And so we went on. Joy helped me peel off the layers. I shared intimate aspects of myself —deeply rooted fears and insecurities. I cried. Occasionally, I cancelled appointments in a futile effort to avoid the pain of another layer being exposed. During that time, the cracks in my marriage reappeared, and again I plastered and painted over them, ignoring the signs that the foundation needed repair. Neither of us knew how to face the issues head on.
Two other great blessings came into our lives during this time. I gave birth to our two precious daughters, Kristina in 1996 and Hannah in 1998. I loved my boys, but having daughters seemed to complete me as a woman. I would joke and say, “We have a ‘full house’; three of one kind and two of another.” I was mostly a stay-at-home mom during those years, though I took odd jobs at times to help make ends meet. I was a good seamstress and took in sewing work often. Once I used leftover fabric to make matching dresses for me and the girls for Easter. David’s salary as a sergeant in the Marine Corps barely kept our meager bills paid. I gladly gave up small luxury items to be able to stay home and raise my children. During that time, I taught the boys to read as they became old enough, and I loved homeschooling them.
I continued meeting with Joy and pursued my wholeness and healing. At the same time, the foundation of my marriage was shaken to the core, and in the spring of 1999 David and I separated and eventually divorced.
It was at that point in my counseling that Joy urged me to lighten my load so I could concentrate my efforts on my grief journey. “I encourage you to take everything off yourself. Think about it. Grief requires a lot of energy. So give yourself permission to not take on anything new. Instead, learn how to say no. Minimize and simplify. Allow yourself time and space to take care of Anna and your kids.”
I did as she suggested. I stopped volunteering at church on Sunday morning and Wednesday night and let go of outside commitments one by one, until I was left with no place to hide.
Finally, as a divorced, single mother of five young children, I arrived at a point where my defenses were completely removed and I was left utterly exposed. I reached a place where I could grieve my fatherlessness. Though I’d always known I never had a father who told me I was beautiful or called me his princess, or placed my feet on his to dance around the living room, or cross-examined a boy who came to pick me up for a date, I finally understood how that extreme lack affected me as a grown woman —how it impacted every aspect of my marriage and parenting.
When I finally allowed myself to acknowledge what I’d missed out on, it took several more months to fully grieve the process and heal. Those aching, turn-myself-inside-out months hurt as much physically as they did emotionally. I cried so violently during appointments that my abdominal muscles hurt for days after. I would compose myself before leaving Joy’s office, but regularly found myself crying again. Sometimes I cried so hard I couldn’t see straight to drive. I remember pulling over and sitting in my car sobbing, and then willing myself to regulate my breathing and stop the tears so I could finish my drive back home.
Once home, I would do my best to pull it together. But the emotional toll that my counseling took on me left me tired and needing rest for days following each appointment. Then, as I slowly recovered, my energy levels would rise, and I’d begin to dread my next appointment.
Eventually I came to realize how necessary the grieving, the pain, the introspection were to my healing. Instead of stiff-arming it like I had for so long, I finally began to embrace it, to throw myself fully into examining both my past and my present to help myself get better.
A few months later, I smiled as I drove into the parking lot of Samaritan Counseling. Walking into Joy’s office, I felt physically light, cleansed, liberated. I greeted Joy as she led me into her office. “Good morning!”
“Someone’s in a good mood.” Joy returned the smile. “Want to share?”
“Actually, I do.” I paused and looked out the window. The sun shone bright on that hot Texas afternoon. “I am finally beginning to understand what it means to have a relationship with my Father.”
Joy looked at me quizzically.
“My dad did horrible things to me. He abandoned me. He never once protected me. He couldn’t have cared less about me. He actually ordered the deaths of people I loved. Ervil LeBaron was a truly despicable person. But my dad is not my father.”
My voice quavered, and I choked back tears before I continued. “God is my Father. Even before I knew Him, He called my name, He cared about me, and He protected me. God has never required anything from me. I don’t have to try to be good enough for Him. He loves me anyway. He loves me no matter what. That’s what unconditional love is. I’ve come to the realization that I’m not fatherless. I never was.”
I closed my eyes and heaved a deep sigh. “I finally feel like I’m finished crying about this.”
When I opened them, Joy leaned toward me, both elbows on her knees. “You did it, Anna.”
I grabbed a tissue from the box on the coffee table in front of me. “Did what?”
“You finally got to the core. You peeled back all of the layers.” I sensed her joy and pleasure at having helped me walk to the end of this part of my very difficult journey. I could see in her eyes how proud she was of me for having done the hard work. This evoked a few more tears —not tears of sadness but of joy at having reached the end of a long journey. The last words I remember her saying to me were, “Now go live in your skin.”
Months passed, and I watched as David began intensive personal counseling, leading eventually to our decision to remarry, only this time with the help of a marriage counselor.
About this same time, my friend Yoby loaned me Dallas Willard’s book The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God. I was especially challenged by these words:
I occupy my body and its proximate space, but I am not localizable in it or around it. You cannot find me or any of my thoughts, feelings, or character traits in any part of my body. Even I cannot. If you wish to find me, the last thing you should do is open my body to take a look.[1]