Page 26 of Below the Far Horizon
“And my husband cheated. He left me. It was pretty bad.” That didn’t seem like it explained nearly how bad it was. Not even close. “And I was devastated. All of these things that I wanted, that I expected to have, had now been ripped away from me. I wondered why God was doing this to me. Why was He putting me through this trial? Why allow this pain? Why me? Why not someone else?”
“I think those are questions everybody has asked at some point or another. But the question probably should be, why not me?”
“Exactly. But beyond that, I got to thinking, maybe God was saying that I made my marriage my idol. I made the dreams that I had for my life—my family, my kids—idols as well.”
“You expect God to give you all good things and no bad.” He paused for a moment. “And you can’t be saying that it was God’s will for your husband to commit adultery?”
“I struggled with that. Why did God do that? It couldn’t possibly be His will, right?”
“God’s will couldn’t include sin, right?”
She shrugged. She really didn’t know. After all, David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. It was in the Bible. God didn’t approve, but He allowed it to happen. He showed the consequences, and then He used it to bring a blessing to all of Israel, a new king, the wisest man who ever lived.
“I guess I would say that maybe it’s not God’s will, but He allows it, because He knows that these trials will make me a stronger, better person. But He also wants to know, kind of like Abraham and Isaac, whether I will turn to Him and cling to Him no matter what happens in my life. Is He really the most important thing in my life? Am I reallytrusting Him? Even when it seems like He’s doing me hurt rather than good? That’s probably the hardest time in my life that I had to trust God. It just didn’t seem like I could turn to Him and depend on Him, because He let me down so much.”
“He has never let you down.”
While a part of her wanted to argue that Trevor didn’t know all the details of her life, his statement was made with complete confidence because he knew the character of God. That made the difference, and that allowed his faith—to know, and believe, to have faith, that God was good and loving and kind and long-suffering all the time. Always.
So, rather than argue, like her old self might have, she had to agree. “That’s right. And I think that’s what we learn through those kinds of things.”
She fingered the top of the fence, picking off a chip of paint. “God, no matter what happens, is always there and never lets us down, no matter how bad it looks. It hurts, it hurts a lot, sometimes we have to go through the pain in order to come out on the other side to the blessings that way. To become the person that He wants us to become. To become more like Jesus.”
“And I think learning that made whatever suffering you had worthwhile, even though it probably didn’t seem that way at the time.”
“Yes. Exactly. I probably would have punched someone in the nose if they tried to tell me that the things I learned from my suffering were going to be worthwhile.” She wasn’t typically prone to violence, but she could see herself having a violent reaction.
“And why? When someone’s just trying to point out something that’s helpful, why do we have such a violent, physical, anger-induced reaction?”
“That’s a good question, isn’t it? Maybe it’s jealousy because those people aren’t going through the suffering that I am. Or maybe it’s the idea that they’re trying to tell me that this pain is going to bring something good, something that is hard for me to see. I don’t know.”
They were quiet for a bit, and she didn’t know about him, but her thoughts had gone to Claire, and the tragedy that they had all been involved in, and the tragedy of Mrs. Donegan, having her husband pass away on her birthday. She stroked the egg apron in her hand and thenlooked back toward the house with its wide, welcoming porch, the planters that would soon be holding beautiful, blooming flowers all summer long, and the rocking chairs that were now empty but would soon have at least one person sitting on them, enjoying the breeze from the lake and the beautiful country air all around.
“I wish Claire would come back,” she said softly. Knowing even as she said it that most people didn’t go back. Most people lived their lives and, at best, visited the town of their childhood once in a while. More than likely, Claire wouldn’t come back until her grandmother passed away and she needed to clean up the house in order to sell it.
“I want to say we can’t go backward, but sometimes I feel like I just did. I gave up a good job, moved out of the suburbs, and came back to my dad. Why? It feels like I’m going backward.”
“You’re not as backward as I am. I didn’t give up a good job, I got fired.” She hadn’t meant to say that either. But she always felt comfortable with Trevor, and words slipped out. Even after they hung in the air, she didn’t regret them. It was the truth. She’d been fired.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It must have been terrible on top of your husband cheating.”
“Yeah. I was really good at my job, but when he left, it was a struggle to get out of bed, and every day, I got more and more behind. I wasn’t able to do the things that I needed to do, but I managed to stay afloat. But when I knew for sure that I would be getting divorce papers, and we talked about splitting our assets, I just lost it. I didn’t get out of bed for three days. Employers have a problem with stuff like that.”
“I see. I’m sorry.”
“I guess it’s kind of like everything we’ve been talking about. I don’t know if there was a reason for me to come back here, but it really was my only choice. Maybe God will work everything out for good.”
“He promises to. That’s a promise I’ve clung to more than once. Although never to the degree that you have to right now.”
“I guess it was terrible at the time, but once I made the decision that I was going to have to move back, and I had to start cleaning out my condo, I kind of…accepted it.” That was mostly true. She supposed she still had days where she wondered why she was going backward rather than forward. “It was a humbling thing, you know? And I needed that.”
“I suppose we all can use a little bit of humbling at times.”
He hadn’t given her a hard time for leaving without properly breaking up with him or even talking to him at all. Maybe he wasn’t thinking about that anymore. She’d already apologized for it, and he certainly hadn’t asked her to.
“When I left, I was arrogant. I thought I had the world by the horns. I thought I was going to be so successful by the world’s standards.” She paused for a moment, knowing that they needed to go in. If Mrs. Donegan was looking out the window, she had to be wondering what in the world they were doing.
She shook her head. “I thought leaving made me better. You know? I wasn’t one of those losers who stayed in this tiny hometown. I was making something of myself in the city, because everyone knows the city’s all that.” There was sarcasm in her voice, because she didn’t believe that now. In fact, if anything, her excursion into the city had taught her that it was worse. Much worse.
