Faith in the Middle of Waiting

To set the stage for the story I am about to share, I want you to hold in your mind two images. The first is of a porcelain bowl.

You know those deep dives you can get into on YouTube? Where you google one thing and before you know it you are 5 videos deep into a topic? I did that today as I learned about porcelain. A fascinating ancient process, it begins with the mixing of water, clay, feldspar, quartz, and kaolin. These items are ground and pressed into a paste that develops a mouldable, plastic consistency. It is pressed, shaped, trimmed before it is baked for the first time in the kiln. The kiln draws out all the water. After cooled it is dipped into a glaze. And then baked again. This time at 2000 degrees and for 12 hours, glaze and vessel becoming one. What emerges is a vessel that can withstand almost as much pressure as steel. And yet also has a delicacy that the maker must be careful of. There is so much beauty found in a vessel that has undergone such pressure and shaping and heat. 

The second image I want you to picture is that of a solar eclipse, where for a few minutes, the sun, moon, and earth are perfectly aligned. The moon eclipses the sun, casting a portion of the earth into deep shadow as the sun’s light is blocked. And yet, if you’ve ever had the joy of witnessing such a moment, or seen a photo, you know that the evidence of the sun is still plainly seen. You can’t see the sun, but you can see the radiance of something majestic. (It’s technically called a solar corona… but given the last few years, let’s not use that word. Let’s call it the sun’s crown.) Darkness and light.

With those two images at the forefront, let me tell you about Maggie* and Tom*. While this is Maggie’s story, it is about her marriage to Tom. It’s a story about waiting, about being refined, about living in darkness. And it’s a story of beauty and of light. 

We jump in to this story in the year 1985. Maggie and Tom were outwardly successful. They had been married for 13 years and had 4 kids, the youngest being six years old. Maggie had worked in insurance before the marriage and was now a stay-at-home mom. Tom worked in construction. However, both came from highly dysfunctional families of origin. They had excelled in the mentality of that generation. “Don’t talk. Don’t share. If it’s bad, fake it. If you don’t talk, you won’t feel it. Ignore the pain.” Outwardly, they had achieved the dream. Inwardly, they were a mess. In Maggie’s words: “Nobody knew me.” As time went on, the pain intensified and the trauma remained unprocessed. By the time September 1985 came, Maggie had attempted suicide three times and had made 3 trips to the psych ward. She had no more hope in the brokenness and darkness of her life. 

God had other plans. 

Maggie and Tom were introduced to a pastor who shared the gospel with them. It was the first time either of them had heard about a personal relationship with Jesus and understood the power of a resurrected Jesus. Maggie was 35. And what she describes is the Holy Spirit opening her eyes to see the person of Jesus; the love He had for her, the life He had lived and given up for her, the life He wanted for her. That night, both Maggie and Tom prayed the prayer of salvation. 

And this is where you may think I would write something like “and they lived happily ever after.” What actually happened after they prayed the prayer is that Maggie began to follow Jesus, and Tom retreated. Tom wanted all the information so that he could master the Bible and the “God-thing.” Maggie wanted a relationship with God. The raw material of Maggie’s life was about to be put through pressure and heat to create something beautiful.

It took a bit of time for Maggie to realize that she and Tom were not on the same path as information and relationship are two vastly different things. When she would try to have a conversation about what she was learning and experiencing, Tom would shut her down. 

“The dawning realization was that I also had to let go of my husband; that his journey wasn’t mine; that I had to let God deal with him the way God wanted to deal with him, even if I did not approve. Or even if it did not meet my needs or expectations in the marriage. I had to literally LET GO! At that point as I began to see the depths of the dysfunction,  I first had to realize that it wasn’t my fault. Yes, I may have made it worse at times because of my own ignorance. But now, as a Christian wife, ya, no, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t earn or deserve his antagonism or his rejection or his anger. So the whole perspective began to shift. If anything, the loneliness intensified. Because now I had no one to blame. I couldn’t blame me and I couldn’t blame Tom…. To all outward appearances, I have everything. I’ve got a paid up house. I’ve got healthy kids. I’ve got a husband who comes home every night and gives me his pay check kind of stuff. It’s storybook kind of stuff. But in Christ, I know that there’s a bond that God intended for marriage…. The simplest way I could phrase it is that basically husband and wife can and should be friends. But you can’t be friends with someone who you don’t know. You can’t be friends with someone who won’t let you in. You can’t be friends with someone who thinks every time you ask a question because you’re curious or you’re just inviting conversation thinks that you’re attacking them. Questions or personal conversations are not allowed in the wounded world of a man like my husband was.” - Maggie 

