“…a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou will not despise” Psalm 51:17.
I had never been in a place like that before. It was embarrassing to say the least and just how they stared at me gave me shivers, but that was two years ago.
Hi, my name is Pheobe and I am a Pastor’s wife (PW). I love being a PW and I happen to be one of the few women who prayed to God to marry a Pastor. God heard my prayer 16 years ago and we have had a good run.
I say we have had a good run not because we became rich or our church was the largest in the city. Instead, I say we have had a good run because our work reflected the effort we put in. We had a church family that I would not trade for any other on the face of the earth.
Life is good, our only son is doing well and I can say God has been good to me until…
A couple of years ago something shifted. It began with a ministry visit to another town and after we had finished, we decided to spend the night to get some rest. That night, my husband decided to take some more time to pray.
I fell asleep while he was praying and I didn’t even know anything else had happened until I woke up in the early hours of the day to see my husband weeping in a corner.
Immediately, I knew that whatever the case was, my life was going to change so drastically that only God would be able to help me…
“What happened?” I asked weakly hoping that he would choose not to share with me… Apparently, a long time ago he made a stupid choice and mistake and it was time to ‘pay’. My husband was an ex-robber and that night, the Lord had told him it was time to restitute for the wrong acts.
He was weeping because he knew this had the capacity to break or make us (the family) and everything we had worked for. I couldn’t stop weeping. “How does one go and confess something that happened over 25 years ago, what will people say?”
I could hear the devil laughing… “You see, after waiting and praying so hard, it turns out you actually married a thief! What was the point of all that prayer?” I could hear him say.
For one week, I kept trying to find out if any member of the gang at the time was still alive and he said “no”. “So why reopen old wounds”, I asked? “Of what use is it? How will confessing today change what happened 25 years ago?” That was when he told me that at that last operation, he actually shot and killed someone… They were being chased by the police and in a desperate attempt to escape, he shot a police man… He was only 17 years old! He ran as far away as he could but this day… was ‘pay day’. How will we even tell our 15 year old son? Hmmmm!
To be honest, I wanted him to keep the secret buried because it was too late to go back there, the case was too cold to re-open but God had spoken and my husband knew enough to obey. But at what cost? What is the point????
Then he said to me, “the point is that God told me to do this. If I don’t I will be living not just a lie and in disobedience, but as a fool, thinking I was safe and my secret was hidden, so it is time to be a man. After all, that is how I have told my son that men behave…”
My husband told me he knew that at the end of this whole thing was another level of brokenness, but this time he wants to be broken by choice and not circumstances, and definitely not the law.
A week later we shared with my son and my husband turned himself in. His was the fastest trial I had ever witnessed and he was sentenced… we found favour, though. It wasn’t a death sentence but still it is a sentence… a life sentence.
So here I am for the first time after, in a big church meeting and I can still feel the stares… but you know what? This time, I am not ashamed because as hard as it has been, as painful and shameful as it has been, God has held us up through it all.
My husband just went into prison and continued to pastor right there and while it is not the adventure I prayed for and thought I got 16 years before, it is the adventure I have now and I’m doing the best that I can with it.
Yes, we lost some members of our church family in the process, but not as many as those who have stood with us. So in 2015, for the first time in two years, I step out to share how we must chose to be broken by choice by obeying God because a broken heart and a contrite spirit, God will not cast off.
Thanks for reading… brokenness is a command.
Your choices can break you no matter how long it takes, but when they do, choose to be broken by choice.
God bless you!