It's All About Him (18 page)
But Alan had made a new commitment to himself and to our marriage. We had gone through many wonderful seasons and also many times when things weren't all they could be between us. But at this point Alan had figured out who he was and who he wanted to be, and he was careful to avoid stumbling blocks that would hinder his decision.
Daily Restoration
As we made our way through this tender time of rebuilding our marriage, we really believed that our slates had been wiped clean, that it was a fresh start. But we've also had to keep working at these principles. We've had to realize and practice the truth that real biblical forgiveness is an ongoing, daily process.As long as we live, we will have to face the reality of our dark side, what the Bible calls our sin nature.
I've realized this more and more in my daily prayer time. The Bible says, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”
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When I'm sitting with our little dog in the morning, my prayer journal in my lap and a cup of coffee in my hand, I've found it really helpful to write down anything from the previous day that I need forgiveness for. God will often prompt me to remember something that I hadn't even been thinking about: talking abruptly or impatiently with someone, hurting someone's feelings, not spending time with one of our girls when she needed me, being full of pride instead of humility, putting my needs and wishes before others . . . the list goes on and on.
But each day, I know that God hears my prayers! He knows my heart. He's changing me, day by day. He loves me, and as I confess my sins and shortcomings, He forgives them freely and restores our relationship.
Incredible!
Though Alan and I are obviously both sinful humans, the same principle applies in our relationship. We try to address hurts and misunderstandings every day as they occur, so that they don't drive a wedge between us. I no longer live in the denial mode, pretending that everything is just fine when it isn't.
And unlike years ago, now we rarely go to bed with unresolved anger or hurts. Every night Alan closes up the house and makes sure all the doors are locked while I go upstairs and lie down with Dani for a while. I rub her back and pray with her while Alan putters around downstairs.
Then I go to Mattie's and Ali's rooms and visit with each of them for a few minutes. Telling my girls that I love them is a givenâas automatic as brushing my teeth. I try to remember to praise them for specific accomplishments, and to encourage them as I feel they need it. But more than anything, I try to help them understand that they are loved for who they areâchildren of Godânot because of anything that they have done.
Each of these girls God has given us is unique. Mattie is a quiet achiever, while Ali is an outgoing girl who loves the spot- light . . . kind of like how I was at her age! Dani is a mixture of the two. When Ali started playing on a soccer team, she was on a mixed team with boys. In any fast-break situation, she'd get the ball from any guy she needed toâeven if he was on her teamâ and take it down the field, until we explained to her that you don't steal the ball from your own teammates.
When Ali was about four years old, she and I had a conflict about something. Later, as I was looking out the window toward the pastures at the back of our property, I saw a small person toting a pink, fake-fur suitcase, striding along indignantly. Ali was running away from home. I called our nanny, who lived in the barn apartment at the time, and told her to be ready for one very independently minded visitor!
During our nightly routine, while I'm praying with each of our wonderful girls, Alan sets up the coffee to brew for the next morning so it will be ready when we wake up, groggy and in need of caffeine. Sometimes he finds my grocery and to-do lists and adds little reminders to them, subtle hints like “Do something nice for Alan today.” Then he tends to the smallest and highest-maintenance of our pets, Miss Coco Chanel. (Our mutt, Buddy, and our Westie, Opie, are manly dogs that sleep in the garage.)
Alan plugs in Coco's bed warmer, takes the barrette out of her silky hair, and tucks her tiny self into her little pink bed in the laundry room. (I often wonder what Alan's tough-guy fans would think if they could see him so carefully nurturing this four-pound Yorkie who wears clothes!)
Then he comes upstairs, he kisses each of the girls good night, and we climb into our big bed. I lie with my head on his shoulder, my arm wrapped around him and his enveloping me, snuggling in the same way that we've lain down to go to sleep all these long years of our marriage. Even if we've hardly seen each other during the day, we so easily reconnect during these private minutes together. It's a time when we both can shut out the pressures and stresses of our day and remember that no matter what has gone on, all is well. We laugh a little, talk about the day, and try to make sure there's no tension between us, apologizing if we had any misunderstandings. By that time we're both usually so tired that we are quite anxious to forgive each other, so we can go to sleep!
This isn't rocket science. It's just a simple habit that we've tried to develop with each other. As we've practiced it, we've found that we go to sleep easier, sleep better, and wake up refreshed and recommitted to each other. Small hurts left unaddressed no longer smolder into large issues that wreak havoc on our relationship.
This kind of housekeeping in our relationship is pretty simple, really. It just follows the basic principle our mothers always told us when we were growing up: you have to take out the trash every single day . . . or it starts to stink.
Instead of their shame
my people will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
they will rejoice in their inheritance;
and so they will inherit a double portion in their land,
and everlasting joy will be theirs.
Isaiah 61:7
A
s Alan and I were rebuilding our relationship in those early days after our separation, we weren't alone. As I've said, friends were praying for us, supporting us, wanting the best for us. Our friend Bobbie not only prayed for us every day; she even wrote down her prayers in a journal. One morning Bobbie sipped her coffee and read Psalm 32. “God Will Provide Songs of Victory,” she wrote as she jotted down some of the words of the Psalm.
“Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven . . . let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found. . . . You are my hiding place, you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.”
Bobbie thought about how King David, who wrote so many of the Psalms, was a musician. She thought about how David's “lyrics” could connect with Alan in a special way since they were both songwriters.
“Lord,” Bobbie wrote in her prayer journal, “I pray that Alan will find joy in Your presence and forgiveness, just like David . . . I pray that Denise will pray to You and You will be found . . . that You will be her hiding place and protect Alan, Denise,Mattie, Ali, and Dani from trouble! I pray that Alan will write songs of victory, and that You would surround his family with deliverance and Your abiding love. May they rejoice in the Lord and be glad! May they sing with upright hearts!”
Years later, the last part of Bobbie's sincere prayer came true in ways I couldn't have imagined when Alan and I were gingerly putting our marriage back together.
A Brand-New Marriage
Once it seemed like our marriage actually might last, I told Alan that I wanted visible reminders of the new commitment that was written in our hearts. “We've had a fresh start,” I said. “I want a ceremony where other people can see us making this new commitment. I don't want to look down at my wedding ring and remember vows that were broken.And I don't want our anniver- sary to be a reminder of that either. I want it to be a day of renewal and recommitment.”
Our old rings were yellow gold, bought when we were just eighteen and twenty, from the old jewelry store on Jackson Street in Newnan, where I had worked as a teenager. On our long-ago wedding-day morning, Alan had realized that his ring was too big, and he didn't want to lose it. So my sister, Jane, had to run out to the jeweler to have it resized just before the ceremony.
Almost nineteen years later, we had almost lost not our rings, but our marriage. But now it was being restored. And now we weren't kids anymore. Our love had been tested sorely by pain, assaulted by our own selfishness and pride, refined by the cleansing fire of God's love and forgiveness.
OUR NEW RINGS WERE A SYMBOL OF THE COMMITMENT WE WERE NOW WILLING TO MAKE, A COMMITMENT TO A DEEP, TRUE LOVE THAT HAD ITS ROOTS IN THE LOVE AND AMAZING GRACE OF GOD.
To commemorate all this, we had new rings made of platinum. One of the most treasured elements on the planet, platinum is more precious than gold or silver. It is rarer. It is more durable.
We believed, by God's grace, that we'd been refined by difficulties, purified, and given the gift of a new, platinum marriage. Not that Alan or I had become so unusual or refined. Far from it. Our new marriage wasn't all about us, as though if we tried hard enough, our union would be shiny and perfect from that day forward.
But we had a new view of marriage as a treasured
gift
that is far more precious than appearances, mind games, cheap pleasures, or hanging on to pride and control. Our new rings were a symbol of the commitment we were now willing to make, a commitment to a deep, true love that had its roots in the love and amazing grace of God.
Our anniversary was on a weekday, and we scheduled our little service for the midmorning. Our friend and nanny, Mary, came with us to the small chapel at Nashville's First Presbyterian Church with baby Dani. Mattie and Ali were in their school clothes. Robert Wolgemuth, my friend and Sunday school teacher, led the ceremony. His wife, Bobbie, who had prayed so fervently for us, was also there to share in the celebration, as was Jane from the Bible study, and her husband, Tom. Alan's manager at the time, Chip Peay, and his wife at the time,Norma Jane, came as well.
I wore a simple, long dress in a deep wine color. My G.I. Jane hair was still growing out, and it was a wonderful (if superficial) affirmation of Alan's deep and abiding love that Alan was remarrying me, for better or for worse, long-haired or crew cut, though we didn't quite have that written into our vows.
A Future and a Hope
Robert opened the service with Scripture passages, including one of my very favorites, a covenant promise from God that says:
“I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me.”
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Never before had I so strongly realized the truth of these verses. The Lord had heard my petitions to Him and restored my marriage. He had literally brought Alan home again. He had planned my future before the beginning of timeâa future of hope. He took our brokenness and sinfulness and actually brought good out of it. When I called out to Him in desperation, He was faithful to make Himself known to me.
I thought back over the years to the dimly lit church in Newnan on the evening of our first wedding, and how nervous and excited I was. I had loved Alan, as much as I understood about love, but like most other young brides on the planet, I had only the foggiest idea about what was ahead.
As our story unfolded over time, we made it through many chapters full of things both good and bad . . . college, my flying career, pursuing Alan's music dreams, children, failure, success, wealth, and fame. All along the way, it wasn't necessarily any of those
outside
forces that dictated whether our marriage would succeed or fail. Sure, celebrity had brought strange pressures to our union. In a completely different way, our time apart when I was a flight attendant had also stressed us. But, again, it wasn't the power of any external situations or temptations that would determine if we'd stay true. It was the strength of our innermost convictions.
That's why at our 1998 service Alan chose to sing the very same song he'd sung at our ceremony in 1979. It had been true back then, but now we understood its reality far better. As I stood with him and the few close friends around us, watching his fine hands strum his guitar and hearing his smooth baritone sing the words, it really was a brand-new start. Now we were founded on a better foundation, and he was affirming his commitment toward that end.
That's the Way
Pat Terry