Dismantled

written by Deborah Oakley

First Series Post:  I Have a Dream
Previous Series Post:  My Call
Next Series Post:  Oasis

This post may sound like I’m looking for sympathy. I’m not.  I’m just trying to be honest about what my walk with God has been like.  Too many people seem to think that, once you’re a Christian, life is supposed to be happy-happy-joy-joy all the time.  Wrong.  We live in a fallen world.  Even as believers, we still live with the disease of sin within us, and the death we’re carrying around infects our wants and our perspective.  The difference between a believer who has the indwelling Holy Spirit and a person who doesn’t is about HOW we deal with the ugliness in this world (and in ourselves).  Death has been defeated, but its corpse is still stinking up the place.  And it won’t just lie there and decay quietly like a proper corpse.  Oh no.  It yells and hollers and wreaks havoc.  Seems like there’s an inner zombie apocalypse going on just about every day.  Well, for me, at least.  I can’t speak for you.

For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me.  (Romans 7:15-17)

Believers work with the Holy Spirit to keep nailing our zombies back in their coffins and go about our business of Living.  We’re able to persevere, hold onto hope, and look past this life into the next because we know eventually Death will get kicked into the pit and we’ll be free of it.  Non-believers don’t have our super powers.  Their zombies rule.

March – May 2005 was utter hell.  There’s just no other way to put it.  I’d lost my job, had hundreds of applications out but couldn’t find anything, and my husband routinely ripped me apart verbally and tore my heart to shreds.  Some of the things he said were so horrible, I think physical abuse would have been less painful. Then we came to Memorial Weekend, 2005.  Specifically, Saturday, 28 May 2005.  (No, I don’t always remember dates, but there are some in 2005 that are indelibly seared into my mind.)

I woke up that morning feeling as if something was again about to change.  I can’t remember all the little ways God told me but, as the day progressed, I became certain the fire I was in was coming to an end.  A new season was about to start.  A church near me had Saturday evening services, so I called a friend and we went together to celebrate my survival of my trial and the start of a new day.  When God says, “A new season’s coming,” we tend to put our own spin on what that means.  What He meant and what I thought He meant were two COMPLETELY different things!

When I got home, my husband wasn’t there.  No surprise; he was often gone.  He finally came in later that evening and announced he was leaving.  Totally blindsided me.  No matter how bad things had gotten, I believed God could heal us and we could recover.  (I still believe that.  Thing is, BOTH parties have to make the same choice.  Just one of you isn’t enough.)  I later learned my husband had been planning this for some time, but he kept it a secret.  I had absolutely no idea.

Yes, the season of fire was over.  I thought that meant my marriage would be healed.  Marriage is sacred to God, right?  I was doing my best to do things His way, so of course I wouldn’t end up divorced.  Even though my husband walked out that day, I still held onto the hope we’d be able to work things out.  We didn’t.  He was done with me, and that was that.  He filed for divorce in July.  It was final in October.  Even then, I held on to the hope we’d reconcile.  Some months later, I learned he remarried just 3 weeks after our divorce was final.  My final hope guttered out and, just like that, the Me-That-Had-Been was put to death.

The time that followed is a monotonous haze of pain and gray limbo.  I found odd jobs as I could, but I couldn’t find steady work.  There wasn’t enough money to pay my bills.  I got the house in the divorce, but I couldn’t afford to pay for it.  I tried to sell it, 3 different contracts fell through, and I eventually had no choice but to give it back to him.  My career, home, marriage, and identity were gone.  With them went all the dreams I’d treasured over the years and, no matter how I tried, I couldn’t manage to spark a new dream.  The world and all its possibilities were just ashes in my mouth.  It was hard enough finding a good reason to get up and face each day.

God doesn’t keep all the bad stuff away from you.  He carries you through it.  There does eventually come a day when you look back on a trial and find you have gratitude for going through it because of what you learned and who you grew to be as a result, but you have to hang onto Him to get there.

