Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Anniversary (04/11/05)
-
TITLE: The Best Worst Anniversary Gift Ever | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kelly Klepfer
04/15/05 -
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES
As I was getting ready to go out on my date with my husband to celebrate, God was tilting my universe slowly, carefully, in the most calculated manner.
I packed for my children who would spend the night with grandma. As I sent them out the door with hugs and kisses, the phone rang.
I have flash frozen images of my innocent children smiling and waving on their way out the door. Of me standing with hair and make up done and a bright red mom shirt covered in kid mess, listening to the voice on the other end of the phone. My husband’s smiling face. The impact of the words on my heart shattered it. The pieces of my heart, captured in those images clattered on the oak floor.
“I need to talk to you about your husband.” The voice had said. My heart knew, the pieces of it writhed and groaned on the floor at my feet. We had a rough marriage. But it had just begun to feel like I could hope. My husband had stopped drinking. He would be out of town for days at a time, but when he came home, he was home. I had been happier than I had ever been in my marriage. “I have been having an affair with him for three months. I’m pregnant.” She said.
I entered a tunnel filled with the sound of the ocean. She began to tell me insignificant things about my family’s life together that no one could know. Unless she knew one of us. She mentioned a friend of my husband’s that would confirm her story. I told her that I needed to throw up. I think I put the phone in the cradle.
I dialed the friend. He confirmed her story by telling me that he didn’t want to get involved. Part of me died. At the time, I thought it was the good part of me.
I call this phone call a gift, not in sarcasm, but in awe.
Our lives were empty. We had been living a “Christian” existence without the guidance and hope that Jesus Christ provides. We lived for ourselves and we were good at it. God used this horrific, heart smashing series of events to bring us to Him.
Looking back on what has happened since that evening 14 years ago, I see the work of God’s hands in our lives. Had I not been crushed and broken, I would have been too strong and too self-sufficient to need Jesus. I would have taught my children, all three of them because our youngest now lives with us, very different life lessons. I would have taught them cheap grace and skinny spirituality.
Our oldest will marry this summer. He desires to go into the mission field, a burden his future wife shares. Our middle daughter graduates this spring. She is a delight. Her love for Jesus, her desire to please Him illuminates her. Our youngest is working her way through the mine fields of adolescence. She has serious struggles with her biological mother. But she taught Bible lessons last summer and wept when she told us about a little boy wanting to accept Jesus, and asking her to pray with him.
My husband has become a godly man. I don’t have the words to describe the feelings, the respect and the love I have for him. My marriage went through coal shattering pressure and emerged a rare diamond.
I would have never asked for the anniversary gift that I was given. I tried many ways to decline accepting it. Finally, with God’s hand over mine, I sat and I opened it. I took the broken pieces out, one by one and I wept over them. Some I broke further, some I tried to hide, and some ripped off chunks of my healing heart. When I handed them to God, He made a thing of beauty and handed it back to me.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE
JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
Do you mind if I print it out and share it with a woman in our church who is going through something very similiar?
“Part of me died. At the time, I thought it was the good part of me.”
“We lived for ourselves and we were good at it. God used this horrific, heart smashing series of events to bring us to Him.”
“I would have taught them cheap grace and skinny spirituality.”
“working her way through the mine fields of adolescence”
This is powerful stuff and you are very courageous to write about it. Great job!