Out of Ruins

The night began so wonderfully. I had just dropped off our three boys at a children’s church function and my husband and I would be home with just our eleven month old daughter. It was two weeks before Christmas 1996 and the house was decorated with shiny lights, tinsel, stockings hanging on the fire place mantle, and a decorated Christmas tree in the corner.

When I returned home from dropping off the boys, I saw Glen had built a fire in the fireplace and had made me a surprise dinner. I am usually the cook in the home, so I knew he was planning an especially romantic evening.

We visited while we ate a quiet dinner and enjoyed the peaceful Christmas music Glen had turned on for the “mood” of the evening. While enjoying this special time together with three little ones away, my thoughts were interrupted by a fairly loud voice saying “he has been with another woman.” It wasn’t an accusing voice. It was very matter-of-fact and it came out of nowhere. This thought had only crossed my mind once or twice before, and those times had been more of an “I wonder what I would ever do if …” sort of thought. The voice I was hearing now was different though. This was a definite supernatural voice. Even though I had heard the voice of the Holy Spirit before, I quickly determined in my mind that this was a trick of the devil trying to spoil our wonderful time together. I rebuked the thought and shoved it aside like I was shaking off a wasp from my arm.

Later in the evening, we were lying in front of the fireplace when the phone rang. I got up and answered it. The voice on the other end was a man’s and he asked to talk to Glen. I handed Glen the phone in the kitchen and began doing dishes while they spoke. We didn’t have a cordless phone at the time, so he was standing just a few feet away from me. I was only vaguely listening until I noticed Glen all but hiding in the corner, talking in a hushed tone. I tuned in enough to hear him saying to the man “No, I have a good marriage. There’s nothing like that happening.” Obviously, I began really listening at that point.

When Glen hung up I asked him what the call was about. He told me a distant friend was suspicious of the relationship Glen had with his wife. When I asked for more information, Glen told me that they had held hands once while he was away from home. I began to feel shaky and sick. Why would he hold someone’s hand? What was the story behind that? I was too stunned to ask. I put our daughter to bed, and later put the boys to bed after they arrived home. Holding hands with someone else’s wife was devastating itself, but the same voice that had spoken to me earlier that evening was telling me there was more.

I tried to process the fact that he had been gone, and somehow ended up holding another woman’s hand. There was no situation I could envision that would allow for that, other than a romantic one. What in the world was he thinking? Why would he dismiss that phone call and simply say he had held hands with her? I wanted to know what had happened, but then again, perhaps I really didn’t want to know. I certainly was not going to just let things rest with, “We held hands once.”

I felt like I was standing in a dark room with a huge shadow looming in front of me. It seemed there was a dark and present danger right in the middle of my marriage, but I hoped with all of my heart that there was a reasonable explanation for what had happened. My mind searched frantically for any reason that Glen might think was appropriate to hold this woman’s hand. Maybe they were walking and he helped her up a steep hill; but why would he be walking with her? She was an old girlfriend, maybe he meant they held hands when they were young. That would explain why he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.

When we go to bed at night, I usually put my head on Glen’s chest until I drift off to sleep. As we lay in bed that night after the children were asleep, I once again had my head there. Not looking Glen in the face gave me courage to ask him once again. (He later told me he wanted to wait until the kids were in bed before sharing the whole truth.)

I loved him so much, and I wanted to believe the best in him. I tried to draw comfort from the warmth of my face resting on his chest. Surely this handholding was an oversight of judgment, a one time accident or a thing from way in the past. Why would her husband call though? What triggered that suspicion? Had Glen really been so lonely while he was away from home that he replaced me and our marriage with a blast from the past? That voice that I heard earlier, was that God telling me something had happened? I knew there would be no rest in my heart until I asked, but I was afraid to know.