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.  (Romans 5:3-5)

I can’t say I manage the “exulting” part.  Not while I’m going through a thing.  I wonder.  Are we actually expected to exult DURING our tribulations?  Or is he talking about how we will EVENTUALLY exult in them?  I’m gonna have to learn Greek so I can take the grammar apart.  But, I digress.  Back to my story …

There is one particular moment during that time that stands out in my mind.  I had some worship music playing and I was talking to God.  (Well, more bawling, begging, and complaining than actual conversation.)  He’d told me He had a plan, I’d agreed to go with it and, at that moment, I had no idea why I’d ended up where I was or what I was supposed to do next.  (If you haven’t already read it, refer to the post entitled My Call.)  I was face-down on the floor, crying and pleading, and all He told me was, “Wait.”  That was it.  At the time, I thought it was a command for the moment.  You know, like, “Hold on.  I’m on my way.  Be there in 5.”  I later learned He wasn’t giving me a momentary command.  He was defining a lifestyle.

The book of Exodus tells us that, in the wilderness, the Israelites followed the cloud/pillar of fire.  When it moved, they moved.  When it stopped, they stopped.  As far as I can tell, they never got a map, schedule, or any sort of itinerary.  They knew they were eventually going to end up in the Promised Land, but they had no idea when they’d get there or what route they were taking.  I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s the sort of waiting He was commanding me to do.

I ended up giving my ex my house (it was that or foreclosure), moving back in with my parents, and spending time healing and trying to learn whatever it was He wanted me to learn.  I thought of those days as my wilderness wandering days.  He said He took the Israelites the long way through the wilderness because they weren’t yet ready to take over and manage the Promised Land.  But, they ended up wandering 40 more years because of their disobedience.  So, I did my best to listen, learn, and obey so I wouldn’t have to do extra time.

There are things I learned there that are now a part of who and how I am.  One is this:  when you know you’ve done due diligence, you’ve done your best to do things properly, and still what you’re trying to do won’t go according to plan, don’t doggedly try to bludgeon things into the shape you think they ought to be.  Instead stop, look up, and ask, “Yes, Sir?”  He closed that door.  He had a reason for it.  Don’t try to blast your way through it anyway.  Let Him redirect you.

Another is this:  if you’re praying and listening and obeying, and you don’t know what to do next, then the thing to do is wait.  He’ll tell you what the next step is when it’s time.

I don’t like either of these lessons.  They leave me with no control.  They make me mark time when I’d rather be doing something.  And when the “wait” part goes on for an extended period of time, Doubt and Fear grow.  Fodder for my zombie.  The nasty wench feeds and gets stronger.  No one who’s around me likes it when that happens.

The desert is not my favorite place to be.  I really should learn to be fonder of it.  Here’s an interesting Hebrew word study.  This will be a bit complicated.  I have to give you several pieces, then put them all together.  Bear with me.  I really do have a point to make.

#1:  Written Hebrew uses only consonants.  There are vowel markings you can use to tell you how to pronounce a word but, for the most part, you only see the consonants.  Context tells you what form of the word is applicable.

#2:  The Hebrew word for wilderness is mdbr (pronounced midbâr). 

#3:  Most Hebrew words derive from a verb.  The root of mdbr is the verb dbr, which means to speak, declare, converse, command, promise, warn, threaten, sing.

#4:  The noun form of dbr means:  word, thing.

#5:  In English, the preposition from is a standalone word.  In Hebrew, you add an m to the front of a word to indicate from.

#6:  When you add an m to the front of a verb, you make it an active participle (an ongoing action).

Put the pieces together:  when you take all of these grammar rules into account, the word mdbr/wilderness could mean:

• • from a word
  • he is speaking
  • from his declaration

And now, my point:  the Hebrew word for wilderness screams of God having something to say to you.

You’d think I’d be all giddy about that.  Apparently, my spirituality needs some serious work ‘cause, rather than enjoy the wilderness, I mostly cry and whine and beg to be let out.  “This place isn’t any fun.  Can’t we talk at the beach?”  Well, if I go with what Apostle Paul said, my zombie is the one doing all that whining, but I’m guilty of letting her.

Where are we in My Dream at this point (it’s time to add to the pieces from a previous post)?

1. My job and my efforts had to be directly involved in helping other people, making their lives better.
2. I had an inner connection with Israel and a desire to better understand the Jewish roots of my Christian faith.
3. He was taking me into something new. I couldn’t map out the path to it because I didn’t know where we were going.
4. I was no longer able to dream of my future. I had to depend on Him to dream for me.

Three years.  That’s how long I wandered that leg of the journey.  I’ll tell you about the following leg in my next post.

Next Series Post:  Oasis