goliath chapter in the book I referenced yesterday. When I say I had to sit with that story for weeks, I am not exaggerating. I’ve thought constantly of the character of God, I’ve thought constantly of the things I’ve learned through a lifetime of following him.

God is faithful.
God is my provider.
God is my peace.
God is more creative than I could ever be.
God is my guide.
God has never left me.
God answers my prayers.
God goes before me.

So I’m doing this. I’m giving myself one year to see if I can make a career out of writing and creating. I’m giving myself one year to see if I can support my family doing this. I’m giving myself one year to see where God leads, what comes from being scared-but-trusting.

I am trusting God to do what he has always done in the life of his faithful followers, me included.

I am trusting God that if I live by faith and make choices based on his never-changing character, he will be faithful as well.

I am so so scared.

I am so so excited.

And, as of next week, I am so so unemployed.

Here we go. *deep breath*

 

“This is the season she will make beautiful things. Not perfect things but honest things that speak to who she is and who she is called to be.” -Morgan Harper Nichols

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Photography by Huff Photography

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The worst day of my life

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I don’t have many bad days. It takes a lot to get to me.

But Wednesday, September 23, 2017 was the absolute worst day of my life.

My husband had been gone about a month. The girls and I were in a routine by now, packing lunches, gathering the trash on Monday nights, making sure clothes were clean and baths were done semi-regularly.

I was sad, but I didn’t feel alone.

I got the girls on the bus like I did every morning, and then had twenty minutes to get the house and myself in order before I sat down to work for the day. I have, for the past few years, worked at a virtual charter school, teaching freshman and sophomore English online after spending ten years in a brick-and-mortar classroom.

My school day begins at 8:00 and those precious few minutes before my office hours start help me get the house picked up from the morning chaos, make beds, get dressed, and start some laundry.

As I settled into my desk chair, I opened my virtual office for the morning and began checking emails.

And there, second email from the top, was the unexpected announcement that the school board had decided, at the end of the current school year, to close our school.

I would be unemployed in June.

I would be a teacher without a school.

I say “unexpected” but I don’t mean this was completely out of left field. When I hired on at the school, it was failing. They were working hard to improve and were doing lots of innovative things in a field that was not mainstream or well understood. I liked the challenge of a new way of teaching, plus the ability to be home more with my daughters.

So I took a $17,000 pay cut and jumped in.

But our school never stopped failing. The longer I was employed as a virtual teacher, the more I realized we were a place for disengaged students and families to hide from the system. We were serving a need for kids who had medical issues and couldn’t attend regular school; we were a refuge for bullied and special needs kids; we were a good fit for kids training to be professional athletes, actors, and singers. I’ve had students who traveled the semi-pro bowling tour, the rodeo circuit as a family of clowns, and kids working full-time in off-Broadway productions. We also served a lot of families who wanted to homeschool their kids, but don’t want to make all the curriculum decisions.

But that was only about half of my student roster each year. The other half were kids who had been expelled from their last school and came to us because Indiana law says you have to go to school. The other half were kids whose families moved around a lot, kids who were grade levels behind in reading, who thought virtual school was easier and didn’t want to actually do any work.

Virtual school is hard. It’s not for everyone.

But no one seemed to tell students and families about that part so we just kept enrolling missing-in-action kids and then wondering why we were a failing school.

Finally the board was tired of fighting the state to keep us open, it was too much work to jump through all the hoops they required, so they just gave up.

8:05 AM: I had eight and a half months left of my job.

The thing about teaching online is you sit on your butt all day. And sometimes it drives you crazy.

Early afternoon, I put my dog on his leash and we headed outside. It was sunny, the weather was finally cooling off, and I needed some fresh air.

As Blue and I strolled down the driveway to get the mail, I heard a deafening crunch to my right and turned my head just in time to see two cars going airborne through the intersection southeast of our property.

I turned around and ran back inside, shoved the dog in the house, and grabbed my phone. As I ran down the hill toward the wreck, all I could hear was the blood pumping in my ears and the horrible screams of a woman trapped in one of the cars.

