“Surround yourself with Christians” or “Be in a Body of Believers” is common advice I never took.  How exclusive it sounded.  The image for me was that of a children’s tree fort where care was taken to nail a final wooden board at an angle near the door.  The board read, “KEEP OUT.”

In my mind I had drawn a one dimensional continuum.  At the left end was the ability to minister and witness to others about the love of Christ.  At the right end was the opportunity to live amongst believers.   The only thing I know for sure is that I personally am the least deserving yet most receiving of God’s grace.  Otherwise stated, “Since God loves even me; let me tell you how He loves you!”  Thus, despite the wisdom of Romans 12:5 “in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” at the left side of my continuum I chose to reside.

I ignored the exhaustion I regularly felt from battling too much pop culture in our lives and not enough pouring in of Godly boundaries or wisdom.  Thankfully God gave me a husband that thinks at least two dimensionally.  His graph “plotted” the direct correlation between me complaining about my husband and the time I spent with his mother who incessantly complains about my father in law.  Eventually, I began to notice how “venting” my emotions with certain people would ignite not diffuse consternation.

I shifted my one continuum image away from the zero-sum concept that being with fellow Christians was taking from others.  My new picture is illustrated by Psalm 40.  Christian friends would help me to set my feet more firmly on God’s rock allowing me to sing!  SING!  Sing a song that would invite others into the kingdom.

Recently I was feeling particularly unloved and hurt by my husband.  He was under stress from his own work and unable to provide the nurturing I sought.  (Please restrain yourself from moving into accountability by referring to my complaining above and just go with the example).

I confided in a dear Christian friend.  We have only known each other for months not years yet she was able to plug the hole in my leaky bucket and fill me with God’s healing love in a matter of minutes (remember there are 59 of those before I have to start counting it as hours).

So what does a “Christian” friend provide? 

Certainly there is the confidence that what I share is “safe” or kept with her.  Further, she does not “egg on” or exacerbate the issue.  Rather she provides perspective to it.  Often she backs up her reasoning with biblical principles and sometimes even quotes scriptures.  But that is not the full draw.  Goodness, I have biblegateway.com for that.  What is most important is that she is another mouth for our Lord.  When she said, “people all around the world love you” it warmed me to the core.   Let’s not dwell on the accuracy of her statement.  Who does she even know in Pakistan or Argentina?  That is not the point.  I felt better instantly.  I know she prays for me and I have often witnessed God speaking through her.  Perhaps that is why when her words reached me through the cell phone it was not a point in a conversation or part of some outline.  It was an embrace.  It was our Lord (who knows plenty of people in Pakistan and Argentina by the way) again wrapping His dear tender arms around me and again promising that no matter what the void, He is here to fill it.



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Dear Kay (Arthur), 

Did you write the David Deeper Still Bible study for thousands of women or just me?

This Bible Study is spoon-feeding me through an excruciating time.   I know you have had the experience where the day would be simply impossible with the exact few words provided at a particular moment from Scripture.  It is an intimate gift from our Lord and I count it amongst my endless blessings.  Today, your lessons are that gift to me.

Kay, I thought your first lesson was a joke.  A bad one.  It was more than I could bear.  My breathing stopped.  My pulse stilled.  You there speaking of bipolar, agony, suicide...I needed you to be my rock, not so....human.  You spoke of my worst fears yet they were your reality.  Hearing your story did not illustrate for me God's strength and ability to live beyond.  In my weakness, your story only served to confirm the real risk of my fears.  The pain from thinking of it now makes the tip of my nose sting and my bottom lip quiver. 

Kay, my husband is bipolar.  One diagnosis was 5 years ago.  Before I knew him, his mania had his expelled from College and he took Lithium.   Although the verbal abuse and physical threats have been extensive over the past 12 years, there was a recent scene with my husband which illustrated how much worse the abuse had been than I ever allowed myself to believe.  (I know God allowed this scene only while I was deep in the Deeper Still Bible Study.  Right between Weeks Three and Four.  Beth, her love, and her wisdom served as my necessary safety net.)  It was like God had turned off the VHS player in my mind.  “Tape is up.”  ---there was no more room for more attacks.  God hit rewind and started playing back scenes for me.  Over time and through prayer he allowed me to “tape” them anew.  For example, the “new tape” recognizes that I was normal to ensure that our babysitter (a Russian in Germany) knew how to phone 911 in case of an emergency as I packed my breast pump and headed for the office that first day I left my new born baby at home.   Similarly, the “new tape”  assured that I am an OK person even though I did not like my 2 year old left unattended at a McDonald’s playground less than 100 yards from Interstate 95.  These were revelations for me.  My husband had been towering over me, filling the shaking house with accusations, “You are too demanding!”  Years of verbal abuse assured me he was right.     

