Number
7
I was 30 years old and
I knew it was time to remarry. I wanted
to have children, didn’t I? I moved from
Washington DC to Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
In DC, I had lived in the big city, riding the metro, walking downtown
and eating out at elegant restaurants; visiting museums, going to theater and
attending parties. In Lancaster, I moved
onto an Amish farm out in the boonies.
My home was an apartment on a 20 acre Amish farm. I had electricity, but they didn’t. There were cows, chickens and goats. The Amish worked from sun-up till sun down in
the fields plowing with horses.
Why did I do this? Well the Airline was closing down the base in
Washington DC. I had lived in the big
city, now I wanted to live in the country.
I wasn’t ready to move back to where I was from. I still wanted to explore, see the world, but
I really thought it was time to get married again if I ever was going to. After all 30 is getting old, right?
I had to drive down to
Baltimore, Maryland which was about an hour and a half. I didn’t know anyone in Lancaster; my friends
thought I was crazy and would not come all the way up to visit me. Maybe I was crazy a little. I decided the best way to meet people was to
join a gym. Years later I thought why
didn’t I try and find a church? I think
I might have been taking God for granted a little bit. I know one thing; I wasn’t thinking about Him
that much.
I joined a gym that was
near to where I lived. I enjoyed lifting
weights. I had done this in the town
where I was from before I became a flight attendant. On my days off, I would go to the gym
everyday. I was hoping to meet people. I did meet some guys and girls, and after
working out, I went to coffee with them.
They actually worked with a local airline out of the city of
Lancaster. They were pilots and flight
attendants. I was not very excited about
this, because I had come to see that life with the airline personnel was very
transit. They would come, go and often
life with them was kind of like a fairy tale; being in different cities,
staying in a different hotel every night and able to do what you wanted to do,
gave way to being dishonest at times. I
worked with lots of people that did not live by Biblical principles. I was not always sure what to do with this.
But I didn’t know
anyone, I deserved friends, right? I
remember one night standing in my apartment at the stove. My friends were coming by to get me and we
were going out. This was the first time
I was going out with them other than after the gym. I didn’t have a good feeling about it. I had been walking around the apartment
having a conversation with myself and God….explaining why I should go out with
these people. It went along the lines of
needing friends, it wasn’t good for me to be by myself all the time, I was
lonely….oh I could go on and on.
As I was standing at
the stove, cleaning the top of it (this is something I do when I am a bit
anxious), I heard that voice deep in my soul……the one I come to recognize. It said don’t go with this group. Oh I knew it was God, but He was not saying
what I wanted to hear. I heard them
drive up, blow the horn….I stood there hesitating and I remember saying, “God I
really want to go.” I left the rag I was
cleaning with, turned around and ran out the door.
Have you ever done
something and know you should not have done it?
I jumped in the car that night; there was a new person, who was that……I
started laughing with them as we drove down the road. It was like I left God on the back burner of
that stove. It was all a huge
mistake. God doesn’t tell us something
just to give us a hard time. He knows
what is best for us. He loves us and
wants good things for us. I should have
listened to God. If there is ever
anything in my life I regret, this was it.
I just said no to God or I just thought it would be ok for right now and
I would come back to Him later.
Life doesn’t work like
that. I laughed that night. I talked and talked to this new guy in the
car. He was a pilot. I really didn’t want to go out with a
pilot. I had seen some things the pilots
did, some bad decisions they made in their personal life when they were away
from their families. I really knew the
whole thing was wrong, but I DID IT ANYWAY.
Why do we do that?
I did not understand at
that time, that trusting God completely, in every area of life was the best for
me. You see, as I said earlier, I wanted
to get married again. I wanted to settle
down again, have that family, the little house with the white picket fence and
2 car garage. I wanted to have children, well one at least.
Relationships! I didn’t understand them and I was about to
fall right back into the only way I knew to deal with them; pleasing at all
cost, having an unhealthy dependency on them, looking at people (especially a
man) to tell me that I was OK. I didn’t
know it at the time, but I look to relationships (especially men) to tell me I
was loved, accepted and valued. Remember
earlier when I said I looked to my husband to meet my needs in ways that only
God could? Well that is all I knew……I
was about to look to another man to meet my needs, but God was going to show me
a different way….a different path.
The young man in the
car that night was a bit younger than me and he made me laugh. When our evening was finished, he asked if he
could see me again. I said yes. Before long we were seeing each other every
day and it didn’t take me long to see he only wanted to have a good time. He was not interested in any committed
relationship, much less marriage. I
remember having that pain wrenching feeling inside my chest again. It was similar to when my husband had left me
and didn’t want to be married to me any longer.
What was it? Rejection?
I didn’t know, but I wanted to make it feel better and I tried the only
way I knew; trying to make him accept me, to like me better, to think I was
good enough for him. Oh I hated the
feelings; I hated that pain in my chest, so I would try harder. I knew how to do that. I had done it before and I could do it
again…over and over….harder and harder.
There were so many
times this man humiliated me, left me standing at parties while he flirted and
laughed with other women. Did I tell him
to stop? Did I leave him? No, what would I do? You guessed it; I would try harder to make
him like me. Did God create us to be
doormats? No! He created us to speak truth in love…why
didn’t I tell him to stop or I would set boundaries?
I guess I didn’t know
how. You see I was too wrapped up in
trying to get this person’s approval, because that would say to me I was OK; I
mattered. OR I thought it would.
I continued to see this
man for almost 2 years. I was almost
destroyed by this time. I remembered
those words standing at the stove….don’t go Teresa. Oh I wished I had listened. All the wonderful years I had had exploring, seeing
the world, traveling and learning more about myself and the world God created;
all the things God had taught me. I had
not been interested in meeting someone, I was just having fun and I felt like
it had been a gift from God.
I was 30 though and thought
it was time to settle down because I was getting older; but the same problems
arose again with relationships. God what
was wrong with me? I kept asking Him
this question. I saw myself repeating
patterns over and over that were not working; I knew something was not right
and I needed God to show me truth.
I was about to start
down another path, a different one…….I had much to learn.
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