In the opening chapter of The Forgotten Way, Ted Dekker takes us on a journey back in time to his childhood, and growing up in a missionary family with the missionary life. He talks about some of the darkness he experienced as a child and a teenager, and how so much happened he could not understand or explain. He talks about why he wrote, The Forgotten Way Meditations.
I believe this is a good place for me, and anyone who chooses to join me, to start in this discussion; the reason for our search for understanding and the reason for reading The Forgotten Way Meditations.
Coming Back
It is a much longer, and harder, road back than anticipated. Honestly, I don’t recall even thinking or wondering how long it would take to get back, or, how long I was gone - though now, it feels an immeasurable span of time- yet it was an obvious fact that I had to get back. There was a precipice looming, inches in front of me, one that if stepped off of, would mean no return. No return to the music or writing, no return to sanity and order, and it was very clear, it would be the end of me, who I am and what I do.
To be caught in a web of chaos and confusion, when one’s natural tendency is to sort out chaos and shed light on confusion, and not realize that one is being slowly taken away from all things that give light and life and spiritual growth and abundance, is to be actively participating in the chaos and confusion, helping to create it and employ it. When realization comes, it comes with no gentle hand, but a hard smack, or two. Two, to be exact.
The first one left me dazed, not wanting to believe what just happened. Good old me, never wanting to believe the worst until absolutely forced into believing. No, that did not just happen...yes, it did, but it didn’t...not like “that” anyway...but it did happen...No apology, no remorse, no anything except an excuse of “oops.” With a little time and distance, upon reflection, there was a look, a demeanor, a posture, a way of standing, a wordless statement of satisfaction, of “I got you,” of goal accomplished, a swallowed chuckle. And, when I suppose it was deemed the first one didn’t take properly - or it was gotten away with, there later followed a second, which was then followed by rage. Verbal battery preceded all.
It’s not the first time. But, now I am old and, whereas before, when I was younger, I dusted my self off, squared my shoulders and never looked back. Not this time. The knife of betrayal sunk deeper, caused more damage. Perhaps, like anything as we get older, it just takes longer to recover.
I try to see it, the coming back. But, just a few minutes ago while sitting down to learn a friend’s song which had been on my wish list for years, I couldn’t get through it. I could not sing it without weeping, literally weeping. I am knocked off my feet. Even some of my own songs now, that happens. But, I think if I keep singing and weep it all out, things will come back around. Some days, it’s all I really know how to do, this singing and praying and reading about Christ’s love for me.
Everyday Things by Linda Bilque
Maybe when the weather’s better, we can try to get together
Talk about what we remember of how things used to be
Maybe when the weather changes, maybe in the Spring
We can talk about the folks we knew and the way things used to be.
Everyday things are tender, everyday things are sweet
Everyday things make up a lifetime
You were that kind
You were that kind
Maybe you will take my hand, hold it like you understand
That sometimes life’s a litany of misunderstandings
Sometimes life just goes along, sometimes love’s a dream
Sometimes it’s just breakfast, lunch and dinner with nothing inbetween
Everyday things are tender, everyday things are sweet
Everyday things make up a lifetime
You were that kind
You were that kind
Maybe when the weather’s better, we can try to get together
Talk about what we remember of how things used to be
Maybe when the weather changes, maybe in the fall
We can walk among the falling leaves and talk about it all
Everyday things are tender, everyday things are sweet
Everyday things make up a lifetime
You were that kind
You were that kind
I had made escape from several different abusive situations. During the course of a thirteen year marriage, after trying to fix everything I could think to fix, buying books to learn what I was doing wrong, how I could be better and the abuse would stop, I happened upon a book called “The Verbally Abusive Relationship” by Patricia Evans. It read like my current life story. It seemed to be verbatim as to what was happening in my marriage.
Although I don’t remember exactly what it was, I emailed Ms. Evans with a question. My phone number was in my signature and so she called me within a couple of hours, asking without preamble, “Where are you?”
“I am in my truck headed to the post office. Who is this?”
“This is Patricia Evans, I received your email, whatever you do, don’t go home.”
“Oh.”
“Your situation is going to get worse very quickly, do not go home.”
“Well, he left early this morning for a pack trip with his nephew to the Wind River Mountains and is not expected back for a couple of weeks.”
“Then you have time to get what you need and get away. But, get away, don’t go back.”
The long and short of it is, I did leave. And some years later I was visiting about this situation with a friend who is a retired Sheriff and personal protection advisor. He told me that my then husband was rehearsing how he was going to kill me. As I reflected on different scenarios that took place, I could see it. At the time, in those moments, the behavior just seemed weird, off kilter, but I never suspected that I was about to be murdered.
How in the world did I there?
There is a history on my part. A history of abuse by men. It is a fact that every man I have become involved with has abandoned me, literally. The girl’s father left me and my daughters without food, utilities and secure shelter. He also abandoned me emotionally and spiritually. Men have hit me, shaken me - not as “shaken baby” by the shoulders, but picked up by my head and shaken; and raged at me. I have come to believe it is a fact that this not being able to recognize the signs of impending abuse, or to recognize an abuser at first contact, comes from abuse that begins before remembrance. So, one is conditioned. To use the current term, groomed, for abuse.
I will not cast a bad light on my parents, because it was told to me some years ago that this abuse took place at the hand of a family member, that being my eldest sister’s husband. The sister who told me this had also been abused. I don’t know when she told on him, but she did say that she remembers our mother’s exclamation of, “What has he done to the baby?” That “baby” meaning me, so I can only surmise that I was just that, a baby, perhaps a toddler. The same sister was angry because she felt that Mom’s concern was only for me, and not her. But, I don’t believe that, and told her so. I believe those words would be a natural exclamation of shock and worry for the smallest and most helpless. And, my parents came from a different generation where such things were not talked about or made public. Don’t talk about it, not even within the family. Secrets kept, skeletons in the closet, evil in the basement.