Watching Lesson 5, I thought, “Kay was lucky not to be a Christian at that time (when married to a bipolar man).”    As if divorce or affairs were flavors the non-Christian ice cream parlor offered.   Yet, here I am stretching up to the counter to order, “Endurance, with sprinkles of agony, please.”

Of course with God’s grace in Session 6, you blessed me beyond belief.  You spoke of the pain of your children from your first marriage and the difference it makes to raise a faithful child from infancy.  I am blessed.   I am a Christian, in the midst of my husband's raging bipolar.  And yes unfortunately that means I am in some ways burdened by the church, its lack of understanding or ability to help.  I also have a Christian conscious and knowledge that God alone is enough which battles daily with my intense desire for some human to rescue me from and pluck me out of my situation.  Nevertheless, each of my three children speak of God in heavenly ways, inserting Him in conversation not only with me but with strangers.  It is a miracle for which I give great thanks.   I will endure any amount of pain in order to have the gift of being Christian, especially WHILE my children are young.

You say the culture is at a crossroads.  You are right.  We need to step up.  (hope Beth gets the pun :))  I worry that the problem is even worse than you think or state.   Schedules and commitments acceptable even in Christian circles put us at an alarming crossroads on the cultural highway to a dead end.  One simple example is that over programming three year olds cuts into family dinners.  Facebook’s victory over front porches is another.  But let’s go deeper still.  

Do ministers or churches really believe in the possibility of true Christian community?   1 Peter 3 speaks to the community, not just the woman.  It states that a woman must be submissive even to a non-obedient husband.   God does not waste words.  He wouldn’t put it in the Bible it weren’t necessary.  A church reading 1 Peter 3 is at a crossroads.  Should they, blow off the lesson and discount it with, “This passage is for women and non-obedient husbands, not me?”  Or should we embrace with “God, you gave me these words.  Thus, there must be a submissive woman with a non-obedient husband in my midst.  How can I create an Acts II like support system to help bear her burdens?”

I am separated...again.  I love my husband and I am committed to him.  Yet, separations have been the only refuge for me to keep myself and our children safe and attempt to build a secure life.  The first was 4 years ago.  I am not divorced.  I have not filed for divorce.  The Bible is OK with separation, our society is not.  Cultural values demand quick answers and immediate solutions; then cast lots of blame.  Tell a Christian your mom had outpatient surgery and your freezer will be filled with tuna casserole.  Try explaining to the same person that your marriage is failing and you wake two hours before the kids do just to get the agonizing wailing out of the way so you can face your day.  The reaction will range from judgment, to providing lawyer’s phone numbers, to inquiries about “how bad can it really be?”  My minister sat at our kitchen table with my husband and I.  At one point when my husband screamed, stood up, and banged on the table so hard that the salt and pepper flew, the 6 ft, 200+ pound minister responded, “Jim, now I am scared.”  Even with the acknowledgement from my husband and me that this scene was only a morsel of what myself and the children regularly endure my minister has denied me support and wonders why I insist on seeing a change in my husband’s heart before I would feel safe having him live in our home again.   How bad can it really be?  Our culture has decided that if a woman follows scripture, relies patiently on our Lord, and tries to work through a treacherous marriage that “it can’t be that bad.”  I am here to tell you the culture is wrong.  The observation is not that something is “not that bad,” but that OUR GOD IS THAT GOOD!

Note: It is worth restating that having a mental illness can be NO problem, denying it can be devastating.

