Cowsbell Recovery -5 The Hole

"Cowsbell" series continues.

I was not meant to be alone. I had been there and did not want to feel that again. Even if it was not a satisfying relationship, it was better than being alone. But my wife really was gone.

Fortunately, my Father’s best friend (alcohol) moved in with me and I could comfort myself in the warmth of his glow. He would be there for me, he wouldn’t leave me.

Something unexpected happened. As suddenly as he had befriended me, he betrayed me and inexplicably quit comforting me. Life was now unbearable. I tried to escape in work and spent all my waking hours at work to avoid the empty house, the aloneness of my life. I tried gathering the friends and going out partying but somehow the emptiness within could not be smothered.

There was an offer from a corporate comrade to come back and live with her in the Big City—she was something, beautiful, feisty, smart, almost perfect, but I knew it wouldn’t last. There was an unshakeable certainty that I could not escape, the nightmare of my past, that I would never escape being alone. I had always been alone, my first memories were of being alone, abandoned, uncared for, left to my private terrors and this was no different.

No matter where I was, who I was with, what I pursued, the inescapable truth was that I would at times be totally alone. I worked even longer days, going in before 6 a.m. and staying past closing at 10 p.m., forcing myself to stay awake and active until I collapsed into sleep but still the thought was there: I will be alone.

Finally, the answer began to coalesce in the back of my consciousness, something I had heard more than 15 years before, rather trite sounding but yet inviting: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” I ignored it but it kept coming back, haunting my awakened hours, repeating no matter how intently I tried to quiet that phrase. I could not escape it echoing through my soul, a voice from my past, “I will never abandon you.”

I could not deny the reality of what was being driven home with increasing frequency and finally on January 3, 1977 after another exhausting day of trying to escape, I gave in to that phrase God had spoken thousands of years before. I gave in to Jesus’ claim that He wouldn’t do what everyone else had done to me. That Monday night was the first true peace I had in decades. I slept the whole night but I was not alone.

Life was different Tuesday, January 4, 1977. My wife was gone, my Father’s friend had deserted me, my friends suddenly didn’t seem as supportive, but I was not alone. As word spread of my new friend, some new people came into my life, people who actually cared about me and not for what I would do for them, simply because they cared.

It wasn’t long before I told my missing mate; she was skeptical and thought it was merely a ruse to get her back. In fact, when I told her she later admitted asking herself, “But did he repent?” She knew how much I was closed to this brand of religion for one of the rules in my kingdom had been to never talk about Jesus. Less than a couple years into our marriage, she had become a Jesus-follower and when she told me, I told her that she could do what she wanted but we would never talk about it.

Shortly after moving to Montana, I had become a Jesus-follower but seven years later, determined to find my life for myself, had turned my back on God quite deliberately. It now seemed an ironic twist that God had gotten back in front of me while I was facing the other way.
Eventually my wife considered the possibility of God’s intervention in my life and agreed to see if it was real. It took over a year before she began to trust me again but that was understandable after all the emotional damage I had caused her. Slowly trust and love was reborn even though we lived together separately for much of that time while she watched me change.

Life was different now, I acted different, had different priorities, different values and soon had a different profession… I became a minister!
But even though I now had the right spirit and my body did the right things, there was an unknown hole in my soul.
More tomorrow!