I dialed 911 as cars pulled over to help. No one was moving in either vehicle and smoke was barreling out of the diesel truck parked about 75 feet from the road, right where my grandpa once grew corn and squash.

The screaming didn’t stop. At one point before help arrived, I assumed there was a child inside the truck because someone kept yelling, “I want my mom!” But once emergency responders arrived, I saw it was a grown woman who just really wanted her mom as she sat stuck in her smashed truck in the middle of someone’s yard.

Paramedics and police arrived. They removed an elderly lady who had run the stop sign on our road and then helped a man and woman out of their truck. He was able to walk to the ambulance, she was not.

I stayed until police were done with their paperwork, answering questions and telling them what little I saw.

1:55 PM: Witness a horrific accident and hope everyone lives.

By the time everything settled down, the girls got home, we did homework, and then rushed to have a quick dinner before Harper’s soccer practice.

At around 5:00, I realized I hadn’t heard from Chris that day. In the chaos of so many unexpected events, I lost track of time, lost track of my responsibilities, lost track of my alcoholic, estranged husband.

And when I finally texted him and read his response, I knew immediately he’d been drinking.

I don’t want to write that story again. It doesn’t need more space or attention. It’s here if you’d like to read it.

But by 10:00 that night, I was checking my drunk husband into a rehabilitation center as a last hope to sober him up, as a last hope to save him from himself and his demons.

My friend Adam drove me back to Indy that night. I wasn’t too upset to drive. I wasn’t distraught. I was just tired. Maybe in shock.

Shock because I don’t really have bad days. Shock because it takes a lot to get me down.

But in the span of less than 24 hours, I’d lost my job, witnessed a horrific car accident, and admitted my husband to rehab.

It was, as far as I could tell, the worst day of my life.

 

(This isn’t the end, I promise. Come back tomorrow. As always, I’ve got more to tell you.)

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You are going to be okay.

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I sat next to Chris at church last weekend as we listened to the sermon.

He drank his Coke, and I took notes.

The Coke can was a trigger for me. I knew what the Coke can meant a year ago. Exactly one year ago, actually. He was playing bass in the worship band, and I was at home with the girls. I wouldn’t know until a few days later that he had a drinking problem, but Sunday, one year ago Sunday, was when it all started falling apart.

Although, that’s not very accurate, because it had been falling apart for a while. It was just that Sunday, a year ago, with that red Coke can that it all stumbled out into the cold, hard light of day.

I’ve known this day was coming. In a way, I’ve been bracing myself for it. In a random turn of events, Chris was asked to fill in with the worship band on the one year anniversary of his downfall.

I see you, God. Very, very funny. We’re all amused.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I would have wanted to know a year ago. A year ago, I didn’t know what was coming. Chris had been caught drunk, people had confronted him, but I didn’t yet know.

That admission would come in a few days.

I remember Chris coming home the day before he told me about his drinking. He sat through dinner quiet. I could tell something was wrong and asked a few times if he was okay.

He said he was.

After dinner, the girls ran outside to play, and we sat at the table together. I took out my phone and showed him a funny website my friend Brittany had shared with me on Twitter. Some of the memes on there had made me cry-laugh earlier that day.

I thought they would cheer him up.

Instead he just watched me laughing, barely looking at the screen. At the end, I commented on how I couldn’t believe he didn’t think those were funny, and he just smiled wistfully at me.

He knew what was coming.

I did not.

But through the magic of the internet, I can tell myself now, a year later, what I would have whispered to myself to prepare for the collapse of my marriage, my trust, my finances, and my family.

Sometimes I think about those moments before. How safe and innocent I felt even though I knew something was wrong. I think about those moments we all have, right before we learn of the car accident or the heart attack. The moment before we get the phone call or the police visit.

I often think about the moment right before we collapse.

And here is what I want us–all of us–to remember in the right-before and the during:

You are going to be okay.

You are going to feel like dying. You are not dying.

Your heart will break. And just when you think it’s done breaking, it will break again in new, more painful ways. Do not give up.

You will want to give up every day. When the thought of giving up comes (and it will), acknowledge it and then let it go. A thought does not have to become reality.