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It is a gorgeous day and I am jogging along the Port Royal Sound awed by salt marshes, blue Heron, rhythmic waves, and a stunning sunrise.  What floors me though is the shrimp boat.  It stands before me at a perfect right angle; the bow offering a welcoming smile and arms out stretched as the nets appear like robes gently hanging from loving limbs.  It is Jesus calling me to Him.  He knows I am tired and weary, He knows how I have worked two full-time jobs for over four years while tending to three small children and attempting to hold things together as my husband’s bipolar rages.  Jesus knows and invites me to release my burdens to Him, to relax in His embrace, and accept His yoke.

I continue jogging and start to cry.  I feel the tension release, I know what I have seen and I know it is love.  Why does he love me so much?  I start to share my feelings out loud, “Thank you Lord for caring so much.  Thank you for being willing to meet me wherever I am physically and emotionally.  Thank you for giving me a visual welcome right when my faith is beginning to falter.  You love me, and you let me know it, you don’t make me choose to just feel it, you went out of your way to show me.  Thank you.”  I am feeling better, enjoying the morning breeze, taking in the moment.

As I continue jogging I continue the conversation with our Lord.  The shrimp boat is getting larger and larger.  I am approaching it and my jog morphs into a run.  I start to apologize, “God, I am sorry my faith is so weak.  I am sorry I need physical reminders of your love.  I know you have followers who don’t grow weary as I do and whom never deny your presence.  I am thankful for such Christians Lord.  I am sorry I am not one and I thank you for accepting me as I am.  I needed to SEE you today and you came.  Thank you.”

Right then as I finish my apology I am moving past the ship filling myself with the strength and power provided to me only from a Lord who always has my back.  Then I see it.  Way out on the horizon also at exactly at right angle is another shrimp boat, inviting smile, embracing robe and all.  God is saying, “Don’t worry little girl, I am here, I do meet you where you are, …and I always will.“  I am wet.  It is not sweat or mist.  I am weeping.



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Through Baptism, I join Christ’s family,

So, you have a role raising me;


To face the world, I need a solid start,

My parents pray you’ll do your part:


- Tell me about the heavens above

- Instruct me in God’s love


- Read and teach to me His Word;

- Show me trust in our Lord


- Guide me down those roads so long

- Lend your voice to His song


For all you will say and do

Now we give thanks to you!



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Today I am gently reminded of miracle that happened at a resort pool with my youngest child, Tyler.  It was Thanksgiving weekend, a cold, rainy November day.  This is the kind of day where I am amazed by my ability (and good fortune) to locate swimsuits for everyone.  Living on an island, we swim nearly every day of the summer, yet by fall swimming is a distant memory and the goggles, diving sticks, and other swim gear have long been stored away.  On this day, we are invited to an indoor birthday party with our cousins from Kentucky.  We are thrilled they organized the celebration around being with us and can’t think of a better activity for such a day.  The only stress in getting out the door is the search for the float-ies.   One was in the basement, but none are in the boys’ room, cubbies, pool bag, or toy chests, so on and on all we all look.  There is much discussion explaining to Tyler that with two arms we need two float-ies, and aren’t we thankful Tyler doesn’t have three arms.  Finally, minutes before the ferry my husband Jim locates one under God knows what, we are off!  As it turns out we arrive at the car to find another one tucked in the back—but who knew?  I laugh and I hope you do too. 

So what is the miracle?  Tyler nearly drowns.  I am not a sideline sitting mom but I had missed this one.  Together we all swim for two hours full of joy, lots of ball tossing, talking, cup and saucer playing, etc.  Eventually we stop for fresh delivered pizza, cupcakes, and presents,…the works.  The float-ies come off and towels go on.  Break time turns into catch up time and then clean up time.  My back is to the water engaged with the other adults.  Indoor pools are filled with echoes and noise yet no real sound.  I never hear the splash or even the cries for help.  All I see is my eleven-year-old nephew Dylan delivering to me Tyler who is dripping and startled.  Dylan has just scooped him from the deep end.  Although I held and cuddled Tyler for the next thirty minutes, I honestly didn’t realize how scared he had been or how real the danger was until we returned home that evening after a long day of vaccines at the pediatrician, exploring toys with cousins, and numerous errands.  Within seconds of greeting his father, Tyler announces how Dylan saved his life.  It truly was a miracle.  It was the kind of miracle that too often goes unnoticed.  My heart breaks for the careful, loving, and nurturing parents who take endless precautions yet have lost children.  There is no explanation for why one toddler climbs a bookshelf causing it to tumble and crush himself, or how window blinds can be deadly.  The stories are endless and the pain unimaginable.  I can only know that today I explode with thankfulness that my children are healthy.  I know it is a gift not an accomplishment and it fills me with gratitude.



