Remember those days when you learned something new about each other every time you talked? No one tells you this when you’re dating or at the reception after the wedding, but that ends – or it slows down as the years together accumulate. You may go months or even years without any new revelations about her, but then the routine changes and parts of her you never knew existed get exposed to the light. Most of the time it’s something good – a new job, a new city, a new child. Sometimes it’s not – an old wound, a failure, a disappointment, an illness.
Today I’ve been married to Becky for twelve years. I thought I knew everything about her until this month got started. Now there’s even more to love.
Two days into this darkness I had to substitute preach at church. It was too late to hand off to someone else, I thought. I got through that Sunday, but just barely. It took all my concentration just to keep it together and follow my outline. It sapped more strength than I’d expected. When we got home that afternoon I went upstairs to my office, locked the door, laid my head in Becky’s lap and cried. It was the first time since it all began that I’d let her see me fall apart.
She didn’t try to talk me out of it. She didn’t smile and offer easy answers. She just held me and every time embarrassment and shame moved me to mumble a snotty “I’m sorry” into her leg she just said, “It’s OK.”
Days later she had a party to attend. She called my brother-in-law Brian and asked him to bring his kids over and keep an eye on me until she got back. She gave me homework that night: verses I was supposed to look up. I spent most of that evening writing them out in pencil and reading them to myself over and over again. Psalm 42. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12. Philippians 4:6-9. And a few others. Verses about God’s comfort – I tried to believe them. Prayers by men who’d felt abandoned and grived – I prayed them. Truth to replace the lies in my head.
I kept those verses folded up in my back pocket and pulled them out any time I had to be alone in the quiet. Those were the scariest times for me. I read them out loud in the bathroom over and over again. I read them first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And when things got so bad that I’d given up on God and stopped reading them entirely, she insisted I start again.
Becky was my faith and my brain when both were broken.
She decided what I would eat, where I would go, what I would do. She planned my days, made me get out of bed, get dressed and go through the motions. She made me keep living. I sliced potatoes, read books to the kids, pulled weeds from the garden, and stayed up to hear her plans for the next day. Every day.
And she even saved my life.
I’ve long considered suicide the most selfish act a person could commit. For days I reassured doctors, friends and family that I had no interest in ending my life. Not me. I’d never.
Then, one afternoon, alone in my office for only a minute, I was shocked to think She’d be better off without you. You’ll always be this way and she deserves better. It wasn’t something I was being asked by my thoughts to consider. It was something my thoughts had already decided.
Just then Becky walked in and I told her what I was thinking. She made me look her in the eyes, and very firmly, almost angrily, she said, “That’s a lie.” And she started filling my head up again with the truth. “I’d rather have you like this than not have you at all.”
Unfortunately, there are some parts of a person you can’t have the joy of discovering until you’ve lost your joy. This month Becky has been God with skin on, literally keeping me alive and patiently lovingly – sometimes forcefully – piecing my faith and mind back together one long day at a time.
“Happy Anniversary” doesn’t seem like enough.
Beth says:
Shawn-
I’ve been meaning to write for several weeks now to say thank you for sharing your journey through, what I have called for myself, “the black ugly” 🙂 About a month and 1/2 ago, I woke up to the start of three weeks of a heavy depression I couldn’t describe. Some of it was as a result of decisions I’d made in life, but I also believe it was fires sent from the enemy, allowed by God to complete a picture I still haven’t found the fullness of yet. It was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other, it was so suddenly debilitating.
About that time I wandered over here to your blog, a place I hadn’t come to in awhile. You were coming out of your own ‘black ugly’ and were being brave enough to write about it. It was this post, about Becky, that God used to teach me how to walk, when all I wanted to do was stay under the covers. Hearing how Becky made you go through the motions, made you read books and pull weeds- resonated with my spirit. God showed me that if I was going to walk out of ‘the black ugly,’ I had to simply walk through each day best I could.
I know you say here Becky saved you. Please let her know she also helped save an East Texan who is single, without a helpmate, and who needed her wisdom. Thanks again for sharing- your testimony truly transformed what was also a dark time for me.
“They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.” Revelation 12:11
Sarah says:
Thank you for sharing!!
Erin says:
I’ve been a follower of your blog for a while now, but have just started reading this series today.
Shaun…your transparency takes my breath away. I see more of God and His Kingdom in your vulnerability and shared journey than I’ve seen in a long.long.time. You’re a good man. And I’m so thankful for your words, music, and testimonies.
Sharing your life the way you do encourages, uplifts, gives faith to and maybe even saves others. So thank you, brother. You’re a blessing.
Erin
PJ says:
Shaun, not to puff you up, but there has been something about you that has inspired me to dig deeper in my walk ever since I met you in Jupiter, Florida at a Calvary Chapel in 2003 I believe.
You came and led worship in our church that morning. There was a spirit about you like none I have witnessed, humility of a true servant of God is how i received it. It has always stuck out in my mind, being a musician also, it is rare to find. You were not fake and there was no show, it was true worship of God.
ok to the present. January 7th 2011 my wife left and took our 3 children (5, 3, & 1 years old) 900 miles away, after 9 years of marriage. Later finding out there was someone else. I have been dancing with depression and thoughts of there is no reason for me to live; as I lived for my family. Which I realize it not God’s will for me, I should have been living for Him. But I cannot deal with the pain of the loss of everything of value to me.
God has illuminated to me a lot of my faults and how much I have contributed, and I am trying to hang on to the Lord and realize it is not over until He says so.
Your posts have helped me and I thank you also for still keeping it real. So here this is years later and your words are ministering to me – both on this page and in your songs. I am starting to get more out of the songs now then I did before. Probably because there is more of Him and less of me these days.
I love you brother, I hope we can meet again one day.
Should I tell them?