Chapter 8: THE HONEY MOON IS OVER!

Our Love is Tested

Christina Marie:  Birth of Our First Born

My first real trial after getting married came about, due to my inexperience at expressing my feelings and desires to my husband.  I was 28 years old when I met Jack and almost 30 when we married.  We both wanted children so we just took things naturally, in God’s timing.  Approximately 6 months down the road, my husband started acting distant from me and I had no idea why. 

One day he called to tell me he was going out with some people from work to have a few drinks.  I was concerned and stayed awake till he came home but was disappointed at his intoxicated state.  I was very upset and tried to suppress it by my normal household duties the next morning: cooking, cleaning, running errands, groceries, etc.  While I was in the middle of gathering his dry cleaning together to take to the cleaners, I found a shirt (he wore white ones) that had a woman’s lipstick and foundation on his collar, heavy.  I was totally crushed and turned to him and said:  “You must have had a good time as your collar has lipstick and makeup all over it!”  At that he quickly jumped up and grabbed the shirt to inspect it – as if he did not believe me.  I showed him the shirt shaking and crushed.  He asked: “Why do women wear all that junk anyway, - nothing happened, I was just dancing like this… He took hold of me and showed me how he had slow danced with someone – held them – there was nothing to it.”  This really upset me even more as he never had even danced with me like that!  Later on, he informed me that I did not know what love was all about. He thought he needed to separate from me till I understood what love in a relationship was all about.  He said, “I do not want a divorce, I just think you need time to figure out what love is”.  I was shaken to the core!  I had to figure out what he meant by that, as I knew I loved him – heart , body and soul, but how to convey this to him I had no idea.

As was my custom, I began to run into the Lord’s presence each day before Jack would come home from work.  I usually arrived home a couple of hours before him.  He would go in extra early and leave late – usually worked a 10-12 hour day.  I would toss my purse to its assigned place, and collapse on the floor with my head in a chair (which to me represented His throne of Grace) in the dark, seeking the presence and guidance of my Heavenly Father.  I did not turn on the lights – I simply set in His Divine presence, quietly waiting upon Him to help me understand – I asked for insight, wisdom and revelation as to what Jack meant.  I appealed to the Lord to help me show Jack that I truly did love him with all my being – teach me to express this to him in the way he needs me to.  This went on for weeks while the Lord was silent, but yet I could feel His love for me each time I sat there in His presence - it flowed over and through me!  I felt the Lord’s great love for me – waiting upon me each day for this precious time we had together.  He did not want it to end so He waited until just the right moment to speak and reveal to me the source of the problem.  He could have spoken this simple truth to me on day one, but now, looking back, I think He looked forward to my time, each day spent with Him.  When He finally answered it was ever so gentle, loving and direct – exactly the way I needed to hear it.  He said:  “Sharron, its okay for you to want your husband.  It’s not wrong – you’re married now and he needs you to show your love back to him; he needs to know that you desire him.”  I think our Heavenly Father can identify with this need that Jack had – intimacy with each one of us in a personal way – wanting us to want Him and His presence. 

This was around Valentine’s Day and I wanted to get him something extra special that reflected my true heart’s desire – something that would express my feelings for him.  I asked the Lord to help me write something in a card I purchased, to express what I felt for him.  My husband loved poetry also and had many poems memorized. The Lord burned this little poem upon my mind for Jack:

May Our Father reveal

The love that I feel

From Him especially for you.

May His Son Above

The author of love,

Show you my love is true.

May His Spirit show

The right way to go

Before, His purpose is through.

He read the card and became very quiet, and asked: “You wrote this?”  I answered yes – I could tell it had touched him deeply.  I remember he sat down on the couch and the Lord instructed me: “Go to him and express your desires for him – let him know that you have feelings for him – don’t always wait for him to initiate this special intimacy I designed for marriage: show him you love him and want him.”

After I followed the Lord’s instructions, I realized I was the main problem.  I had been taught for so long that this physical expression of love was wrong – a sin, and shameful; I acted like it was still wrong.  I began to think upon my marriage as something that the Lord delighted in and created –the two of us becoming one person, according to His design.  I also began to realize that my body was not my own – but his and his body was mine and that this pleased the Lord!

