Family Secrets (part 3)

With coffee at my side and my lap top open, I sat ready to spill my guts last Friday morning. But I struggled to get my story out all day and gave up after dinner. 

A new year has dawned so here’s take two.

As I explained in previous posts, I presented the Christmas story through the lens of Family Secrets for several reasons. For one, we dress up the holiday, making it easy to forget the stark simplicity of our Savior’s birth in a barn. The earthiness. The dirtiness. The human element wrapped in the divine. 

Our dressed-up version can also lead us to overlook the varied emotions our nativity figurines experienced. The joy. The fear. The shame. And deep trust. 

For instance, who did Mary tell first? And when she shared the news, who believed her? It took a divine dream to convince Joseph. Once tethered, did they become the radical couple some avoided?

While their family secret certainly gave cause for celebration, it came with a price. Most divine breakthroughs do, simply because God’s work meets resistance in our fallen world.

Thus, I wanted to contemplate that tension—the same kind of tension evoked by the words, Family Secrets. 

We all have them. A reality that stirs shame. A hidden behavior. An untold secret. Or a painful past that mars our present. 

I do. And for the first time, I felt led to share details more of my story. 

After losing my first husband to a brain tumor in 1996, when my boys were 3 and 4 years of age, I dated some. Not a lot. But enough to have my heart broken and confused over the course of almost a decade of singleness. So, when Don, my current spouse, came up to me at church a month after his wife died, I felt both excitement and concern. 

The good-looking elder with kind eyes held potential. But his beloved and respected wife hadn’t been gone long and I knew interaction with him could stir trouble.

At home, the thought that he might call wouldn’t settle. So, I put on a light jacket and headed out for a walk in a soft summer rain. My legs worked back then, and carried me four times around the block. When I reached my drive way and stared at a batch of impatiens, glistening in the rain, I heard from heaven, “He’s going to call you ask you out for coffee and it’s okay.”

Still unsettled, I asked, “Why? Why is it okay?”

“Because you’ve been alone a long time.”

As I walked into the house, even I questioned if I’d really heard from God. But within five or ten minutes, my oldest brought me the phone and Don’s voice greeted me. We talked for over two hours before he asked me out for coffee. The moment felt surreal, like standing on holy ground. 

We met days later and talked about family, loss, and the day his wife died. More than anything, we shared a deep sense of God’s work in the pain; His plan in the suffering. The shared spiritual grounding drew me to the man even more.

We spent time together in anonymity for almost three months. But then others found out. And I was accused of all sorts of things.

The scrutiny became overwhelming at times. After years of sacrificing for my children, and choosing celibacy over intimacy, the accusations hurt. Deeply.

My legs grew unsteady a few months later and Don didn’t flinch. But between my declining health and the continued judgement, we arrived at an impasse one night, and I wept in fear. Not only did I not know if I could overcome another broken heart, walking around the block in the rain was no longer an option. 

Overwhelmed and scared, I went to the altar the next morning to pray and Don met me there. So, when he did the same at the evening service, I went forward and knelt beside him. Worship music played through a speaker near-by, making communication difficult. So, I leaned in close and prayed out loud. 

And calm filled me for a night.

The next morning, however, Don received a call from church friends, asking to meet. The wife shared that she had seen us at the altar the day before and felt that we had been too close together, and thus, had set a bad example for the youth of our church. 

Cut to the quick, it took years for me to see the fallacy of her words. As a wise pastor friend explained, we had interrupted other’s grief and they couldn’t see beyond their pain.

But ours was real too—especially at the altar that night. 

Which gives me pause. Is it not ironic that a young, virgin girl was chosen as part of the plan that brought freedom from shame? The unmarried child, who conceived the Son of God, faced the shallow judgement of others that Jesus came to help us overcome. 

I don’t know what Mary went through, but it took me years to fight back and allow the love of God to override the voice of rejection again. Writing my book, The Great Undoing and My Journey Home, solidified that healing and I can now share the story without pain. 

Which makes me truly thankful for the silent, holy night, when all was calm and bright, and a virgin mother held her newborn tight. A newborn who grew into a young man, who then gave His life for us. 

We will never get it all right. No matter how hard we try. People will hurt us. And we will hurt others. And in so doing, shame will get tossed around like a rag doll. 

But as we surrender to The One who gave all, and lean into His big picture plan, that shame falls away, separating from us like oil from water. 

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pastures. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10: 9 – 10 NIV). 



all photos courtesy of pixabay.com