Just in Time: A Bittersweet Blessing

I felt so angry! So disappointed! So betrayed! “This is not the way marriage is supposed to be!” I screamed silently within myself, even though I was alone in the house. “I’ve tried being a patient, Godly wife for years, but things just keep going from bad to worse! He’s a selfish, uncaring, hopeless no-good, and always will be!” I stamped my foot in rage.

This justified condemnation of my husband, Curtis’s character, satisfied my wounded heart—for a few seconds. With lightning speed, God’s sharp two-edged sword slashed my victim-mentality pity party to shreds. A powerful string of uninvited yet surprisingly gentle thoughts leaped one after another into my mind, reminding me of God’s still, small voice questioning Elijah after the noisy and terrifying earthquake, wind, and fire display.

“But,” it whispered, “you don’t know the future—only God does. And you don’t know Curtis’s true potential. It’s not your place to condemn anyone. What if he repents? You don’t know that he won’t.”

I felt ashamed, as Matthew 7:1-2 (NIV), “Do not judge [condemn], or you too will be judged [condemned],” came to mind, popping my swollen ego, like a pin on a balloon.

I thought back to my wedding day. The 23 years since then had changed my attentive, strong, handsome prince into my boozing, drugging, adulterous enemy. I’d changed from an idealistic, unassertive, naive 19-year-old to a wounded, middle-aged, in-denial, Christadelphian mother of four. Baptized at 30 after growing up Catholic,¹ I loved the Christadelphian practice of reading the Scriptures every day using the Bible reading planner. Scripture taught me about God’s perfect balance between mercy and justice, His long-suffering and His grace toward those who acknowledge their sins and change their ways. God had forgiven my sins and taught me principles for raising my children and for being a godly wife. Curtis wasn’t too happy about my change in religion, but to my surprise, when I stopped attending the Catholic church; so did he. Instead of joining me at my new place of worship, however, he just complained often about how much gas and wear and tear on the car my trips to ecclesial meetings took. Nonetheless, he didn’t object to my taking the children to Sunday School and CYC. I think he liked having us gone during those times, so he could do whatever he wanted without having to hide or explain it.

We’d separated about ten years earlier when I left with the children at the beginning of the summer. They were young then, so we didn’t explain what was happening while Curtis and I went to counseling. Thankfully, we were reconciled before the children went back to school in September. And now it was happening again, but this time, the kids were much older. They needed to know the truth, and did not deserve to be uprooted because of their father’s infidelity, so I asked Curtis to leave.

After my anger subsided, though I remained scared about being a single mom to my three teens, I found I was enjoying the lack of tension in the house. It felt like a huge burden had been taken off my shoulders. And then, amazingly soon, Curtis wanted to reconcile. Unlike ten years earlier, this time, I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to. Ι thought: “What if I take him back and then it all happens again?” I didn’t feel strong enough to go through the pain of betrayal another time. “And what would it do to the children? How could I risk putting them through another split?”

I prayed and read Scripture. I talked to my best sister-friend in the Truth. Then I prayed and read some more. My natural inclination was to tell Curtis that I didn’t ever want to see him again. That way, I wouldn’t have to be afraid of being hurt by him again. But Scripture convinced me that to be a true child of the God I claimed to love, I had to be like Him and be willing to try again with Curtis, if I saw consistent evidence of true repentance. This reconciliation would take time. I told Curtis that he first needed to join AA and stop drinking. Then, we could date for an indefinite period of time until I could determine whether or not it was in the children’s and my best interests to allow him back into our lives full-time. Curtis was disappointed that I didn’t take him back immediately, but he complied.

Within a short time, I thought I saw a genuine inner change in him. “But what if he’s just putting on a good front to get back home, and then he changes back to his former self?” I wondered. How could I know for sure if his apparent repentance was real and lasting?

More prayer and more reading of God’s Word told me that I’d never be able to be 100% sure because only God knows the heart of man. How I wished I had that ability and the wisdom to balance mercy and justice as perfectly as God did.

Since I could do neither, I figured that the next best thing, from God’s point of view, was to err on the side of mercy, as scary as that would be. If I took Curtis back and things went sour again, I had to trust that God would be there to help us all through it, but if, because of my fear, I ended my marriage with a man who had truly repented, I would have to answer to God for my unforgiveness, and how could I then expect God to forgive me for that (Matthew 7:1-2)?

Just before Father’s Day, I asked Curtis to move back home, hopeful yet fearful. I soon realized it was the best decision I ever made. Curtis was a new person. He remained sober and became the best husband and father that he’d ever been. “Wow,” I thought, “if I’d have known it was going to turn out this well, I’d have asked him to leave a long time ago instead of putting up with all his bad behavior for all these years!” Our new, secure relationship carried us through the summer of 2001, when we celebrated our 25th anniversary and the marriages of our two oldest sons. What a busy, yet joyful season it was! Little did we realize that another great challenge was on the horizon.

The following spring, Curtis was accidentally hit on the head at work. He began to have headaches and then extreme, sporadic pain in his arms and legs. It took months before the unexplained body pains were diagnosed as not originating from the head injury, but from prostate cancer, which, by then, had spread into every bone in his body. It appeared that the blow to his head had merely sped up the manifestation of the already existing cancer. There was no medically known way to reverse it, yet Curtis did not want anyone else but him and me to know about it until it could no longer be hidden. He wanted to spare our children and parents unnecessary worry and to live as normally as possible for as long as possible. It was a difficult secret for me to keep, yet I was glad that Curtis did not have to face this crisis all alone, which could have been the case had I allowed my fear to end our relationship a few years earlier.

