My biological father came to Washington with a trailer to pick us up, and for the first time since I was eight months old, I went to live with him, until we could find work and save enough money for a rental. A few months later when we went to look at one, a beautiful little house with hardwood floors, I tried to image my life if I stayed in my marriage. I couldn't do it. I never loved him I knew, and so did he. I never could; it was cruel and unfair to both of us, I thought, to stay. I told him so. He moved out of my dad's basement on his own, and a couple months later, so did I.
I was on my own for the first time, really, and it was wonderful. I loved being on my own and having my own place. I worked at St. John's, and by night I sang karaoke while I tried to get together a band, sang the national anthem at hockey games, boxing matches, and rodeos, or anywhere that would have me. I got in shape and focused on preparing to move to Nashville, where I would never marry, or indeed need anyone. I dated a bit, but as usual losers or scum bags, or nice guys who bored me....
And then one day, headed home from work I thought I saw a friend of mine waving me down to the Wild West, just beyond where I lived. I could just say hi for a bit, I thought, but when I got there, he was no where to be found. I was standing against the rail thinking about going home when a handsome Matt Damon look alike invited me to join him and his friends. I accepted. He asked me to dance, and then for my number. I didn't give it to him, he asked again, I said we'll see, and then he came in and joined them. My future husband was clearly labeled, in a Hooters T-shirt that said Mr. Right on the front, (and Mr. Right Now on the back!). He bought me a drink, he asked me to dance, he walked me outside, to the beautiful blue Toyota Tacoma of my dreams....
And I was done. My dreams of Nashville went through volatile death throes, but he was my destiny and I knew it. I was still young, immature, and selfish, but after I saw the bar scene was killing us, the drinking, and the attention I craved from my music was toxic, though he would never ask me to quit, I knew it was the only way. It was one or the other.
Still, I don't know how we ever would have gotten on track if we hadn't gotten pregnant. It seemed like a wake up call that no matter how much we loved each other, our relationship would never be healthy, and would eventually implode, unless we grew up, quit drinking, and started making a life together. God was there, and though our choices had consequences, he was, even then using our sin for the eventual good. He was redeeming my lifetime of poor choices, and was about to give me a whole new life with the man he made for me.
My sin was a pathway to my redemption, convicting me, teaching me, wearing me down toward acceptance and surrender. I often wonder where I would be without that first marriage, all my bad choices. Would I have ended up somewhere else? Not met Lance? Would I have still become a Christian, without all those here who helped me along the way? Would I have succeeded in all my wildest dreams, to terrible moral destruction? I marvel at God's plan, how he uses things, how interwoven we are with each other, the far reaching effect of our choices....that all of this blessing came out of something so terrible; His ways are mysterious indeed.
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