People say hurtful things. When hurt people say hurtful things, it doesn’t change your reality or truth. You are not dumb. You are not weak. You are not a waste of time or space. You are worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of honesty.

You will get through this.

You are going to be okay.

You might lose some people during this crisis. Don’t hold too tightly to anything right now; you’ll lose some things, but gain things too.

Sometimes there is no reason. I would like to say it will all come full circle, but this side of heaven, I just don’t think we all get that luxury. Keep going anyway.

You will do the best you can in the moment and not be too hard on yourself. As we grow and learn, we do better. Just keep learning and growing, even when it hurts.

You are going to be okay.

Laugh. Laugh at weird, horrible things. Make inappropriate jokes. Laugh so you don’t cry. Laugh-cry. Then just cry. All of this is acceptable.

Don’t rush your life. Don’t rush your choices. Don’t rush your healing. When you’re in survival mode, it’s okay to let some things fall away. When it’s time, you can pick them back up again. But let some things go for now.

Time is a great healer, but spend the time well. Demand health and boundaries for yourself. When so much of your life feels out of your control, you can control how well you are caring for yourself.

Let others help you.

It will never work out the way you plan. Remember what you can control and all the things you can not.

You’re going to be okay.

You’re going to be okay.

You’re going to be okay.

You are okay.

I’ve written about May 3rd before. Check that out here. It’s the start of a series, so if you want to start from the beginning, start here.

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Sitting in it

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I’m in a hurry.

Always thinking about what’s next, where I need to be, what I should be doing after this. I’m not busy (you know I hate that word…), and I don’t have more to do than the average adult-ish person, but I’m in a hurry about it nonetheless.

Why wasn’t this done yesterday?

So when the wheels fell off last summer and continued to fall off into the fall and winter, I was beyond tired. Not just with the chaos and hurt that was happening, but with how unhurried I had to be about it.

I would go to counseling each week and feel like nothing was changing.

Still angry? Check.
Still depressed? Check.
Still distrustful? Check.
Still want to end my marriage? Check.
Still hate everyone? Check.

Why weren’t things getting better? Why wasn’t I moving on and healing faster? I was doing everything I was supposed to. I HAD A CHECKLIST. I WAS DOING WHAT ALL THE BOOKS SAID.

But my counselor just told me to keep sitting in it. To stop hurrying the process, to stop trying to skip steps.

Because if I didn’t go through all the emotions, anger, hurt, shock, and brokenness slowly, I would have to come back to it. It wouldn’t go away if I ignored it. It would eventually rear its ugly head again, coming back with a vengeance.

So I had to sit in my suffering.

I had to sit in anger and sadness and hurt. I had to sit quietly with my broken heart and just let it be broken for a while.

There was no way I could jump ahead without becoming unhealthy. I couldn’t skip a step in the process.

And that made me mad. I didn’t have time for this. I had girls to care for. I had finances to worry about. I had work to do and places to be.

Life was still going on in the midst of all the things breaking in my personal life. The mortgage company didn’t care that my husband was an alcoholic in rehab. The soccer schedule didn’t bother to ask if I was tired from running my kids everywhere all the time. My students didn’t know I was crying myself to sleep at night and then pretending to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for class each morning.

Here’s what was (and still sometimes is) the hardest part to understand and feel fully for me:

I am grieving my marriage.

Even as things slowly feel less horrible and dead, I am still grieving my marriage. And grief takes time.

It took multiple therapy sessions to understand what this meant for me. Because in the midst of some healing and moments of hope, I am still full of grief and mourning. For what I imagined my marriage was. For what I dreamed my marriage would be. For what my marriage actually is.

I am married to an addict and an alcoholic. I did not envision this for my future, for my marriage, for my life, for my daughters.

Accepting what-is versus what-I-thought-was knocked me down hard. And even in the present where Chris has been sober for a few months and seems to be coming back to life, I am full of grief for what he promised me, what he pretended, and what he actually did.

So many things died in 2017.

And if I don’t mourn them, they will not heal.

