Amazing Grace: Chris' Faith Journey- Part 2

Hi friends! On today’s Draw Near to Me post we begin part 2 of Chris’ testimony. I appreciate how authentic and open he is with all that he shares. It takes courage to be willing to reveal parts of our lives that were challenging and hard. We last left off with Chris wandering away from the church and doing things his own way. Today we get glimpses of how God continued to pursue him. Now, let’s dive into part 2 of Chris’ story. Enjoy!

I wasn’t living for God at all when I met my wife. Honestly, neither of us had Christ at the center of our lives back then. We had known each other for years and years before we finally decided we wanted to be together. After that, things moved quickly and we got married when I was 28 years old.

My grandfather did not react well when he found out that I was marrying an African American woman. He and my grandmother totally cut me off from that whole side of the family. I was told that it wasn’t what we did. I didn’t understand what was happening. It felt ironic that my grandfather, the one who led me to Christ when I was younger, did not accept my marriage because of my wife’s race. I thought Jesus loved everybody and the color of someone’s skin did not matter.

I began to look over my life and examine the time I spent with my grandparents. Soon, all the memories rushed back. I started to remember that my grandfather had said things against African Americans when I was a kid, but at the time it passed over my head. I asked God what that meant. Was my grandfather really saved? He served and loved God, yet he acted this way. I struggled to reconcile what that meant.

Throughout my marriage, I did not talk to that side of the family. My dad told me that my grandmother snuck out of the house to drop off money when one of our kids was born. Other than that, I did not hear from her. My grandparents were old-fashioned. They had a culture where the man determined what the family was and wasn’t going to do. That was how my grandmother’s absence was explained to me. In the end it didn’t matter to me. How they handled it was totally up to them. I was living my life with my family regardless. Almost 18 years passed before I heard from them.

One day, my dad called to tell me that my grandfather was in the hospital. He was in bad shape. Dad was always the reconciler and believed in family first. He said it would be great if I could come to the hospital. I had a brief initial moment of bitterness and thought, “That’s easy for you to say. I was the one that didn’t have family around all those years.” At the same time I understood where dad was coming from.

After I thought about it, I realized that I would love to see my grandfather. The truth was that I still remembered how he was when I was a kid. I still saw my grandfather from that little boy’s point of view. He was the man that I spent summers with in North Carolina. He was the one that showed me how to change the oil in the car and the tires. He was there for me in a lot of ways. That stuff stuck with me.

Despite everything, I knew my grandfather had a heart for me and loved me. It sounds ironic to say that given everything, but I realized that something else was going on with him. There was a root that the enemy had put in my grandfather. Perhaps it stemmed from the culture or history of the South, but however you wanted to explain it, he simply could not unroot it. For whatever reason, my grandfather couldn’t let go, or refused to let go, even though he had God in his life. I didn’t love those things about him, but I still loved him.

I went to see my grandfather in the hospital because I didn’t want to hold on to anger or bitterness. It wasn’t challenging to go because I wanted to see him. Obviously, it was a little awkward running into some family members for the first time in a long time. I think they knew I hadn’t done anything shameful. In the end, I had a chance to tell my grandfather that I loved him. Everything else that happened wasn’t my issue to carry around with me, if that makes sense. I had plenty of my own issues, I didn’t need to carry any others. I just didn’t want to live that way, you know?

When my grandfather passed, my grandmother asked me if I would consider being a pallbearer. I agreed since I remembered loving him deeply as a kid. When I thought back to those years in my life when we didn’t speak, it didn’t really bother me so much. It was his loss that he didn’t meet my kids and my wife. He was the one that missed out on time with us. I wasn’t going to judge him for it.

After the funeral, my grandmother came over and said, “Chris, I want to ask you if you will forgive me for everything. Before your granddad died, I told him that I was going to go to you and ask for forgiveness.” She told me that she had also encouraged him to do the same. Sadly, he refused. His inability to ask for forgiveness left a lasting impression on me. It was such a sad thing. Even though I tried not to carry bitterness, it affected me and impacted other areas of my life.

