I am the second and last child of my parents who are both still alive. I have an older brother, and all of us now live in the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington state. I was born in Tacoma, and when I was very young, my parents divorced. My mom, my brother, and I moved to Long Beach, Washington to live with my grandparents. During that time, my brother began to rebel (he's six years older than I), and God did a work on my parents. He brought them back together, and they remarried. I was the flower girl, and my brother was the best man. And we moved back to Tacoma.
I went to a Christian school until high school. My brother barely graduated from high school due to his drug and alcohol use. We had always been a church-going family, and I was saved at a young age. My brother had turned his back on this. He went off to college, started living with a girl, dropped out of college, and then did the honorable thing and married the girl who was now pregnant. Amazingly, my brother has turned his life around and has two grown daughters. He is definitely saved though his life is very hard.
I was the good kid. I was involved in vocal music for most of my life, and I was almost always a straight A student. I graduated from high school and went away to an Assemblies of God college in Florida. That's where I met my future husband. I was certain he was my intended although he was the first guy I ever dated. This was Paul. We married while I was still in college. He had already graduated. He believed he was called to be a missionary in Yemen. I didn't believe I was, but I was willing to examine the possibilities.
I graduated with a degree in sacred music, and I applied to graduate school. Through a lot of unforeseen things, I was not able to go. So I ended up becoming a music teacher part-time at two Christian schools in the area. Paul was working construction at the time.
Out of the blue, he decided that he needed to go to seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. God gave me a job over the phone teaching music full time at a Christian school in Fort Worth. I was there 4 years. They couldn't afford to hire me back, so I ended up moving to Duncanville (suburb of Dallas) and teaching music at a public school.
During all this, Paul kind of went to seminary. He kind of worked construction. And he began to change as I matured in who I was as a person. We did go on a missionary trip to Yemen. I came back believing I wasn't called, but we had applied with the mission board, and we were in the initial steps. I was open about what I believed, but they had no problem. They are very used to situations where one spouse is called initially and the other is not. In their experience, God changes the heart of the one who is called if that is His will. I was even ready and willing to go back short-term.
During our 8 years of marriage, God had not blessed us with a child. We later learned that Paul was infertile, but that only came out shortly before the inevitable. I got pregnant along with 9 other ladies at my new school, and in spite of everything, we had a beautiful, healthy daughter named Martha. He decided to be a stay-at-home dad while I continued working. It was not what had initially been agreed upon, but it was all right. Originally, he was going back to work, and Martha was going to daycare.
Things changed with Paul that year. I saw signs of his withdrawal, and I became concerned. It came to a head after I went back to work the following year, and then things started to spiral downward. Paul was diagnosed with severe depression. I believe he showed signs of being bipolar or schizophrenic. I made the decision to divorce him to protect Martha and me. Danger was imminent, and I never regret my decision.
Since that time, Paul has completely dropped out of our lives. He claims that I had an affair with my best friend in England, Martin. In his mind, Martha is Martin's, not his. And in his mind, we are not divorced. But I think at this point, he has very little if any thoughts about him. The last I heard, he was living with his dad in Illinois.
I made the difficult decision to leave my job a couple summers ago and come back home to help my mom care for my dad. My dad has too many health issues to list, but they include diabetes, depression, OCD, paranoia, high blood pressure, carpel tunnel, Alzheimer's. and foot issues.
Martha and I now live with my parents on 5 1/3 acres in Yelm, Washington. We live with them in a double wide mobile home. Six months out of the year, our friend Martin lives here as well. We also have a domestic cat named Dusty, a tamed feral cat named Calico, a wild father cat named Gray, two kittens named Candy and Cotton, and our dog Sandy.
Okay, I think that should do it. If anyone else wants to join us, head over to Miss Candy's blog.
Hi Ruth - my name is Rachel M. and I'm joining Miss Candy's challenge. I look forward to learning more about your life and challenges as we go through this project together.
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