An expensive drug provided a wonderful one-time remission, but sadly, it only lasted a few months. When the pain returned, we finally let our children, ecclesia, family, and friends know the truth, asking for their prayers and support. When Curtis couldn’t climb stairs anymore, we both slept in the living room. I stopped attending all ecclesial meetings to be able to attend to his around-the-clock needs. Many nights, he’d wake me up numerous times to ask for a massage or foot rub—the only things that temporarily allowed him to sleep.

I was constantly exhausted but had to keep going. I’m sure God provided me with the energy I needed to care for my husband in his time of need. One cold winter night, as I knelt on a pillow at the end of the couch Curtis was lying on, rubbing his feet yet again for what seemed like an eternity, I felt I had reached my limit. “I can’t do this anymore!” I sobbed silently within myself. “I am just too tired!” After a few moments of despair, the thought of Jesus hanging on the cross flooded my mind and changed everything. Instead of continuing to pity myself, my thoughts changed to, “Joanne, look at what Jesus went through—you’ve got nothing to complain about. Jesus hung by iron nails on a rough wooden cross, practically naked, in public, after being up all night, scourged and abused. And here you are in warm clothing, kneeling on a pillow in a comfortable home. So what if it’s tiring! Compared to what Jesus went through, rubbing your husband’s feet in the middle of the night is nothing!” That thought energized me enough to complete the foot rub that night, and continued to help me whenever I started to feel unable to cope.

One day, I had to drive our son into town, leaving Curtis alone at home. When I returned less than 15 minutes later, I found him crying in front of a coffee table full of used tissues. I knelt down beside him. “What is it?” I asked quietly, imagining that he was overcome by the fear of dying, or the sadness of not being able to see his younger children to adulthood, or that he’d never get to experience being a grandfather.

Curtis found it hard to speak, but with his head down, he finally blurted out between sobs, “I’ve been so awful to you! I was unfaithful to you! He shook his head in despair and blew his nose noisily.

“Yes,” I replied softly, “you were, but that’s over now. I’ve forgiven you.”

“But I can’t forgive myself!” he wailed, grabbing another handful of tissues.

“Well,” I responded, “if you had the chance to do all those same things over again, would you?”

Curtis immediately lifted his head, looking at me with horror-filled eyes. “Oh no!” he exclaimed, shaking his head from side to side, definitively.

“Even if you were mad at me about something?”

“No, no!” he insisted.

“Then that’s good enough for me to forgive you. Let it be good enough for you to forgive yourself. That’s all that God or anyone can expect.”

What a gift God had given me. He let me see inside the heart of my repentant husband. I believe that it was at this point that Curtis began to have a glimmer of understanding of the great mercy and love that God has for all of His children, including him.

Because I was unable to attend memorial meetings, some brethren came to the house to break bread with me once in a while. Curtis was always present for this because we held it in the living room—the only room where he could sit reasonably comfortably. One evening, just before the beginning of such a service, one of the brethren asked Curtis privately, “Curtis, are you discouraged that our prayers for your healing are not seeming to have any effect?” Curtis answered, “Yes, but when I listen to you pray, I feel closer to God.” The brother continued, “Do you think that perhaps we should change the focus of our prayers for you from physical healing to spiritual healing?” Curtis looked at him for a moment and answered, “Yes.”

During the closing prayer of that evening’s service, Curtis began to weep. The same brother then asked him, “Curtis, would you like to learn more about God and the Bible?” Curtis nodded silently.

From then on, I read the Bible and the Preparing for Baptism booklet to Curtis as often as he was able to focus over his pain. He seemed to grasp all the first principles easily. The brethren came over more often to spend time with him.

Though Curtis continued to physically deteriorate, spiritually, he was a germinating seed, bursting into new life! Then suddenly, his pain multiplied, and it looked like he would not make it to baptism. Still, God miraculously restored to him a measure of health, just long enough to undergo a Thursday evening baptismal interview, followed by an early Friday morning baptism at a Community Center with a ramp into its swimming pool. Three brethren and I surrounded Curtis as he sat in a special wheelchair, in water up to his shoulders. When it was time to immerse him, I held his knees down while the brethren carefully tipped the chair backward just enough for the water to cover his head. There wasn’t a dry eye in the crowd that morning.

The next afternoon, Curtis partook of the memorial emblems for his first and only time, sipping the wine through a straw because he could not straighten his neck.

Though his pain continued to increase, I sensed a relaxation and relief in Curtis after that. When a bouquet of flowers arrived for him, with a note from a sister congratulating him on his baptism and calling him “Brother Curtis,” he wept again, this time with tears of joy.

A few days later, Curtis needed a hospital bed. He was catheterized and hooked up to a morphine pump. Nurses and respite workers visited our home nonstop.

Twelve days after his baptism, Curtis died in my arms with most of the family present. What a bittersweet experience it was for us all. Curtis was 49 years old.

The funeral home was packed. Many of Curtis’s long-time friends who paid their respects had the gospel presented to them for possibly the very first time. A few months later, when we would have otherwise celebrated Curtis’s 50th birthday, the following poem was printed in the local newspaper. Because of Curtis, I know from experience that with God, nothing is impossible!

Joanne Grey,
Niagara Ecclesia, ON