“Nothing keeps us so lonely as our secrets.”
Paul Tournier
On the
Niagara escarpment, just past Stoney Creek Ontario, there is a lookout platform
at the Devil’s Punch Bowl conservation area.
From this point there is a breathtaking view of a 37 metre high
waterfall over stratified rock that was said to have been formed at the end of
the last ice age. If you enjoy the
outdoors, I highly recommend that you check it out - it is a truly stunning
sight to see. Also at this lookout
point, there is a 10 metre high steel cross complete with 106 light bulbs that
was erected in 1966 by a man named William Sinclair. His reason for establishing the cross? To
bring a little more light to the world.
And so it shines, and can be seen for miles on a dark night. At the foot of this cross is where my story
begins...
…
The arches
of my feet pierced with excruciating pain as I trudged up the snow-covered
pathway - in ¾ inch heels. Oh yeah! There I was hiking up the Niagara
Ridgeway in the middle of January sometime after 1 o’clock in the morning
- in heels! Okay, fine, at that height they don’t
technically warrant as heels - but it‘s not like they were hiking boots either!
Even if they had been, by that point I was hardly consolable and I was tired of
being polite. “Okay, this is ridiculous!
I have to wake up early to sing at church in the morning - and I’m wearing a dress Cam! I’m wearing a dress - and heels - and it’s
like -10 degrees out here! Can we please just turn around and go home? ” I
heard my own pathetic beg. He took three
more giant steps before he triumphantly announced. “Here we are! Just check out
the view! Don‘t you think this was worth the trek up here?” he asked as he
rubbed up and down my arms in attempt to keep them warm. I let the silence settle for about one
minute before I answered. “Yup, terrific! Can we go now?” He took a deep breath and let out a long
exaggerated sigh. “I’m sorry Babe. This
wasn’t exactly like I planned. But I
really wanted to bring you up here, for a special purpose… I wanted to ask you
something” he began as he slowly lowered to one knee…
My heart
lurched in my chest. No! No! This wasn’t happening! Not yet! I hadn’t had the
chance to tell him! I… I hadn’t even
tried to tell him. I was nearly
twenty-one years old and we had been dating for exactly one year. He had surprised me by repeating our first date;
the Toronto Boat show, dinner at a jazz club and now a midnight stop at the old
cross off Centennial Parkway. Everything
had indeed been lovely but in the months
leading up to this night I had absolutely no inclination that we had gotten
this serious. I hadn’t even considered
the idea of marriage yet. I wasn’t ready
for this decision. I wasn’t ready for honesty!
And then suddenly before I could stop it, I was sub-consciously dragged
back to the darkest, loneliest and most hideous part of my life. A part I had been desperately trying to leave
behind…
The
lights were off, because I insisted it this way. The air was heavy; he was heavy. And there was that old familiar darkness
creeping in through the closed door, up the bed and into my soul. I knew it well. It was thrill and dread;
victory and defeat. It was the beast
that took up residence inside of me, coursing through my veins and hauling my
body through the motions. It was master;
I was slave. Yeah, I knew it well. We had made acquaintance a long time
ago. It was like a constant companion to
me; always there, just lurking in the corners.
And now, here I was feebly attempting to temporarily satisfy an
unquenchable thirst. I was in a dark
smelly apartment, with a guy that I hardly knew, who I wasn’t even remotely
attracted to and I was cheating on my boyfriend. I hated myself. I hated my weakness. I hated that I could not see past the
fulfillment of my lust. I hated the fact
that sooner or later the beast inside of me always got its way…
“Babe… Did
you hear me?” Cam said with a nervous chuckle.
My thoughts raced back to the present, to the man on one knee, waiting
for an answer. “I… I don’t know what to
say.” I finally choked out. Which was of
course true. Was I supposed to say “Yes,
a thousand times, yes!” and just bury the darkness deep into my past? It was, after all, definitely in the
past. I knew that a lot had changed in
six months. But… I guess not
enough. Otherwise I would have been able
to tell him. So what then? Was I
supposed to tell him the whole truth now, after he had gone to all these
lengths to create a perfect moment? Would he understand? I had never wanted to
hurt him, there was just something wrong with me on a very deep level. It went back as far as I could remember.