I want to pull you aside for a moment with something that came up in conversation with Maggie again and again. She doesn’t blame Tom. As she began to unpack the dysfunction and trauma of her childhood with the truth of the gospel, she could see how very true the phrase “wounded people wound people” is, as evidenced in her marriage. Maggie speaks of him without bitterness and with compassion and tenderness. The impact of wounds that went un-dealt with from his childhood were felt for decades. I think it is also important to note that, as in any marriage, there are two people. Two sinners. Two people in need of grace. Maggie wasn’t perfect. She still isn’t. She’d be the first to tell you she’s made many mistakes. With that in mind, let’s get back to the story. 

As Maggie said, life looked like a storybook. There was no substance abuse or addiction or cheating. But what began to take shape would end up being a 35-year “in-between dark place,” filled with loneliness and a longing to be known. As the months became years, they stayed housemates. But there was no intimacy. Maggie’s emotional, spiritual, and physical needs as a wife went unmet for 35 years. 35 years of waiting. God was with her in that dark place. It wasn’t long before she was faced with the conscious decision to either trust God or leave Tom. There was no in between. She chose to trust God. She chose to wait with hope for reconciliation in her marriage. And threw herself into something that she could choose. And that was her relationship with God. 

Just as there are 3 general stages of porcelain making (the forming, the first firing, and second firing), so God would take Maggie’s surrendered life and heart and make something beautiful. 

The forming occurred when Maggie would sit for hours with her Bible. In those first years, she devoured as much scripture as she could. Many days that looked like 2 hours in the morning, 2 hours in the afternoon and 2 hours in the evening, when the kids were in school or in bed. She met God there. The Holy Spirit would teach her as she used coloured pencils and highlighted who Jesus is, promises made, and who the Bible said she was. The Psalms gave her words of lament. The Old Testament taught her that God could take what man meant for evil in her life and use it for good. The New Testament gave her truths to combat lies. In fact, the New Testament introduced her to the Truth that is the person of Jesus. And she began to use scripture to unravel the pains and traumas of the past, as well as give hope for the pains of the present. One such passage is Psalm 31. 

“For you are my rock and my fortress; you lead and guide me for your name’s sake. You will free me from the net that is secretly set for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I entrust my spirit; you have redeemed me, Lord, God of truth…. Be gracious to me Lord, because I am in distress; my eyes are worn out from frustration - my whole being is unwell. Indeed, my life is consumed with grief and my years with groaning; my strength has failed because of my iniquity…. But I trust in you, Lord; I say ‘You are my God.’ The course of my life is in your power…. How great is your goodness that you have stored up for those who fear you…. Be strong and let your heart be courageous, all you who put your hope in the Lord.” - Psalm 31: verses 3-5, 9-10, 14-15, 19, 24

As Maggie grew in her faith and in her love for the Word of God, she was encouraged to pursue a seminary degree by friends and pastors. (To put it more bluntly, when God first called her to ministry, she straight up refused. She thought He was crazy. She finally surrendered to His persistence, and said He would have to bring it to pass. And so He did). So began her transition into ministry. She became over time an ordained minister and certified counsellor. She received affirmation at school from professors and mentors that God had gifted her to be able to understand and communicate beautiful truth in a way that people understood and were changed. 

But in this second stage, the firing stage, where the porcelain is exposed to great heat, she walked a parallel existence. At home she faced greater depths of loneliness and emptiness. Tom, having a negative view of her studying scripture and was actively sabotaging her study. But her ministry began thriving. She could sit with people walking through the deepest, darkest pain. Her own darkness God used, allowing for a depth in ministry she might otherwise have missed. And while she didn’t have many people to talk to about what was going on in her own life, she never hid the pain and longing from Jesus. And so her walk with the Holy Spirit was thriving. God was meeting her in creativity and art. She would have flows of inspiration and began writing poetry. Scripture would affirm again and again what the Spirit was speaking to her. It was during this time that she penned the following (which is part of a longer poem written for communion, called “Remembering”).

Falling, falling, out of control

Past all the props that steadied my soul. 

Reeling and spinning away from the shelf 

My protection is gone, I'm all by myself.

Exposed and at risk, I'm in danger of dying

But it's better than keeping this lifestyle of lying.

The truth is I'm tired of running away.

Is there no one at all who can help me to stay?

The cry was unspoken, yet someone did hear.

The answering voice seemed to say "come near

"To the waters of life, drink long and drink deep, 

"My Father and I have some gifts you can keep."

