A hope stronger than our hurts

By all appearances we were the ideal Christian family. My husband and I loved the Lord and served Him wholeheartedly. Believing that a family that prays together, stays together, we had daily family devotions and took our five children to church. We reserved Friday nights for family fun, playing table games, going to basketball games in which one of our children played, or to a special event. During summers, we canoed rivers, explored mountains, and tented beside a lake. We liked being together as a family and I figured it would go on forever.

That’s why what happened one September afternoon hit us with the force of a tsunami. It was the first day of school and my husband, a high school teacher, was late in coming home. He’s probably picking up something in town, I thought. When he did come home, I knew something was very wrong. Normally he’d come through the door with a wide grin and a noisy “Hi!” This day, though, he looked down at the floor as he mumbled, “I’ve been to see the doctor.”

“Acute depression,” the doctor said. By the end of the first week, John signed himself into a psych ward. He felt out of control and was afraid of what he might do to himself and his family. Soon he was moved to the university hospital and, because he attempted suicide there, he was transferred to the provincial mental hospital. Except for a few brief stays at home, John spent most of the next eight years in hospitals. When nothing helped, the doctors kept changing the diagnosis from acute depression to chronic depression, then early Alzheimers, then bipolar disorder, then dementia.

  Life became a trail of confusion, frustration and pain. With every new psychiatrist – and we had at least a dozen – there was a new treatment and a new drug to try. My hopes would go up. This will help. When I saw my husband get worse instead of better, hopes came crashing down. This roller coaster of raised and dashed hopes creates havoc in a family.

Mental illness is a cruel package. Someone you love and feel safe with becomes a totally different person: fearful, rejecting and threatening. When I was told that my husband was planning to kill me, I didn’t know what to do with the information. I hopped into a car and drove and drove. I didn’t care where I was going as long as it took me away from such madness.

So much hurt

Our children, desperately hurt and confused, asked, “Where is God in all this? Why doesn’t He answer our prayers?” I wondered myself. Many people were praying and I was so sure that God would answer by healing my husband and our family. Instead, the marriage ended in divorce. John was moved to a group home for people with dementia. Some of our children became estranged from the family. Some left the faith.

It seemed like I was losing everything I valued: my marriage, my family, my home, my reputation and my writing ministry. (People won’t listen to you as a divorcee, I was told.) One day, a wave of despair came over me. I can’t take this anymore. I’m going to check myself into a psych ward, I thought. Clear as a bell I heard a voice deep in my heart, Do you still have Jesus? Yes! Then you have a centre. You have a refuge. You will be all right.

  The Bible was the only book that offered me comfort and hope. I would read verses like this: “Blessed are those who trust in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7,8 NRSV). Keep your roots deep into Jesus and the Bible and you will have all the resources you need, these verses said to me. One day at a time. One step at a time. Depending on Jesus. That’s how I got through those tumultuous years. He gave me a hope stronger than my hurts.

Surrendering expectations

What did I learn? Freedom, healing, and true happiness come when you surrender yourself, your loved ones, and your expectations to God, our Good Shepherd.

• Expectations of God: how He will answer your prayers. When healing didn’t come, my faith was severely tested. I didn’t understand what was happening, but I never doubted God’s love for me. God is sovereign and His plans for us are good. But using the free will God has given, we can sabotage God’s good plan for harmonious families.

• Expectations of myself. For years I blamed myself. I should be able to make my husband happy. I should be able to shield my children from pain. I should be able to fix this. As women, especially mothers, we have been trained to fix things. If I work hard enough, pray more, give more, then things will work out, we think. When they don’t, we feel like colossal failures. The guilt is overwhelming.

  It took me a long time to realize I was taking responsibility that God never intended me to have. I had made my desire to have a happy family my all-consuming goal. But since there were other persons making decisions, I could not control the outcome. I couldn’t save this family single-handedly.

• Expectations of my husband: that he will always be there for me. That we’ll be a ministry team together. I came to realize that only God can meet all our love needs. Only God can be there for us at all times. Christ plus one is a ministry team.

• Expectations of my children: that they will understand and support me. The fact is, each person has their own pain to process. Also, when hurt is so deep, it’s difficult to be objective.

  After many futile years, I parcelled up all my expectations, my disappointments and my failures and handed them to God. Here, Lord, I give this to you as a sacrifice. You are my Shepherd and you have said that I shall not want any good thing. You know what it takes for me to be emotionally healthy. I look to you to supply my needs.

I prayed this prayer again and again and God did meet my needs in surprising ways, often through people I least expected. Being totally dependent upon God is one of the hardest things we Christians have to do in life. Still, what freedom comes from this!

Giving to God what was not in my power to change, I focused on what I could change: myself. The danger was to hang onto hurtful words, to let bitterness creep in and to allow self-pity to overwhelm me. An extremely helpful exercise was writing in journals. Writing helped me validate my feelings and sort out what I needed to do and what I needed to let go.

By faith I kept affirming: it is safe to trust God, for He has our best interests at heart. Now years later, I can affirm with deep conviction, “The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:8,9).

What seemed to be the end was really a new beginning. Healing has come to our family. We are growing as persons and in our faith. My children love and respect both parents. They keep in contact with their father, doing well in a group home setting, by phone, e-mail and visits. In a similar way, they keep in contact with me. Moreover, God is using this painful experience as I minister to broken persons through writing and speaking. My book, Treasures of Darkness, is being used in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

  During the recent tsunami disaster in southeast Asia, I read of a woman who was saved from certain drowning by clinging to a palm tree floating beside her. When life hits us with a tsunami, Jesus is there in the water with us. Clinging to Him, we are saved. Knowing Him is the most valuable relationship in the world – the greatest treasure.

Esther Manuel attends a Mennonite Brethren church in B.C. Her book, Treasures of Darkness, is available from Essence Publishing.