Despite the
fact that I had grown up in a happy, healthy Christian home, I guess I had
figured out at a young age that I was something of a cardinal sinner. I
believed with all of my heart that I didn’t truly belong to the “club” that my
family met with every Sunday because I wasn’t really that good. I don’t know when this belief started to take
root. Maybe in the Sunday school room
when I didn’t know all of the answers, or because I made faces at the girls who
sat perfectly proper in their pretty little dresses. Or maybe because in our family, I was always
the instigator; the “common denominator” in every argument. Or maybe it was just because of the fact that
even when I tried my best to be good, I still fell short. As I got older, this belief only made room
for more secrets and addictive behaviours.
Maybe this wasn’t all that irregular to most girls my age but I lived in
a world where make out scenes were fast-forwarded, the word “sex” was worse
than the “F” bomb and little girls just didn’t have dirty thoughts. I didn’t stand a chance! I was already
guilty. So I did the only thing I knew
how, I pretended. I had always been a
good pretender. I worked so hard to
appear holy like everyone else, but inside I knew the truth and it bore heavy
on my shoulders. I kept my secrets and I
thought that was the best option but in effect no one knew how broken I
was. At least not until I ran up a long
list of boyfriends, hook-ups and flings.
By then no one could help me anyways.
I gulped in
the frosty night wind and forced myself to focus on the present. Cam was exactly the type of man that I
needed. He challenged me to reach for
higher goals and he stood by me while I stumbled towards them. He laughed when I barked (if you catch my
drift) and he truly, absolutely loved God.
In short he was exactly what I had always wanted… but I
wasn’t what I wanted. I felt deeper in
that dark, dank pit than I had ever felt.
I desperately needed a way out.
And here was my knight in shining armour, patiently waiting for an
answer. I swallowed the lump in my
throat. Maybe I would still tell him
some day. But for now, he would be my
resolution. I wasn’t doing anything differently, this was who I was, who I had
always been. I just had issues that no
one knew about. I would never cheat on
him again… if I could manage that much.
Surely I could manage that much.
I looked him in the eye and I told him yes. I would marry him. I would continue to live this lie. But things would be better. I wouldn’t have to deal with it all alone
anymore. “Yes” was definitely the right
answer. He proudly placed a beautiful
ring on my finger. I knew it should have
been such a perfect moment to be remembered for the rest of our lives but for
me it was stained with regret.
The
following eight months flew by with wedding preparations and renovations on the
condo we had purchased. For the most
part I stumbled along with the plans. It
was truly the busiest time of my life, which was good because it left little
time for me to think. But every so
often, on a restless night, I would find myself staring up at the ceiling and
desperately wishing for a way out of it all.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry Cam. It was more fear that he wouldn’t want to marry
me if he knew who I really was and what I had done. This fear choked the excitement right out of
me. And as the countdown began the fear
only intensified until eventually I didn’t want the celebration anymore, I didn’t
want the flowers or the dress or the little white chapel… I just wanted to know
- I needed to know that Cam loved me for who I really was, a twenty-one year old girl with much more
baggage than he knew. And as my resolve
settled, I knew that I really loved him.
Perhaps I had never really understood love before then. But I loved him enough to let him know the
truth even if it cost our future together.
Even if it meant that all the gifts would have to be returned and that
most everyone else who had been invited would find out why we had really called
it off. Sadly, it wasn’t even until that
moment, that I realized the position I had put him in. My secrecy, which had only ever been constructed to protect myself, would
actually be wounding someone else deeply.
It was time to tell him. But I
needed some time alone with God first… I was certain I didn’t possess the
wisdom or the strength to do this on my own.
What I didn’t realize, was that God had been sitting there waiting for
me. He planned to do a lot more than
just grant me the wisdom and the strength to talk to Cam. God was about to change my life.