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Strolling along a dirt road, Ronnie asks, “You see that moss on the tree over there?”  Ronnie doesn’t call it “Spanish moss.“  My friend Ethel Ann said she never knew it was “Spanish” until she moved OFF Yamikraw and friend who had only seen it in books told HER (a native) so.  “That moss over there,” he continues,” is how you scrub the squirrel.”

Ronnie is homeless.  His squatter habits and my work in real estate bring us together more often than they should.   We also know each other through our 127 year old Ebenezer Baptist Church.   Last winter, Ronnie waded his 260 lb. frame to his full submersion Baptism in the cold Westo River.   I prayed waiting on the bank holding a warm dry towel.  Sallie Mae led the singing, “Wade in the Water,” then we all returned to the school house for the carefully prepared “covered dish” supper.

Now it is summer and the past few weeks have included several run-ins with the law for Ronnie and one crime account in the local Town Gazette.  As we walk, Ronnie shares with me his frustration of a night spent in jail for being accused of stealing a golf cart.  After some conversation, I asked him if he had a gun and whether he feared owning one.  The answer developed into a great lesson in hunting.  Hunting here, right on our 5 mile mainly resort island.  “Mostly coons,” he explains.  I didn’t like imagining the taste of a raccoon.  My mind jumped to all the kids’ peanut butter crackers left on our golf cart and eventually ingested by raccoons, an indication that their meat was at least plump.  How ironic.  Wealthy people leave food out carelessly and accidently feed raccoons.  Raccoons are then shot and eaten by our neighbors.  Wouldn’t a soup kitchen be more efficient?

Ronnie encouraged me not to hunt in the summer.  That is when the red bugs, diseases etc. may be around and it is dangerous to eat them.  “Wait till that first day when youz come out of you house and you see that glittering water on the grass.  That first day of frost is winter and it kills all them bugs.  Also mating season is done.”  What does mating season have to do with disease I wonder but don’t ask.  Thankfully Ronnie answers.

“See ‘til I knowz about not shooting during mating season I got me a coon, cleaned her up and cut her open.  Lo-rd. There… there was a whole bunch of coons, it was terrible.  No.  Wait till fall and winter and don’t hunt in mating season.”  He pats his belly, “Squirrels is good too.”

Ronnie’s heart truly broke when he killed those baby raccoons which I contemplated with interest in the context of his next story.

Pausing for a short silence and several steps as we both admire the woods, Ronnie offers, “I decided I am going to tell you something,” he starts.

“Sure if you want,” I invite.

“I…Well, you asked me if I ever went to jail,” he starts, “I wuz in prison 11 years 8 months and 21 days.”

“Oh.”  I mutter.

He continues, “I took a life.  He tried to rape my baby sister.  My dad left me in charge, told me to take care of my three sisters and this guy was trying to rape her.  He beat her … the furniture was all knocked over… she was half undressed.  I came in and scared him away.  She was OK, he didn’t rape her.  I thought it is over.  One day I seez him at the bar.  I walked in, saw him there and turned around and started to walk out.  I should have.  I wished I had.  But I thought I can’t always keep out of places because of other peoples being there.  So I went back in.”

“He saw me and right away began ‘someday I am a gonna finish what I started.’” Ronnie recounts the threat.

“Now I knew I should’ve left so I started for the door, ‘Ye-ah, I am gonna get her... she is mine…,’ he carried on and on.  I turned to leave.  He had a gun.  He shot at me.  My friends seen he had a gun and shot at me.  I shot back.  Really, it was just self defense.  But I didn’t miss.  Now I was mad.  Right there I walked back to him and shot him again.  I stood over him (now Ronnie motions with two hands on an imaginary gun pointed down at our path) I unloaded my gun (he begins counting), 9 bullets.”