My wife and I had a blended family. When we got married, I had two kids from previous relationships. She had a son, who was a baby at the time, and the father was not around as much. Once we were married, we had two additional kids together. Initially, we both came into our marriage with this “yours, mine, and ours” mentality. However, her son is my son as far as I’m concerned, so our families did eventually truly blend.

We were just living life and raising our kids. Yet, the reality was that we both brought a lot of baggage into our marriage. At that age, we didn’t realize what we were bringing in and it made things very difficult at the beginning. Over time, those insecurities began to contribute to the destruction of my marriage.

At the time, I didn’t recognize that past issues were stirring in me. Of course, in hindsight I can see some of those things. I remember one time when we went to a marriage counselor and were asked to write a word on a rock. I think we were going to throw it away or something symbolic like that. It was supposed to be a word that was associated with our family or history. The first word that came to me was abandonment. I was still carrying something huge from my past.

Instead of facing that insecurity, I did something that men normally do. I buried everything. I felt like I had to carry everybody’s problems and issues. At the same time, I thought that I could not share my problems because I was the man. I had no outlet. I knew as a Christian that I was supposed to talk to God, but I never really did because of where my heart was at the time.

I look back now and see that I was a husband and father who was a Christian instead of being a follower of Christ who was a husband and father. I wasn’t serving Jesus first and letting Him influence and shape me. I was too busy trying to handle it all. When people didn’t do things the way I wanted, I blamed them for not doing what they were supposed to do. I thought my job as a husband and father was just to take everybody to church. I missed the other roles I should have done. I didn’t see that my wife was carrying around some insecurities and waiting for me to provide a safe environment to unload them. I never gave her that.

Instead, I became a very, very selfish man. I based everything on how I wanted to feel and whether someone else was making me feel that way. It was easy to tell myself that I was trying to do what God wanted me to do, but my wife was not loving me and paying attention to my love language or needs. It was selfish of me. She would have been willing to do things to make me feel loved, except I never let her. I was too busy being angry and wanting things the way I felt they should be done. I felt like she wasn’t living up to my standards and doing what I needed her to do for me.

I wrecked my marriage. The first person that came along and started saying nice, sweet things to me became the person I ran to. I thought that was what I needed, but it led to destruction. I had an affair on my wife. That led to a divorce after 24 years of marriage.

After everything ended it was like the enemy lifted the veil. You go in thinking you have this shiny new thing that is going to make you happy. Then, when it doesn’t and everything wrecks, it’s like the curtain that was drawn away in the Wizard of Oz. Suddenly you hear, “Hey look, here’s what you really got. Your children are devastated and your family is destroyed.”

The dominoes kept falling. It was almost like the enemy was laughing at me saying, “Ha! You’re condemned. You deserve nothing good in your life.” I knew what I had done, but God still had a plan for me.

Prior to our divorce, my wife told me that if I wanted a chance of having it work, I needed to go to church, get counseling and join a men’s group for accountability. I was willing to do whatever it took, so I dove back into church. Even though my marriage didn’t get saved, God hooked me in. He still had things for me to do.

One Sunday, I was at the Church of Eleven22 when they said something like, “If you are in sin, we have people down in the front that you can share and confess it with.” I went down to one of the ministers and did just that. I had finally hit a point where I no longer wanted to live like I was. I needed to be different. I knew only God could change me.

As I continue seeking God, there are times where I wonder if I am trying to make up for what I have done. That’s when I am so thankful for the teachings at the church. I need the reminders that the Word of God says that I am forgiven. That God’s grace covers a multitude of sins, mine included.

Of course, wrecking my life wasn’t God’s ideal plan, but He knew everything that was going to happen. He knew I was going to make mistakes, yet He still loves me despite them. Sometimes I wondered how God could love me after all that I had done. Then He reminded me about people in the Bible, including David, that had major flaws and He still used them. I started to recognize that God was not done with me.

To be continued.