I read a lot of books, and I can’t seem to find any that give tips and tricks to make this grief or anger go away. Time helps. Jesus helps. But nothing is quick and easy.

So I just get to sit. It’s the opposite of fast and hurry, and it feels so uncomfortable.

Sitting in our pain and hurt is hard. I imagine it like this current winter/spring battle the weather in Indiana is currently doing. I wake up one morning and it’s sunny and warm out, things feel alive and hopeful. Then by nightfall, winter has pushed its way back in, bringing with it snow and frigid temperatures. It’s a tease, a dance between hopeful and barren.

I feel both many times a day; I feel light and encouraged, followed by moments of despair and sadness.

And I have to sit in both, feel them both, acknowledge them both.

When the calendar says “first day of spring” it should STAY WARM AND SUNNY.

When I’ve done enough things on my checklist, the grief and sadness SHOULD BE DONE HERE.

If only it were that easy.

If only if I was in charge of the process.

What I wish is for a broken-heart leave of absence. You could fill out some forms, submit a report of all the things that have collapsed, and then the world would agree to be extra gentle with you. Everyone would be notified so you wouldn’t have to answer awkward questions or explain things, and you’d get some time to just sit in the sadness.

But alas, the world keeps spinning and you have to keep going.

I know there is good in that too, but sometimes it just feels like too much. Sitting in something–anything–feels like being left behind. Like everyone else is moving on, but I can’t.

But I know the truth is this is where I’m supposed to be. Doing the hard work, doing the digging and dying and rebuilding. Doing the things that feel the most painful so that on the other side, there can be true healing and recovery. We can’t get there with a checklist or a calendar or an end date.

The sitting takes time.

The healing takes time.

The beauty again takes time.

If you’re feeling weary in the waiting, if you’re feeling beat up in the sitting, here are some verses that are comforting me in the stuckness I’m feeling:

I have made you.
I will carry you.
I will sustain you.
I will rescue you.
-Isaiah 46:4

Again, God’s message:
“I’ll turn things around for Jacob.
I’ll compassionately come in and rebuild homes.
The town will be rebuilt on its old foundations;
the mansions will be splendid again.
Thanksgiving will pour out of the windows:
laughter will spill through the doors.
Things will get better and better.
Depression days are over.
They’ll thrive, they’ll flourish.
The days of contempt will be over.
They’ll look forward to having children again,
to being in community in which I take pride.”
-Isaiah 30

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Rotten Apple

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We have an apple tree in our backyard.

It’s past its prime, but still produces apples every summer. Mostly it’s ignored. The only time I really think about it is in the fall when I’m mowing over the rotten apples as they slowly sink into the ground surrounded by crunchy leaves.

This year one apple remained on the branch long after fall had passed and winter settled in.

It’s still there, right now, at the beginning of April, months after everything else has fallen down. It’s rotting on the branch, ugly and black. But still hanging on for dear life. The girls have noticed it and so have I. Every once in a while someone will comment about it still being there. You can see it from the back door, and I often check on it while I’m waiting for the dog to come back from his restroom break.

I think about that rotten apple a lot. How it’s desperately clinging to something it needs to let go of. How it’s getting dead and rotten and nasty on the branch instead of just falling to the ground to begin the beautiful work of becoming soil and nutrients and fertilizer for the new spring grass I desperately want to grow.

I think that apple looks like a lot of us: unhealthy and clinging to the familiar even though everything around us is telling us the season has changed and we need to as well.

In college, I dated a guy for four years. We broke up often and fought all the time, but we were both too stubborn and immature to say this wasn’t working or healthy and it needed to end once and for all.

a time to search and a time to give up

It took a while to figure out how much we had damaged each other and to see, with clear eyes, just how much we had lost by clinging to something dead. I know everyone around us saw it, but we couldn’t. We were too close to the madness.

a time to plant and a time to uproot

When Chris went to rehab, he had to work through a lot of reality problems. I call them “reality problems” because his view was so skewed and off, he didn’t even realize what he was seeing wasn’t truth.

He thought his marriage was okay.

He thought his kids weren’t affected by his disconnect.

