Inspire, Fall 2003

Inspire 23 As I looked out the window of my carriage house apartment, I watched the sun set over the courthouse that had been stripped of its cupola. A standing stone wall denoted the location of a crumpled church. Shattered windows and caved-in roofs were the remnants of retail locations. All had been changed early that morning by a powerful tornado that unexpectedly ripped through the downtown district. For days, my apartment was cordoned off in the disaster zone. At night, when the downtown skyline grew eerily silent and dark, I longed for the familiar lights. My world had been altered in one devastating event. It seemed simple enough to get up and go across the street to work each morning, but my whole life felt constricted. I felt like I was in a war zone, and it was inescapable. A different type of war zone crashed into my life two years later. After I arrived back from a trip I took solo, due to last-minute “inconveniences” that kept my spouse at home, it didn’t take much time for me to hear the fateful words, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.” Damage control had been needed for a previous incident three years prior, but divorce was still not the outcome I had expected from marriage. I believed I really meant it when I vowed, “For better or for worse.” However, it was soon apparent that my spouse was unwilling to make the choice to stay committed to his marriage vows, and he quickly filed for divorce. Through one devastating blow, I faced a whole new landscape. Crushed dreams and plans for the future lay strewn in the pathway ahead. My personal identity struggled to raise its head out of the rubble. There was no way to escape from the new reality. Life was no longer what it used to be. Perhaps it was good that, as a full-time ministry staff person at a local church, there wasn’t much of an option of not going to church! But sitting in church by myself was no great pleasure. It’s often said that “On every pew sits a broken heart” — people just don’t expect for the brokenhearted to be the church staff. Families who loved me were lifesavers. When I felt hemmed in by the new world I faced, they helped keep my eyes open to perspectives that I didn’t readily want to see. They couldn’t take me away from the disaster, but they were willing to face it with me. There was no greater blessing than the freedom I found in truth. The truth was that I hadn’t desired divorce. I was willing to do anything I could to fix the relationship, and I readily acknowledged I did make mistakes. The truth was that my husband chose to leave, despite the truth. So I was left to act upon the choices that were presented before me. God gives us many good things to choose from even after hardship, but I’ll have to admit that moving ahead as “me” and not “we” was daunting. My favorite motto became, “When you don’t know what to do, do what you know to do.” There are still many choices and decisions to face. My life verse since high school has been James 4:8 — “Come near to God and He will come near to you.” Application of that verse is still a struggle, because the divorce affected all my relationships. But even through divorce, I’ll understand more about God’s nearness to me and about His eternal love relationship to me that will never end. Kristi is currently pursuing a master of arts degree in Christian education at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She volunteers as the children’s director at a new church plant in the Kansas City area. A New Reality B y K r i s t i V a n D y k e ’ 9 4 A different type of war zone crashed into my life two years later. After I arrived back from a trip I took solo, due to last-minute “inconveniences” that kept my spouse at home, it didn’t take much time for me to hear the fateful words, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.” God gives us many good things to choose from even after hardship, but I’ll have to admit that moving ahead as “me” and not “we” was daunting. My favorite motto became, “When you don’t know what to do, do what you know to do.”