Here’s another set of bones for the dog to worry; my second eldest sister would not be alone in a room with either our brother-in-law or our brother, ever, for any reason under any circumstances, till the end of her days. I did not know this until just about ten years ago, and so, about 25 years after the following incident;
My brother happened to come into a bar where I had been working for a long stretch. His coming in surprised me because, due to his abusive behavior toward me and others, we had not spoken in quite a few years. But, he stayed the evening and, after several failed attempts to get the other barmaid to go with him, waited for me to close and go have breakfast with him. I was hesitant, but, perhaps he wanted to make amends, so I went along. It seemed to be a nice visit about his work- the then new creation of satellite communications and Television. He drove me home afterwards and as I was getting our of the car he stopped me by pulling me to him and kissed me on the mouth. I tried to yank my arm away but he would not let go. When I started slapping and hitting him, he started crying and said he was so sorry, that he was sorry for a lot of things. That he was sorry for what he Eugene ***** and a man whose first name was Bill (I knew who he was talking about at the time, I had met this Bill and I believe I had met Eugene), had done and been doing to young boys at the bus station. I was finally able to jerk away from him and went in my house. I went to the police the next day and told them everything he said and did that night. I can guarantee nothing came of it. With names like Bill whomever and Eugene *****, good ole boy Texas cops would do nothing about it, especially in a itty-bitty mid-cities Texas town. Especially, being a small town at the time, and the fact that for a short while I had dated a local police officer and had talked about my brother to him, Gary was known and probably feared.
I recall my mother telling a story of Dad coming home to find my brother raging at Mom, calling her names. The story was, Mom had told him he could not have a rifle in the house because of the younger children and he brought one in anyway. She told him to take it back to where he bought it and get his money back. That is when Gary called Mom a bitch. Dad had come in the door just in time to hear this, so he turned my brother by the shoulder to face him, told him never to speak to Mom that way again, then punched him in the face so hard my brother slid backwards down the tiled hallway to land against the wall at the far end. My brother told people he hated Dad for that.
As he became elderly, Dad was afraid of him, and one time drove my brother, and my brother’s wife and father-in-law out of the house. I will admit that was at my suggestion - During a visit home in 2010, Dad had told me he was afraid of Gary, and that my brother regularly caused Mom to cry. That he would go into rages, but also Dad would find Gary in Dad’s office going through paperwork and file drawers. I suggested that next time my brother did something like that, Dad could tell Gary to leave and not come back until he could be respectful. About a year later, he did just that. We three remaining daughters tried to convince Dad that Gary should be removed as executor of their estate. But, because he was afraid that Gary might hurt one or all of us, including Mom and Dad, he was left in place.
The nightmare started right after Dad’s funeral.
At the funeral home, my brother was upset with me because I would not enter the parlor while Dad’s casket was open. I don’t believe in open casket. I waited in the lounge and outside the parlor door where I could listen to the service. It all got worse from there. I was declared a danger to my mother and not allowed to see her while she was sick and dying. I’m sure, in his mind, it was all some kind of due punishment on me. None of the family would speak to me after Mom died. In late may of 2021, my sister three years older than me did call and tell me that our eldest sister was in the hospital and dying, but that I should not bother to go see her as there was nothing I could do. Afraid that If I said I was going, that she would barr me since she was my dying sister’s executrix and medical power of attorney, I went and did not tell her. My incognito status lasted about six days before I was found out, and the attempt to barr me was made. However, one of the nurses asked me why this was happening, then put a stop to it.
In my hurt and confusion, I often think of Joseph who, in the book of Genesis, was sold into slavery by his brothers. In the aftermath, Joseph had difficult and dangerous circumstances to overcome, but with God as his guide and protector, he did, and he flourished mightily. And later he was able to provide for his brothers and their wives.
I was not sold into slavery like Joseph. But, perhaps I was conditioned and groomed into slavery. And, maybe I really did know all those things I didn’t think I knew back then, and that is why I fled as soon as I could. That wasn’t necessarily to my benefit, either.
Growing up in the Methodist Church, I cannot recall there ever being a time when I did not believe in Jesus as the Son of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. So, I know that nursery school and Sunday School teachers did their job right and it stuck. But, I was never taught application, how to live within that truth, how to walk in that truth. I was never taught how to face malevolence head on. Never being taught how to make decisions based on what is right in the eyes of God, regardless of what the world wants me to do or say, or let be done to me.
Perhaps I may never understand why this all happened, and maybe I don’t need to understand, be analyzed and studied. But, the why does not matter any more. The only thing I need to understand is Jesus making me whole again, and He is doing so, step by step. He has been waiting for me for a long time. Coming to belief in Jesus during early childhood, I know that He has been protecting me all these years from what could have been far worse.
It is not an easy thing to enter His rest - I have been running so hard for so long just to survive and it’s hard to put the brakes on that kind of momentum. Yet, I believe that there is purpose for me and the gifts and talents given me, and now, with God’s grace and blessing, those gifts will finally produce fruit. Searching once again, looking for the words and truths I can comprehend and put to my life, I found this book by Ted Dekker, The Forgotten Way. I am on my third reading of this book, and each time my mind accepts a deeper truth and understanding of Christ in me, and me in Christ; of accepting that truth and learning to live in that truth.
I hope you decide to take your own journey through this book. We can’t walk the whole pathway together literally, but we can share it here, and perhaps help each other along the way.