He thought his driving wasn’t impaired while drinking.

He thought his speech wasn’t slurred while hiding in the garage with his alcohol.

He thought his wife was happy.

The season had changed and he hadn’t kept up, clinging to an idea he had from years before when he wasn’t drinking and things were better. He couldn’t see that he had changed so he couldn’t see that everything else had as well.

a time to tear down and a time to build

A rotten apple clinging to the past at the expense of becoming something different and better.

 

There is a time for everything,
a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Things end. They crumble. They die. They hurt.

Not everything created should last forever. I love Indiana sweet corn but part of what makes it so great is it is only available near the end of summer, for just a blip on the calendar. We have to wait patiently for the corn to grow and the sun to do it’s work before we get to experience the sweetness. There has to be rain and heat and rich soil. There has to be prep work and sweat before we get the reward.

It wouldn’t be as good or as memorable if we had it year round.

a time to plant and a time to uproot

In my mid-twenties, I realized a friendship that had been limping along for over a decade was unhealthy. I had passing thoughts before that she wasn’t good for me, but the final straw was when she refused to acknowledge I was pregnant with Ellie because she didn’t like that I waited so long to tell her. She pretended my baby didn’t exist. And then she moved back in town and I tried to act like it didn’t hurt.

But it did. And as Ellie got older, I realized that I didn’t want someone in my life who couldn’t, because of her own sin issues,  want to celebrate this precious baby we had. Suddenly, I saw her with different eyes. I saw the way she allowed herself to wallow in sin while condemning others loudly. I saw how she only called me when she wanted to gossip or get information on someone. And so I spoke out in love on her pretending, she got mad, and that was the end of that.

I knew it would happen. It was time.

a time to be silent and a time to speak

Our world is saturated with catchy slogans to encourage us to live our best lives! to seize the day! and to remind us that we only live once! But so much of that goes against what God teaches us, that while there will be best days, days to seize, and once-in-a-lifetime moments, those are just for seasons. If there will be those days, there will also be the opposite of those days.

There will be horrible days, days we want to forget, and everyday moments that blend into the millions of other everyday moments.

We get both.

Both are necessary.

We have to fall, be destroyed, and then be rebuilt. Every season, every week, every day.

Sometimes we have to let the apple fall. It’s rotten anyway. Letting go is hard and scary and painful, but what comes next is just as sweet. He promises us that.

Joy of the Redeemed

The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendor of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendor of our God.
Isaiah 35: 1-2

Learning that Changed Everything, Part II

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I grew up not knowing much about Jewish culture or the influence it had on the Bible I was supposed to be reading. I could be mis-remembering, but I feel like the Jewish part of Jesus and the Jewish part of the Old Testament got skipped over a lot when I was learning about the Bible for the first time years ago.

But if you spend any amount of time in the Old Testament, you can’t miss the Jewish heritage, the Jewish tradition, the Jewish faith, and then, in the New Testament, the Jewish parents who had a Jewish baby born to saves us; the Jewish rabbi who opened the gates of Heaven for all of us.

So I started paying attention to Judaism. How it shaped my Jesus-follower beliefs, how it is woven into the fabric of scripture and relationship, tradition and the very being of my Savior.

I wondered what I was missing out on because I seemed to discount the Judaism in my Jesus.

And then, when all the wheels fell of last fall (every single wheel, some wheels I didn’t even know existed), people started showing up.

And it felt like shiva.

I was mourning the death of my marriage, of the life I thought I had, and people just started showing up. People came to my house, to restaurants, to me in the pew at church, and they sat down with me in my grief.

One of the worst things (actually, there are a lot of “worst” things about marriages collapsing and addiction and families falling apart, but I don’t have time to rank them accordingly) about last fall was the way people tried to help but actually didn’t. When someone is knocked down hard, here are things they don’t want to hear:

Everything happens for a reason.

God has a plan for this.

At least ____ didn’t happen.

God never gives you more than you can handle.

Let me know if you need anything.

THESE ARE HORRIBLE THINGS TO SAY TO PEOPLE. If you’re saying them, stop immediately. You’re saying them because you want to make sense out of something that doesn’t (and might not ever) make sense. You want to make yourself feel better and you want to think you did something.

