I've got countless stories that I don't
always have time to write when they're happening. I literally am
surrounded by so many signs and wonders, it is sometimes easy to
forget them if I don't write them down. Even saying that is odd,
because I was a person that, as an unbeliever, was unaware of the
idea of those types of things, and as a new believer who attended a
very practically-minded church, thought miracles and signs from above
were only for “those crazy Christians.”
I don't keep it a secret that I was in
an abusive relationship. When I left him, I left with nothing except
for a few boxes of our things and my kids. I would not have survived
without the kindness of friends and strangers, and I would never have
healed mentally, emotionally, spiritually, in the way I have without
those same people believing me. Telling me that what was happening
was indeed real. Being in a sick, unhealthy relationship has a way of
making you believe that your reality cannot be trusted.
I had been seeking the Lord really
desperately for a few weeks, knowing and seeing clearly what He had
been doing all this time: I went from where I was back then, to
having my needs met in abundance. I wake up every day in my big
house, in a comfortable bed, and get in my running car... I know that
has God provided for my physical needs. I go to the organization I am
part of, I go to church, I have a strong prayer life... I know that
God has provided my spiritual needs. But my emotional needs... That
was another story. In the words of Annie Lobert: “when you leave a
pimp, you leave with nothing.” This doesn't apply just to
prostitutes. When you leave whatever owns your life, you leave
everything that you obtained as a result of that life, including your
friends. You have to be pushed to a point where you're willing to
leave everything behind to start from scratch, and it is not easy.
Lately it has been lonely.
I was visiting the care pastor at my
church to talk about this very thing. I showed up a half an hour late
for traffic, we talked for a long time as we usually do. I recalled
to her what life had been like lately: feeling as though nobody in
the ministry understood me or my walk, that I didn't have much in
common with anyone else, and the days were all very similar. Get up.
Let out the dog. Go to Godtown. Get along swimmingly with everyone.
Go home alone. Repeat. The days where I don't have my kids with me,
crush me. Nobody becomes a parent so they can have their children
half the week, sharing them with someone they couldn't get on with.
Recently he had resurfaced after over a year of having no interaction
besides picking up and dropping off, factual email exchanges, court
dates. I wanted so desperately for what was coming out of his mouth
to be true- the longing, the desire to make personal changes, the
affection- not just for me but for our family. There was a personal
battle between not being an idiot, and not wanting to give up hope
that God could make the impossible could happen.
As we were finishing up our
conversation, a woman entered the room and asked to speak with the
pastor. “There's a woman outside with her kids,” she said, “She
said she needs a bus ticket out of town.” I watched the pastor and
this woman quickly and quietly start to shuffle around in an attempt
to find resources at 6pm, when everything was closed and they were
about to head home. There aren't a lot of times where I will say
boldfaced, “I heard from the Holy Spirit,” but in that moment,
without knowing anything about the situation, I knew that the woman
and her kids were coming home with me.
I went out to the gathering area of my
enormous church. It was empty. There was a moment where I thought
maybe the voice inside was just me, or I was mistaken. I walked
outside to leave and there she was: a beautiful, tiny
African-American mommy with her three adolescent kids and two giant
luggage bags. I asked her name and if she could tell me what was
going on.
“I came up here from Memphis. I was
leaving an abusive relationship,” she explained,”I was staying in
a shelter in Minneapolis and they revoked my shelter voucher because
I told them that when I came up here, I arrived in St Paul. And St
Paul doesn't want to help me because I was living in a shelter in
Minneapolis for two weeks. I've got nowhere to go. I came here to get
a bus ticket to go back to Memphis and they told me they wouldn't
give me one, because they don't want me to go back to my abuser.”
Tears were streaming down her face. When I saw her cry, I didn't
quite know what He was doing but I knew it was the Lord showing me
where I had been a year and a half prior.
“Don't go back to Memphis,” I said.
“You've made it this far.”
I had a van with 7 extra seats, no kids
for two days which meant empty beds at the house, and money in my
pocket. The woman who walked in on the pastor and me came out to tell
the woman and her kids that they couldn't find anything for them, but
had them on some waiting lists. I asked the woman if she and her kids
would like to stay with me for the night and she agreed without
hesitation.
She wouldn't stop thanking me, and kept
saying, “I can't believe you stopped for us.” I finally asked
why, and she told me: “Most white people are afraid of black
people.” I sometimes forget that the rest of the United States
isn't always like the Twin Cities. She was from Memphis, where the
divide is alive and well. She told me that if she were to be honest,
she wouldn't have stopped for me if the situation were reversed. All
I could think to say was, “Well, I'm not afraid of black people.”