"You see, you were chosen for love and for life 

"To be a whole person a good friend and a wife 

"Washed in the water and the blood of the Lamb 

"You'll be righteous and holy and pure as I am."

As the years passed, Maggie continued to love her husband and love the Lord, and wait… and wait… for her husband to fall in love with the Lord too. Within the marriage, while the attacks stopped, the lack of intimacy persisted. Maggie and Tom had learned to be comfortable, high-functioning roommates. There is something that fascinated me when I was learning about porcelain making. In the last stage, the piece is dipped into a glaze and put back into the kiln. And in the heat of the oven, the material of the glaze and the material of the pottery meld to become one. It reminded me of something Maggie said about the final years of darkness within her marriage. Internally, her and God were unshakeable. He had coated her with a peace and quietness of spirit. There was a reservoir of trust and patience, a belief that her God was/is able to do even what seemed impossible. 

In reflecting about the many years she has lived in darkness, her “in the middle,” Maggie said this about a solar eclipse: 

“Even at 100% eclipse, the halo around the sun is magnificent. And you can’t normally look at the glory of the sun without going blind. And so the spiritual analogy for me is just huge. Who cares about the darkness? It doesn’t matter! Because the deepest darkness which appears in one level to eclipse the glory or the goodness or the kindness or the presence of the Lord is an optical illusion. And the reality is that the glory, the halo of the Lord never goes away, didn’t go away, and is actually brighter, and you can see the Lord in the darkness in a way that you cannot see Him in broad daylight.” - Maggie

Another writer put it like this:

“The eclipse reminds us to linger in the darkness, to savor the silence, to embrace the shadow—for the light is coming, the resurrection is afoot, transformation is unfolding, for God is working in secret and in silence to create us anew.” - Linda Anderson-Little from “Embracing Darkness and the Solar Eclipse.” 

Just 3 months shy of 35 years from that September when Maggie and Tom heard the gospel message, God did what only He is able to do. As Tom lay in a hospital room following a major surgery, he had a vision. In his vision, three men visited his hospital room. And while no words were exchanged, Tom knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that one of them was Jesus. And Tom couldn’t continue to look at Him, he had to look away and the vision vanished.  Initially, Tom felt condemnation. For several months he chewed on what he saw. He began to realize that the look Jesus gave him was not one of passing judgement but one of longing. Tom finally realized that Jesus loved him with a depth he had never known. He realized that Jesus wanted a relationship with him, not just for him to follow the rules. Tom began to open himself up. Finally, Tom was his real self with a real God and Saviour. So began his journey towards understanding intimacy.

Maggie and Tom are beginning again, nearly 50 years into marriage. It is new and exciting as they have started again at friendship, with Jesus at the centre of it all.

I asked Maggie, as I do in every interview, what she would want to share with others walking through difficulties in their marriage or through long seasons of darkness or in the middle of waiting for an answer to prayer. Her response (and I paraphrase) was that even though her situation isn’t yours, the truth echoes still the same: God is both eternal and imminent. He is here. In any situation, find the knowledge of God. If your loneliness and emptiness becomes the focus, it becomes an idol and you will live bent over and miss the potential. If you don’t make God first, then it’s not the situations problem, it’s your problem. So open your hands. Lift your eyes up. Look to the halo, the crown, of the solar eclipse. Look for the evidence of the Lord even in the darkness. As a Christian, you are hidden in Christ, and He is in you. Contemplate that as your first priority.

There’s a line from a song that I think beautifully summarizes how Maggie has lived her life since meeting Jesus, a line that she both loves and hates. It says “Refiner’s fire, my heart’s one desire, is to be holy, set apart for you Lord. I choose to be holy, set apart for you my Master, ready to do your will.”(Brian Doerksen) God has taken the rough and every-day material, the pain and trauma and hurt and loneliness, and in the darkness has shaped her and made her how He, the Creator, desired. He has used her in ways that will change generations of families to come (mine included). 

May we have the courage to pray the same prayer: Our heart’s desire Lord is to be set apart for you, ready to be used by you. And if that means being put through the fire, may we be willing, with open hands and eyes fixed on Jesus. 

*names have been changed for the privacy of the individuals

**I chose the names Maggie and Tom for very specific reasons. Maggie’s love for Jesus and desire to follow Him reminds me of Mary Magdalene, who was one of Jesus’s devoted followers. And much like Thomas, one of the disciple’s of Jesus,  it took Tom seeing Jesus to truly believe.  

***photos used of the solar eclipse were taken by Maggie a few years ago