Over the
next few weeks in the early hours of each morning I met with God. In the beginning I was afraid of Him. I put on my “Sunday best” attitude and still
did a lot of pretending even though I knew He already knew everything. I’m sure I looked an awful lot like Adam and
Eve as they tried to hide behind their fig leaves. But every single day God showed me one thing,
and He showed me over and over again in a million different ways. He showed me that He loved me. That even with all of my faults, weaknesses
and failures I was like a radiant, holy and beautiful bride to Him. And this love had absolutely nothing to do
with my ability to be good or because of any good thing I had ever done in my
entire lifetime. It had everything to
do with Jesus. Of course, I had grown up
in the church, I had head-knowledge of this since I was a kid. But for the first time in my life my heart
and my head were speaking the same language.
As each day grew into the next, I started to feel more comfortable to
let Him into deeper parts of my soul.
Like the skins of an onion, He was peeling off one layer at a time of
the relational walls I had put up between us.
I started to understand that His love for me and the fact that He lived
inside of me was the only reason why I was even capable of doing anything
good. I learned that freedom is found in
relationship with Him and the relationship doesn’t come simply because one
spends hours in devotion or prayer with Him. Degrees of relationship with God
are no different than the degrees of relationship between humans. It comes from an understanding of how deeply
you are accepted and loved.
Finally,
one morning I felt God telling me that it was time to say good-bye to my
constant companion. Darkness and light
cannot co-exist. Except the darkness
wasn’t the bad thing I had done. The
darkness was my belief that I could make myself holy, whether by good deeds,
lack of bad deeds or just a mask I tried to hide behind. I knew I had to go straight into the centre
of my pain to be done with it. I had to
come to the end of myself. I asked for
forgiveness for the sin that encompasses all sin; having a god that was other
than the true God. I had believed that I
could somehow earn my own righteousness (even if that meant living with secrets
and avoiding the truth.) I suddenly
understood that it is my freedom from this sin of believing I can make myself
holy, that enables me to live free of the sins that held me so tightly. In that moment of repentance, I knew I would
never see that darkness again. Something
else had filled my soul where that aching thirst had been. It was a joy that quenched every desire and
filled every crevice. And the guilt was
gone. There is no room for shame in the
arms of grace. I was finally whole and
assured of a love that would be more than enough for me for the rest of my
life.
Later that
day, with the wedding less than one month away I asked Cam to come over. That night, on my living room floor, I told
him my entire story. I didn’t know what
to expect. I only knew to trust that God
would work everything out for His good.
Cam didn’t say anything at first.
He was like a stone, void of emotion.
I could only imagine how difficult this was for him to hear, about a
woman he thought he knew well. I
finished my story and we just sat in silence for what seemed like an
eternity. Finally he said he would need
some time to deal with this and I said that would be okay. He took a deep breath, kissed me on the
forehead and turned to leave. But not
before I saw the pain and betrayal that I knew he felt… the pain I had put
there.
He didn’t
call the next day. I didn’t know what
else to do except pray. I prayed for him
unlike any time I had ever before. I
reminded myself that God was my source of happiness. My world would not shatter if Cam decided he
couldn’t accept my mistakes. I prayed
for the healing of his heart and I waited.
This went on for another four days.
Not a single word was spoken between us.
By this time I was starting to lose hope. I was starting to wonder how he would call
off the wedding and how I would be able to tell everyone. I thought about everything that I knew about
him. I knew that he had been stabbed in
the back before by business partners and friends and that hurt ran deep. I knew that he and I were very different in
the way we viewed other people. I easily
embraced people. He did not trust others
or let them in until they earned a place in his heart. I tried to guess my response if the roles had
been reversed but of course, I had no idea how I would have reacted. It wasn’t my heart that had been
broken.
By the
fifth day I had prepared myself for the worst, as best as I knew how. He called me during his lunch break and said
he would be by to pick me up when he was done work. For the first time since we started dating, I
was ready when he arrived. He met me at
the door with a coldness, a distance that I had not experienced from him
before. He hardly said a word as we
walked to his car. Normally I would have
found something on the radio and put my feet up on the dash but that day I sat
with my hands awkwardly still on my lap.
Silence filled the car. I wanted
to ask where we were going but I didn’t.