When everything fell apart in my life a
year and a half prior, a friend came over with two bags of groceries,
a hundred dollars and the keys to her van- an extra vehicle that she
ended up selling to me for $1 (the vehicle I still drive today). I
don't think she knows, even now, how much that meant to me. I had
spent the entire day on the phone, trying to make a plan for the rest
of my life, without the man I had made my rock. Starting over
involves endless phone calls with people who are burned out and don't
care about you, people who DO care about you but are unable to help
you, voicemails, filling out piles of applications, standing in
endless lines, getting on waiting lists when you need help, RIGHT
now. Until now only my closest friends know, that for a short while,
I had gone back to him. There was still a restraining order in place
at the time. It wasn't because I was stupid or even because I
believed what he was telling me. I was just tired. And I missed him.
I missed what I thought we were. I missed our family. I missed not
being in crisis. I saw a woman sitting on a curb with her three kids-
the same number of kids that I have- with absolutely nothing, who had
made a drastic and desperate effort to get out of the situation she
was in. She was so tired, worn out, defeated, and humiliated that she
was willing to go back to someone who hurt her just because it was
familiar. The small degree to which I had experienced that, felt like
it was going to destroy me. And I was in a city where I knew where
everything was. I had friends. I was already in the system. She had
none of those luxuries. I saw a woman and kids who needed to rest. I
cooked for them, gave them access to my shower and a place to sleep
for the night. I wanted to make the phone calls for her, find the
resources for her, and when I found the one that was going to work,
pass it onto her so that she could just receive it.
I called and texted every person I
could think of. I asked for prayer and resources. I called a woman at
a shelter who told me all domestic violence shelters are plugged into
a state-wide database, and there were only 3 openings: one bed in
Duluth, one on the White Earth reservation, and two in Isanti County.
This family obviously needed four beds, and all of these places were
between one and four hours away.
The next day I brought her to Godtown
for prayer. I don't know what it is like to be black, and I never
will. But the moment we pulled up and she and her kids saw other
black people, I know they felt a sense of belonging and understanding
that I couldn't give them. My friend Sandra picked up the family,
drove them around and took them to lunch while I kept making phone
calls, texting with friends who wanted to help. We eventually found
her a place- one that was perfect. I dropped her off and told her
this was the beginning of something great, and I was so glad she
didn't get that bus ticket. A few days later I stopped in to visit
her and the kids, and her youngest son threw his whole body into me
with the biggest hug. It was the first time I saw this woman smile.
People recall stories like this in
their own lives, about times they helped someone in need, and I roll
my eyes at the cliché things they say or boil with rage over their
self-back-patting. That is a sin of judgment I definitely need to
deal with inside of myself. But I can tell you that when this woman
hugged me and said, “thank you so much, you are such a blessing to
me and my family,” I instantly knew the reality of when people say,
“I was blessed by the person I helped.” The night I picked up
this woman and her family, I was inside the church talking to my
pastor about how I felt lonely and like I had no purpose. I recalled
the bad and unhealthy friendships I had in my old life- how they may
have all thrown me under the bus, but in the time we were friends,
they understood what I was going through because they had been
through everything I had been through. I had been spending quite a
bit of time romanticizing a life that almost destroyed me, and took a
lot of time to even come close to repairing. When I walked outside to
meet this woman- I wasn't even supposed to be there. My appointment
with the pastor was from 4:30 to 5:30pm. Because of traffic I walked
out at 6:15pm. I was prepared to go home alone like I always did, but
that night God provided a family for me to cook for and spend time
with. I made a friend. I didn't have to wash my dishes or take out my
garbage last night because her kids insisted they do it for me.
During the time I accidentally met this
woman, I had been praying that God would bring healing, restoration,
forgiveness and peace to my family. I told Him that we were in
agreement with His will for our us, and prayed that our family would
look, act, function, think, feel and speak the way He wants it to. In
my mind I kept thinking that God's ideal for our family would be for
us all to be reunited.
