Saturday, January 31, 1998

The day my wife -- and church -- left me

By Matthew Brady / Knight Ridder Newspapers

Before 1993, I was widely regarded as a great Christian.

As a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, I spent my days exploring the deep mysteries of faith. In the evenings, I went home to a wonderful wife. On weekends, the two of us volunteered at a tiny church near Azle.

I led the music. She played the piano.

We could have been a poster couple for James Dobson's Focus on the Family.

Then reality pre-empted my "Leave It to Beaver" lifestyle.

In the summer of 1993, my wife of two years filed for divorce. In Baptist life, there are traditionally two valid reasons for divorce: unfaithfulness and abuse. To say, "I don't like this person anymore" will relegate you to the fringes of evangelical society.

My wife chose to charge me with abuse.

She never formalized it in court. It was something she told our friends and her family, but the effect was the same as if my photo had run on the front page of the 'Star-Telegram under a banner headline.

I quickly learned that my Christian friendships were about as deep as a child's wading pool. I stepped down from my church job. People stopped calling or returning my calls. Meanwhile, a network of sympathizers embraced my wife.

What hurt most was the silence.

My church friends did not confront me with the charges. They simply accepted them as true and acted accordingly.

After five years -- and several thousand dollars' worth of therapy -- I am still dogged by a deep and abiding shame.

My older brother, who is also my best friend, tells me to shrug it off. I love my brother, but our personalities are different. Public opinion tends to paralyze me. As a result, what began as intentional ostracism by my circle of Christian friends has become a self-imposed exile from the Christian community as a whole.

I have tried becoming active again in local churches, but it is a struggle to be optimistic. With every pat on the back by a Christian, I can't help but wonder, "What would you think of me if I failed?"

The Bible calls the church the "bride of Christ," and I feel as if this bride has been unfaithful. She lures me with promises of love and forgiveness, but I fear she will leave me again when I step from behind my facade and reveal myself to be frail.

I have read the contract. I know what the church is supposed to be. My college pastor was fond of describing it as a "hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints." He was right. Yet too often it doesn't work that way. The past five years have not been all gloom and darkness. God has placed saints in my path. Burt Purvis, the pastor of The Church in Cityview in Fort Worth, was the first Christian to visit me after my divorce.

It was several years ago. I had attended his church, which is Southern Baptist, and taken what was for me the bold step of filling out a visitor's card. To my surprise, he showed up at my door, and I invited him in.

I sensed that this guy was sincere. I poured out my heart to him for an hour and he listened. He didn't offer advice. He didn't take my side or bad-mouth my ex-wife. He simply listened and lifted me up to God in prayer. I began to feel the first stirrings of hope. Purvis probably doesn't remember me. I don't go to his church. But praise be to God for people like him who see the mess of circumstances adults get themselves into and have the strength of character to not lord it over them.

Today, the challenge for me is to learn to trust the church again. I need to be involved. I feel it in my spiritual bones, the ache for fellowship and worship and service. But I need to go into the relationship with realistic expectations. As Mother Teresa once said, "Only God is good."

As for my ex-wife, she remained active in church and earned her master's degree from Texas Wesleyan University. The last I heard, she had moved back to her home state of Washington.

Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if we had stayed together. Would I have continued to be a pastor? Probably, but not a very good one.

I would be always standing in front of people, yet rarely standing beside them. I would know a thousand stories of pain, defeat and humiliation, yet have no story of my own.

I would be widely regarded as a great Christian, yet have no trust in the greatness of Christ.

My story has no fairy-tale ending. I'm not over the shame of divorce and of being called a "wife beater." Sometimes I want to drive my car into a bridge abutment. But those moments come less and less frequently.

More and more, I am simply grateful that God has not given up on me. The words of Psalm 94 have become a sort of anthem for my life:

"Unless the Lord had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death. When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."

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(Matthew Brady is a staff writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.)

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(c) 1998, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.