“Wow, I am sorry.”  My heart races from the towering imagine I have just witnessed.  I viewed only a glimpse from twenty years prior.   I ask a few more questions about the noise, the commotion, how he waited right there for the police, but mostly I explain that I am sorry.   Ronnie reiterates his commitment to care for his sisters, updates me as to how they are doing, and reassures, “When someone sez I am dangerous, I asks, ‘you wanna mess with my sisters?  You don’t wanna hurt my sistas, I’m not gonna hurt you.” 

Ronnie continues telling me without anger about the blessing of prison.  The first two years were hard before he met Charlie, a mentor who explained, “Time was time.  How you spend it is your choice.” Ronnie chose masonry, construction, and studying the Bible.  His eyes sparkled as he described prison as a thriving university experience rather than a waste land. 

My mind wanders.  I am thinking, “me too.”  I too took a life.  Not a life of a threatening, harmful rapist.  I took the life of an innocent baby in my womb.   Not in a bar or with a gun, but in a clinic.  I didn’t go to prison.  Not for 11 years, 8 months, and 21 days.  Not for a day.   I, like Ronnie, have repented.  Blessings constantly pour out on me.  Society has accepted me.  My future is bright.    What about Ronnie’s?



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I love the way the devil thinks!

The devil?  Really? I am not one to write or even talk about the devil…the enemy…Satan.  As a matter of fact I don’t know of a greater turn off than Bible thumping Christians talking about how doing X or Y is going to send you straight to the Hell.  I have been a devoted Christian for over forty years and I like to talk about love, God, Jesus, forgiveness.  Those are the things I have experienced, that I know first hand and that I want to share.  Miracles, faith, and hope are my story.  But as God draws me closer and closer to him he brings me into His word and it is harder and harder for me to deny that there is spiritual warfare and scripture is clear that the enemy will tempt us, challenge us and seek us especially at times in which we are about to do something great for God.  I am now beginning to understand that perhaps those with the most power and possibility for good in God’s kingdom may be those for whom the enemy fights the hardest.  

Today Satan is fighting for my husband.  Can you blame him?  Jim is articulate, attractive, well-liked, incredibly well networked, well educated, brilliant, passionate, world travelled, an incredible writer, public speaker, athlete, and more.  Did I mention damn good-looking?  It is worth repeating.  Wow, he could lead thousands of souls to our Saviour.  I see it and I am just realizing that the devil sees it too.  Dang I feel like my prayers to our Lord have been wire tapped by Satan and he listened.  Laugh with me on this one.  There I was screaming into the prayer “phone” to God “Hear ME!” God did.  He always does.  But Satan did too.

Why do I know that Satan is after my husband? Temptation is everywhere.  But please allow me to awe you with some numbers.  We live on a bridgeless island of about only 400 residents.  There are not more than 5 single women in their 40’s on the whole island.  Honestly I am not sure if I could name three.  It is the most illogical place for a single person in there forties to find a partner.  Most people are 60 plus or in there twenties. I have never worried about my husband and other women.  I can’t afford to.  We have our other struggles.  Now we are living in our fourth separation in ten years.  We have been challenged by bi-polar, bulimia, inter-mitten explosive disorder, abortion, borderline personality, youth abuses, and narcissism.  It is excruciating, has played out in abuse, rage, financial destruction, and tremendous heart-ache.  Separations have been my only means of survival.  It is only through these extended periods without the daily oppression that I have been able to meaningfully contribute to the health, safety, and well being of our children, my husband, and myself.  So therein lies the testimony, the story, and the possible salvation.  Our commitment to each other through God’s miracles which has kept our marriage together for nearly fifteen years.  Imagine the lives that could be brought to the Lord and saved if we could unite and tell our story together.  