Cam had grown up in the area and seemed to know all of the back roads to
any destination. We were out in the
country somewhere. So, I allowed myself
to take in the scenery of the Niagara escarpment outside of my window.
When the
car finally came to a stop I suddenly realized where we were. It was the same conservation area he had
brought me to the night he had proposed.
I hadn’t recognized it because our first visit had been at night in the
dead of winter. Here, now, I sat
momentarily transfixed at the kaleidoscope of nature and colours all around
me; the rush of the waterfalls to my
left and the density of the brush to my right.
Directly ahead was the lookout point; a bird’s eye view of Burlington
and Lake Ontario and looming large above it all, the old cross. Without thinking I broke the silence, “This
is incredible. All I remember from that
night was darkness and cold. How could I
have missed this?” I asked.
“If I
remember correctly, you were a little preoccupied with all your complaints
about the despicable torture I was putting you through” he replied with a wry
smile. I cringed at the memory. He held out his hand to help me over a large
fallen tree and he didn’t let go when I had safely crossed over. My heart leapt at the simple gesture that had
once been so easy between us.
He sighed
and turned to face me. “I wish I could
have talked to you earlier. I didn’t
want to keep you waiting. I just… didn’t
know what to say. Nothing you could have
said that night would have surprised me more.
I still don’t really know how to handle this.” He absently thumbed circles on the back of my
hand as he tried to collect his thoughts.
“Cam, I am so sorry. I wish more
than anything that I was someone else; that I didn’t have to put you through
this.” “ I don’t want anyone else.” He
cut in. “…I don’t want anyone else,”
slower this time and his eyes looked deep into mine. I still saw so much pain there. God, what could I do? What could I say? But
it was he who spoke next, “I haven’t changed my mind about us. If the unconditional part needs to come
before the vows, that’s fine. I’ll do
whatever it takes.” He said with eyes searching mine. “I just can’t… I’m not very good at the
forgiving part. I love you Steph. But I’m still so angry… it’s not going
away. And I do trust you. I know it won’t happen again, but I still
have all these thoughts coming at me all the time. I’m not strong enough to fight this on my
own.” He looked away.
I just
stood there, shocked. How on earth had this turned into his problem; his guilt?
I was the one with the issues. But
then
it hit me like a load of bricks. I didn’t
have the issues any longer. The guilt
and shame had been gone for weeks, since the very day I took it to God. The day I stopped trying to fix it on my
own. “Cam! You’re exactly right! You can’t
fight it on your own. I tried doing just
that every day of my life and that’s basically why we are standing here
today. We weren’t created to fix this on
our own. We were created to know God’s
love. I was always so busy trying to
prove that I was worthy of God’s love; trying to make up for all my mistakes… I
completely missed the fact that He loved me first. And you know… I think it was when I started
to really know His love that I was finally able to love Him back. I stopped doing things out of
obligation. It was more like cause and
effect, I couldn’t help but love Him. I
just wanted to be with Him all the time… kind of like when I fell in love with
you.”
Cam stared
at me for a moment and then led me around to the lookout point so we could see
the whole picture before us. “None of
what you just said has been news to me… I’ve heard it all since I was a
kid. But just now, it’s like my head and
my heart were speaking the same language.
It’s so easy. Why do we try to
make it complicated?” He asked. “I don‘t
know.” I responded. “Maybe because then we would deserve some of the credit?” Then we just looked at one another. Feeling overwhelmed and awkward I turned back
to the lookout. “I still can’t believe I missed all of this that night, eight
months ago. It’s so vibrant and alive…
maybe my perspectives have changed in more ways than one. I was so focused on the negative before.” I
turned to look at him but I was surprised to find that he wasn’t standing
beside me anymore. Instead he was behind
me and he was kneeling again on one knee.
This time it really was perfect.
There wasn’t a shadow of guilt to cloud the memory. It was just a moment of love, a moment of
worship, a moment on bended knees. I
suddenly knew then that redemption had been waiting for me all along and I
found it there… at the foot of a cross.
“Maybe redemption has stories to tell. Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell.
Where can you run to escape from yourself?”
Switchfoot
