reconciling things

When I was pregnant with my first child we went to a natural childbirth class. In God’s providence we met another couple there. We became friends. And by friends, I don’t mean the kind of friends to whom you say, “We should get together” every six weeks until you’re both dead. Not the kind of friends you see at church and chat over donuts after. Not even the kind of friends who you might call to housesit or borrow their truck to help you move.

Rather we were the kind of friends who nursed each other’s children and delivered each other’s babies. Once you’ve crossed that line with a friend you are bound for eternity, I think.

After my first child was born we moved to Mongolia. She got on a plane with her two year old and flew to the edge of the world to help me pass the winter.

Looking back on those years, almost all the marriages of our friends and siblings were riddled with toxicity. Our little evangelical cult was rife with abuse, neglect, and infidelity. But no one talked about it. Everything was so perpetually swept under the rug so that the floor raised several feet. Sorry Duggars. We were the OG Shiny Happy People.

So hers was not the only marriage of our group to fall apart. But hers was first.

This is the story of how I was the villain:

I was not a good friend. I did not know how to hold space for someone walking through tragedy. I didn’t know how to love through disagreements. I thought unity and harmony were the same thing. I lived in a very black and white world. Divorce was not something I could tolerate, regardless of cause. Christians who didn’t “stand for their marriage” were clearly in unrepentant sin. It was mighty lonely up there on my high horse.

So, I distanced myself. We stopped talking–because I stopped loving. I let her walk through that darkness without my friendship and support or even my listening ear. I cut her out of my life.

Yes, I hurt over it. It hurt me deeply and I missed her. But, I felt so justified in my righteous indignation. If you wonder why I write so much about friendship and keeping your love on it is because of this truth: I have failed miserably at keeping my love on. I have been the worst friend and the most unloving of Christians. Socrates said “Know thyself.” This is not an easy or pretty thing to undertake. To know oneself is to plumb the depth of one’s own depravity and realize all the ways you haven’t lived up to your own ideals, let alone the Christian ideal.

About 9 years after her marriage ended, so did mine. And it ended because I ended it. Then all the things I had projected on other people who were unable to stand for their marriages were projected back on me. I was crushed. Humiliated. Absolutely wracked with grief. Physically ill. But bone crushing humiliation was better than staying in my marriage. When the dust settled, I was a divorced woman with nine kids to support, ostracized from family and many friends, and with a very fresh perspective on how much of an ass I had been. The difference was I had several friends who were ride-or-die, who will fight to the death for me with unwavering love and support. My best friends’ love for me was a staunch rebuke for all the ways I had failed my friend nine years prior. I could see clearly all that I should have been, but was unwilling to be.

I sent my old friend a message apologizing. I fully acknowledged what a shit friend I had been and how much empathy I had lacked. It felt like too little, too late. But, she had access to a lot more grace than I did. She forgave me. A while later I reached out to her again and asked her to help me with my annulment process. I was so nervous asking. It sounded so impotent, “So, yeah, you know how I didn’t help or support you at all when your marriage ended? Yeah, yeah, good times. Anywaysssss…you wanna do a crap ton of paperwork for me in your spare time and help me end mine?”

But she did. She wrote testimony for my case when it went before the Tribunal.

And she rejoiced with me when my annulment was granted.

And she flew across the country to attend my wedding last summer and introduced me to her husband.

We hugged. We cried. We picked up where we left off.

She came to visit again in the dead of winter and to celebrate the Mongolian New Year and Ash Monday with me.

Ours is a story of redemption. God has restored what no one thought was possible. He breathed new life into what was by all evidence dead. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look back over the break-up without a piercing stab of regret. But that’s good for my soul. It’s pain that brings truth and clarity.

I can also look at the redemption arc say with the Psalmist,

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,
    we were like those who dream.
 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
    and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then it was said among the nations,
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord,
    like the watercourses in the Negeb.
 May those who sow in tears
    reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
    bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
    carrying their sheaves.