my heart | his heart

I read on Charisma’s website that Gayle Haggard has a new book out.   Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made In My Darkest Hour is definitely on my “to read” list, but what is fascinating to me is how many people either have judged or will judge her without understanding her story.  They lack understanding that God’s edicts might look different than what they “think ought to happen” or that God didn’t consult them for their “right opinions” when it comes to how He works in the lives of others and how He burdens them to carry His love to the world.  It would be laughable if it didn’t hit so close to home for me.

There will always be those who think they understand all and in reality, understand nothing.  Proverbs talks quite a bit about how valuable wisdom is and how despite wisdom being free, there will still be those who walk in ignorance and darkness.  I don’t think that I (or anyone else) can erase all ignorance when it comes to staying in a marriage with an SGA-struggler, but sometimes the ignorance really rubs me the wrong way.

At some level, I feel as though I’m taken back to the “God told me to”-argument.  It’s really not an argument and I don’t regret my decision to obey the voice of God.  But when I meet up with crazy-ignorance that is willfully not listening or based in faulty understandings of human behaviour, I find myself falling back to one thing that is simply not arguable:  God told me to stay.  How can someone say, “Nuh-unh.  He did NOT!”?   It’s simply not possible - at least, not by any rational person.

My obedience didn’t negate the pain, the struggle, the broken trust, or anything else.  Gayle Haggard’s obedience didn’t negate any of that, either.  What it did for me (and when I read Gayle’s book, I’ll find out if it did for her as well) was to steel my resolve.  I know God’s character enough to know that He wouldn’t mis-direct me or give me false hope.  And knowing that allowed me to say, “I don’t understand it, but I still love you and I want to stand by you as you work on this and work to heal our relationship.”

Have there been times when I’ve thought about leaving?  I’d by lying if I told you there weren’t.  But I’ve never had peace about leaving - and I’ve never desired to do anything without the peace that God gives when a decision is right.  It goes against all that the world says and makes little sense to some inside the Church as well, but like Gayle, I hearken back to my marriage vows:  for better or for worse.  This was definitely “worse,” but staying doesn’t mean that I’m emotionally defective, in denial, or anything else.  It means that I’m obedient and that if God gave me a different answer and my husband had a different response to his sin, this conversation would be moot.  I imagine that Gayle has similar words to say, but hers is a much larger and more public stage on which to say it.

I’m grateful for anonymity at this point - maybe some day the veil won’t be necessary and we’ll be bold enough to deal with our pain and healing without the masks.  But for now, I’m grateful for the space that Gayle has never had to heal, to work this out, and to hear from God.

His and his,
~Cori