The act of sitting shiva is the Jewish tradition of structured mourning after a loved one passes. It’s often held in an immediate family member’s home and lasts at least seven days. While there is no timeline for grief, shiva is the first “official” time after someone’s death where people show up and literally take care of the survivors; feeding them, sitting with them, caring for them, being physically near to do anything (or nothing) a person who is overwhelmed with grief might need.

Last fall, people showed up for me as I struggled with grief and loss; feeding me, doing my dishes, caring for my children.

As I spent the year working my way through the Bible, I paid more and more attention to the Jewish heritage that becomes everyone’s heritage if they are Christ followers. So I began to wonder what parts of Jesus’ life and religious practices should still be a part of my life, even as a Gentile. And then tragedy struck and the people in my life rushed over to be physically near me.

We talked if I wanted to talk. We were silent if I wanted to be silent. People served me and my daughters without asking, without checking in, without question.

When you say, “Let me know if you need anything” to someone struggling, it makes you, the speaker feel better. You offered. You spoke up. And if that’s all you’re going for–to make yourself feel better–your work here is done.

But sitting shiva with people we love means not asking.

Katie didn’t ask if she could bring us dinner, she texted and said, “What night would be best for me to bring dinner over?”

No one asked if they could collect my trash cans from the road on a Tuesday afternoon, they just did it.

People who had experienced their own grief or trauma or collapse sent books for encouragement if they couldn’t physically show up at my house. Books with notes saying this changed my life.

Krissy said, “I want to take you to a movie,” and showed up with a babysitter for my girls.

My sister said, “I’m storming the gates of Heaven with prayers and petitions, tell me what you need right now,” and I whispered scary things she took before the throne because I couldn’t.

I felt like the paraplegic in Mark who couldn’t show up to where Jesus was preaching because he couldn’t walk so his four friends made a hole in the roof of the crowded house to get him an audience with Jesus.

In my chronological reading of the Bible, I came to Mark 2 on October 25th. Chris had been gone two months at this point, he was about a month sober and living in a treatment center where he would be for an extended time. I felt tired and broken. And then I read of the paraplegic’s four friends.

After a few days, Jesus returned to Capernaum, and word got around that he was back home. A crowd gathered, jamming the entrance so no one could get in or out. He was teaching the Word. They brought a paraplegic to him, carried by four men. When they weren’t able to get in because of the crowd, they removed part of the roof and lowered the paraplegic on his stretcher. 

My friends knew I needed to get to Jesus, but I was weary and heartbroken and I didn’t have the strength to do it on my own. They knew where I needed to be but I couldn’t get there myself. So they fed me, they served me, they brought me to Jesus, because I couldn’t find the words or legs to do it myself.

They sat shiva with me in my mourning and grief and they carried me when I needed to go places.

I didn’t read the Bible much in September. Chris had just left, he was drinking more and it was painfully obvious he wasn’t able to stop on his own. I was so angry at him and the people who made excuses for him and the people who acted like there was nothing we could do.

I was mad because life was hard and there was no reason and a million reasons for it.

The people who made the most difference to me at that point in my life were the people who didn’t give me excuses, they didn’t give me safe Christian answers, they just showed up and said very little.

In a podcast recently, Kate Bowler said what she appreciates the most when hard stuff happens, is when people acknowledge it’s hard and don’t offer an excuse or explanation. “Sometimes the truest thing we can do for each other is to look honestly at one another’s pain and say, wow, I can honestly say that sucks.”

The Jewish tradition of sitting shiva is acknowledging things are bad right now and then sitting down with someone in the midst of it. Maybe that person needs to be carried somewhere, maybe that person needs to be fed or reminded to bathe. We can acknowledge grief and pain without trying to explain it away, we can show up when things are falling apart and just sit with someone. We can’t always help the falling-apartness. We can’t always fix the hole or the broken spots, but we can come along. We can carry their burdens. We can offer our legs and arms when theirs don’t work.