The first time I ever heard the voice
of the Lord, I was face-down in a pillow while screaming filled the
room. Words that cut my very character: “Angela, I used to think it
was what you do, but you know what? It's WHO YOU ARE. You're just a
s***y person, it was how you're made, and that's never going to
change!” I had learned over the years to just let him go, let the
rage run its course, keep my head down. Don't fight him, it will make
it worse. In my head, I said, “Jesus, help me.” I heard a
response: “He's not the one. Get out.” I thought for sure I was
going crazy. I asked again, “Jesus, help me.” He said, “He's
not the one. Get out.” I had no idea of the concept of spiritual
warfare at that time, but in that instant I stopped crying, and this
man who had been screaming at me, flipped me over and said, “You're
not going to leave me, are you?” He had tears in his eyes. He threw
his arms around me to embrace me. “Angela, don't give up on us. I
love you. We are going to make this work. We're a family.” I sat
there stunned. That was our last trip together, and within a couple
of months our relationship ended in the last of many frightening
confrontations we had had as a couple. I stayed with him for a long
time even though I was unhappy, because we had been through so much
and survived so much. From the outside we had everything we could
ever want, including a beautiful family. I bought the lie that nobody
would ever love me if I left him, but he would replace me quickly. A
couple of times I saw myself drifting back to him, inevitably crushed
by the reality that nothing had changed and our dynamic was still the
same. In the same week that I met this woman, I was listening to this
man I loved talk about how he missed me, seeing his sad eyes and kind
gestures, and hearing the changes he said he was trying to make. When
I left I spent 10 months in a support group, where they told us,
“Don't believe the words, believe the behavior.” I wanted so much
for his behavior to reflect all the good things he was saying and
doing. I could hear the same voice, “he's not the one, he's not the
one,” and I ignored it. Of course it would be the best and God's
ideal will for our family to reunite, I thought. Surely that still
small voice was just me. I wanted so badly for everything to be true.
The brief experience I had had with dating someone had crumbled
almost as quickly as it had started, after a year and a half of
waiting. I didn't have any close friendships and in the moments I
felt very alone, I didn't feel like anyone in my new circle would
understand. When I began to see that the man I loved indeed had not
made any changes, and in fact, he was hiding me, what he did with me
and what he said to me from the people in his life, he had no
intentions to honor me or our family, and was continuing to live a
life that he was not honest with me about, I was so sure that God was
withholding something good from me. I was sure that this emotional
need I have- this need to be known and understood by another person,
to be loved and accepted for who I am and not what I can do to puff
them up- God was capable of delivering on that but simply refused.
When I met this woman, I knew she was
just like me. I knew she was where I had come from. I knew she was
tired and burned out and hopeless. I knew she understood me. I knew
that her story was real. I knew that the guy she left had hurt her, I
knew he wasn't good enough for her and I knew he wasn't doing what a
loving partner should have done for her. I knew if she went back she
would continue to be hurt by him. And I KNEW when I saw her that God
was going to come through for her. You hear people say, “when you
know that you know that you know...” I knew that I knew that I
knew, God was not going to let this woman fall. She had nothing and I
had total confidence in how much God loved her, I knew God put me in
an exact place at an exact time with an exact amount of resources and
exact understanding to help her... and yet there I was with my kids,
a beautiful home, a car, a church, a group of accountable and
reliable friends, a ministry, and I was so convinced that God wasn't
going to come through for me. I watched her in the span of three
days, go from a woman ready to return to someone who was hurting her,
and thinking maybe that wasn't so bad after all- a woman with shame
in her eyes and nothing to her name but two luggage cases and three
scared kids- to a woman who felt safe. A woman who could smile. A
woman who had a place for her and her kids. A woman who knew she had
a friend she could trust. She ministered to me way more than I
ministered to her. I needed a whole bunch of people to partner with
me to make what I did for her actually happen. All she had was
herself and her current circumstances. God was able to work through
her to bless me, even when, by the world's standards, she didn't have
much to offer to someone.
I was recalling the whole story to a
friend and saying, “I know the Lord has a lesson in this whole
thing for me and I don't quite know what it is.” I was walking her
through everything that happened, and as I did, I blurted out without
even thinking about it, “I think God was trying to tell me, 'Don't
go back to Memphis.'” I sat there at my kitchen table and I could
feel my eyes get huge. That was it.
I know God showed me something really
important. I know that He was faithful in His promises to withhold no
good thing from me, to expose things for what they truly are, to
protect me and to minister to my heart. I don't serve a God who
strong-arms people or loves conditionally. I don't serve a God that
doles out guilt and shame by the truckload, or turns His back when
things get difficult. He knows I'm stubborn, He knows I don't listen
when I don't like what I am hearing, He knows all the faulty things
about me. He came down to my level and showed me His truth in the
most gentle way possible, and in it He helped me help someone else.
He delivers on His promises, and if your heart is for Him, even when
you start to doubt His voice or start along a path that you know is
wrong, He will show you the Truth in love.
Don't go back to Memphis!