Not long after this revelation we were expecting our first child.  I was one of eleven and was quite familiar with pregnancy, as my mother had all eleven of us by the time she was 34 years old!  I began to pray for the Lord to be with me during this delivery, to help me bear the pain of it.  I kept hearing ladies tell me their horror stories about child birth and it began to frighten me.  The whole nine months I prayed that the Lord would direct the whole thing and be in that delivery room with me.  I did not care who else was there, I just wanted Him to be there with me.

Our baby was due around the end of December, 1980 and we both began to anticipate our baby’s delivery would soon take place.  I recall Jack and me watching a UGA football playoff game – he was a big University of Georgia (Bulldogs) fan.  He warned me not to have that baby before his playoff game ended!  I remember lying next to him watching the game together, when my mother called.  She asked if I was packed and ready to go to the hospital – I informed her I had been ready for a while now.  She told me that I had been on her mind all day and she felt she just had to call me to warn me – I had come from a family of fast laborers, and this is what will happen:  First your water will break, then you will go through a very fast labor so you must be aware of this, as soon as you start having your pains that baby will come!  Thirty minutes after I hung up, my water broke!  Jack had about 15 minutes left on his game but eagerly gathered me into the car and we were off. 

When we arrived at the hospital, it was about 11:00 and I was the first delivery to arrive on New Years day at North Side Hospital.  They checked me out, hooked me up to all the monitors and told us that I had not even begun to dilate and for a first baby it could take all night.  My husband asked, “Doctor, do you think I have time to go home and watch my games?”  The doctor assured him the baby would probably not be born before sunrise in the morning, so Jack went home to wait and watch his games.  I was checked a few times in the next hour and told I had a long way to go – had not started dilating.  During the next hour I began to feel pressure and I had no way of finding out what was taking place, as all the medical staff forgot about me!  There was a rush of women delivering at the same time.  I could hear women screaming and moaning in the rooms all around me.  I had not screamed even once – I just waited and talked to the Lord about being with me through this delivery.  About two and a half hours later I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom – I felt like I had an upset stomach or something as there was lots of pressure going on someplace, when a nurse heard me moaning and poked her head in the doorway and said: “Hurts like **** doesn’t it honey.  I asked if she could help me go to the bathroom and she came in to check my monitors.  She said: “just a minute honey, let me check you – Oh my goodness, call this lady’s husband, where is he?  She is having this baby right now – she is almost fully dilated!  

They called Jack and told him to get there as quickly as possible as I was about to deliver.  My baby girl was born at 2:15 AM and the Lord truly was with me in that room – He sent everyone else out and I was alone in there with just Him and me!  I cannot even recall the contractions, as it only felt like I had a terrible case of diarrhea or cramps.  I use to have bad cramps every month during my cycle, so bad that sometimes I fainted from them – they prepared me for my fast labor.  Ladies: can you imagine having all your contractions within a 2-3 hour period – moving from 1 to 9 centimeters?  I attribute this to my Heavenly Father and His assistance with my delivery.

Our baby’s name was also chosen by the Lord.  Here is how that came about:  I was looking over a list of names Jack and I had accumulated, but had prayed the whole nine months for the Lord to choose the baby’s name and reveal it to us as I knew names meant something to the Lord.  I did not really like any name on our list, except one: Marie for a middle name.  While I was in the hospital the name I kept getting and favored was Christine, which was my mother’s name.  I felt I could not suggest this to Jack as it was my mom’s name and of course I would like it.  I did not mention it to him, but I could not find anything I liked better to go with Marie.  Jack called after waking up and the first thing he said was:  “The name I like most is your mother’s name only I would like to call her “Christina Marie.”  I was stunned – how had the Lord done that, the very name I wanted, Jack suggested!  Only the Lord can pull something like that off. 

My next story will be about my middle daughter, Elena – her birth story.  It truly was the refiner’s fire for us both and having gone through it now, looking back, I have learned how to lean upon Him for every trial we go through.  He will give you strength to endure, to the end of our journey, as my life is a living example of this.