In late 2016 when I decided to buy the chronological Bible and then commit a year to reading it through, I didn’t realize God was putting in some safety nets. I didn’t know He was preparing me for so many bumps and bruises and loses. I’d been studying the Bible for years and suddenly He was like, Here’s the thing, you’re going to need this, ALL OF THIS, soon so let’s just start at the beginning.

I’m not far enough away from last year to share all the lessons. There is still so much to learn, to heal, to begin again. But everything shifted. I was reading the Bible, diving deeper into a relationship with God, as my marriage broke down right before my eyes. Now nothing is the same; not at home, not inside my heart, not in my marriage, not in my spirit.

I learned a million hard, painful lessons in 2017 and right along side me the whole time was this story of God’s love for me and for all of us. He taught me how to fight for freedom from sin, and He showed me the power of just showing up for others. I wish I could have learned those lessons in kinder, gentler ways, but then they probably would not have stuck.

 

Notes about this post:

-Part one is here.

-If you’d like to read more about Jesus and the paraplegic, the story is found in Mark 2. I shared the Message version above.

-The podcast I reference is Everything Happens with Kate Bowler; her interview with Nadia Bolz-Weber is season one, episode one and where the quote came from.

-Two sites I found helpful when learning more about sitting shiva were this one and this one.

-This is the Bible I read. I’ve recommended it a hundred times already, and I will not stop. Please get used to it.

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Learning that Changed Everything, Part I

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I’d never read the entire Bible, beginning to end, and I felt it was time.

So in January of 2017, I began on January 1st. Each day, I sat quietly with my Bible and my thoughts. I had spent the last few years getting in the routine of a morning spent with God. I had journaled and responded, written verses and prayers. But this time was different. This time, this Bible, was all about sitting and reading.

Each morning I read the commentary, the historical significance, and the way these passages related to the Bible as a whole. I gained new understanding, filled in holes I didn’t know I had, and was moved in profound ways.

The Bible seems to do that to you.

What was different this time was my lack of doing as I read the Bible. I didn’t know when I started in January, but I was preparing to receive more than give in 2017 and it was starting with scripture.

I don’t know if it’s the teacher in me or the way we’re taught to spend our quiet time with Jesus, but I had always been active in my devotional time: taking notes, responding to questions, writing out prayers, decorating with colorful pens, scrambling for knowledge, scribbling notes for things I would write, making scripture note cards to carry in my pocket as I went about my day.

None of those things are bad and there is value in each one of them.

But last year I felt very strongly I was just supposed to read and listen, learn and listen, understand and listen.

Mostly, I was supposed to listen.

I didn’t take many notes as I read through the Bible; occasionally I did, but mostly I just read and let it sit inside. I didn’t feel the need to write down what I was learning or the connections I was making. For someone who loves to fill notebooks and line them up on my shelves, this was hard and felt weird.

But I did it anyway.

I’d say that’s a product of the Spirit moving and less Mary Graham liking hard stuff. The more time I spent in the Word, the clearer God made Himself and His heart that I just read the Bible for a year.

*SIGH* Okay, got it. Just read and listen.

I learned a million lessons last year in the Bible. I know that seems like a dumb sentence to write, but I’ve been reading the Bible for years. It wasn’t like I just cracked it open in January and suddenly learned about Adam and Eve, King Solomon, and Paul. I got it; I knew those people already.

But something was shifting in me; I was living too many things reflected so clearly in the Bible stories I knew by heart. They suddenly became authentic, certain realities for me and everything felt different. I was reading stories I couldn’t politely distance myself from, and it was overwhelming and calming all at the same time.

Before 2017, I would have told you the New Testament was my section. Jesus, the Gospels, the parables–those are my jam. But last year changed that; last year I realized I’d been discounting the Old Testament as unrelateable and, um, old. Now I would argue with anyone who says the New Testament is where it’s at. I mean, yes, they are both amazing. But if you’re counting the OT out, I’m going to have to adamantly disagree.

I don’t have enough time, space, or energy to write about everything that changed last year for me in the midst of this Bible journey, but two life-changing things occurred and I can’t stop thinking about them.

The first one is the way generational sin broke my heart. Months before I knew my husband was an alcoholic, I was reading about the Israelites and their endless cycle of idolatry and forgetting the God who saved them. I would get so frustrated and annoyed with these people who were chosen by God, but kept living in a godless ways. I was seeing my own tendencies to learn and forget, to ask for forgiveness and then do the same thing again.

The self-reflection and self-evaluating those stories required me to do was hard and uncomfortable.

But what I thought was a hard, internal battle was suddenly made public and external when the cycle of addiction reared its ugly head again, when Chris said he was drinking and hiding it, when Chris was once again living in active addiction.

I understood generational sin, because I was living in it. I didn’t know it in the beginning. I didn’t know it for a lot of my marriage, because addicts and the people who love them hide things well. I didn’t know it, because I am always honest even if it hurts, but other people are never honest because it hurts.

Learning that changed everything.

I’ve received a lot of encouragement or compliments about my reactions to Chris’ addiction, how I handled things last fall, and what I refused to be ashamed about. I don’t take credit for those things when I hear them; there is no doubt in my mind I was given wisdom, discernment, and right steps, because I was steeped in scripture and in intimate relationship with my Creator. I did not get to avoid pain, betrayal, grief, denial, depression, or anger because of scripture and God, but I was able to handle it a little better.

It took months for truth to make its way to the surface. I often complained to my therapist it felt like it just kept getting worse, things kept being revealed and uncovered and more lies kept coming a long time after Chris was caught drunk in a very public way in May.

My therapist wisely pointed out the grace in learning horrible things slowly. She said if I had learned, all at once, what was happening, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. I would not have recovered. It sounds odd to say I can feel the hand of God and His perfect timing even as I slowly learned over a five month period just how deep my husband’s alcoholism went.

But when I finally knew, when I finally realized how cyclical all of it was, I refused to let my daughters join the family legacy. Adamantly refused. And with my refusal came the lessons and instruction I had in the early months of 2017 when God dealt with the Isrealites and their own family cycle of sin.

Here’s what God did with the Israelites: correction, removal from dangerous situations, and boundaries.

Ooh, okay, God, I can do those things. Let’s get to work.

I did none of these things on my own. I did none of these things because I was born ready for this, innately knew the right answer, or felt brave. I did them because I was trusting God to give me what I needed when I needed it and not a moment sooner.

In those moments I looked at my daughters, realized how they didn’t ask for any of this, and knew it was my job to make sure it did not continue with them. I was married to a broken man who did not do get that opportunity. He was living in the direct consequences of allowing and accepting sin, enabling, and selfishness. We were living in the effects of generations before us refusing to do hard things.

I refused to do that to my daughters. I would do whatever it took to make this stop.

God had already lit the flame and when it became real life for me, there wasn’t confusion about a next right step. Sitting with my Bible and my God for months beforehand had prepared me for this moment.

I wasn’t happy about it, but I was ready.

I think it’s super cheesy and off-putting when someone refers to the Bible as a how-to manual for life. I get what they are trying to say, but I just don’t like it. I think of a manual as something you go to when there is a problem.

My DVD player is flashing a weird notification, let’s check the manual.

My car’s dashboard is lit up, get out the manual.

Sure, we can use God’s Word when we’re in the thick of a problem or crisis, but often, we need the advice and preparation before the crisis too. We need the training and the lessons that take time, silence, wrestling, and reflections, things that aren’t necessarily around in times of chaos and stress.

I think going to the Bible for answers or guidance is great, but if you’re just going there during those times, you’re treating the powerful Word of God like an eight ball when you need something. Maybe part of the resilience and healing and wisdom is found in the consistent, day-to-day showing up with God and scripture. When it’s not convenient, when it’s quiet in your world, when things seem to be going well, when you have peace, when you don’t feel shaky and lost.

We do not get to avoid pain, betrayal, grief, denial, depression, or anger because of scripture and God, but we are able to handle it a little better because of it.

I want to share another powerful lesson I learned through my time reading the Bible cover-to-cover last year; come back tomorrow for the conclusion.

 

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