Back to the numbers.  My husband grew up in Columbus, Ohio. That is 835 miles away.  13 hours and 59 minutes. There are 15-20 metropolitan areas within 14 hours of Columbus and that is only if you are heading pretty much south and/or east.  There are over 2,000 miles of Atlantic coast and another 1,600 miles on the Gulf.  My island’s 7 miles represents only about one tenth of 1% .  So, If you wanted to get just one person from the entire population (7,863) of New Albany, Ohio (the area my husband called home) on average you would have to empty 8% of the population.  Could you imagine a mass exodus of New Albany?  Signs on the doors “We’ve gone to the beach.”  Even if you emptied 8% of the population, you would still have to say,  “No one can go anywhere, no lakes, no cities, nothing but beach” and we evenly distributed all the people (young, old, male, female) amongst the Atlantic and Gulf beaches (no Pacific).  Then and only then would we on our beach randomly have 1 person from New Albany on our 5 mile stretch.  The chances that person would be a forty something, Facebook bikini-picture strutting, newly divorced woman and not a 65 year-old male golfer?  And did I mention it is hard to get to?  There is NO bridge!  Well, we have not one, but TWO such beautiful single women coming within walking distance to our house who were in walking distance to their old houses in Columbus.   And given the “home town connection, my husband is the first person they call.  Temptation?  You better believe it.  I guess you could take a different perspective…”God’s miracle brought them together.”   Given that my husband has already sent one of them a bouquet of yellow roses (ironically, remarkably similar to my wedding bouquet) and is intimate enough with this “client” to discuss sexually transmitted diseases, the perspective “God’s miracle brought us together” may be winning out over my perspective “the devil knows the incredible source of potential power residing in my husband and will fight to get this future leaders off track.” 

Thank you Lord for being there for me. Thank you Lord that you provide answers and solutions to my concerns even before the concern arises.  This week you planned out the scripture I would be copying to the predetermined schedule: Corinthians 10:13 says:

“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”



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“Let’s start in style, let’s dance for awhile…”  I hear the words and recognize them like an old best friend and worst enemy simultaneously.  My throat chokes.  “Heaven can wait..” ”…hoping for the best but expecting the worst…” The tune is different but the lyrics the same. The faint music is in the distance behind the murmur of a busy restaurant.  I am there because my beloved husband Jim won’t speak to me and I miss him.  We are in our fourth separation in 10 years.  I am his problem.  I am the reason he lost his job over five years ago.  I am the cause of his rage and anger…anyway this is what I was told.  Lately however, I am told nothing.  So, I dine with our children.  Jim is no longer a corporate executive or a marketing entrepreneur in a burgeoning industry.  He is a waiter.  After five years of packing his days with verbal grenades at me, I finally separate the finances such that he had to pay some of his own bills.  Thus, he eventually and respectfully found a way to do it.  Now, I want to honor that choice and support him by bringing our sons in for dinner.  More passionately, I want to see him, to smell him, and to admire his tall sturdy frame, glimmering blue eyes, and dimpled smile reserved lately only for strangers.  The boys are happy and proud to be with their father, they are coloring.  They don’t hear the music and if they did, they wouldn’t recognize it.  I am crying.  It is too late in the day and we are too far from the window for me to hide my tears with my sunglasses.  So, I hide momentarily behind the menu and take in the music.  “Youth is like diamonds in the sun…”  I don’t know why I am crying or even what I am feeling.  I simply know this song once taught me to live.  Later it taught me to love.  I know it is not a coincidence that it is playing now at this unique and important first visit to my husband’s work place. 

How did Alphaville’s “Forever Young” teach me to live?  I was 17 years old attending St. Matthew's High School and living at the Bridgeport, Connecticut.   Sounds idyllic I know.  Many of my grammar school friends from Danbury went to the same school but were on different routines, social schedules, etc. as I now bussed in from 30-40 minutes away.  Though I had plenty of friends I was alone, terribly alone.  The pain of sexual abuse, bulimia, and typical teenage hormones had caught up with me and were crushing.  I couldn’t live another day.  So, I learned how to die.  I researched how a New York City commuter had taken his life after a devastating day of trade, consumed by the impossibility of facing his family.  I understood his hurt, his hopelessness. The only thing I felt was pain, my pain not his.  Learning of his fate was like finding a road map.  Where did he stand?  When did he jump?   I made my plans.  I had basketball practice all week from which I would ride the train after practice back to Bridgeport.  That was as good a time as any. No need for a note, my parents would just figure it out.  So, it is settled, Tuesday after practice will be fine.  Tuesday morning came.  I shuffle up the side stairway from the bus to class.  There seem to be hundreds of shoes clomping all around me, going to the same place but yet a different place all together.   As I round the corner in the top hallway Mary steps out and says, “Did you hear?” Did I hear what? The words bounce in my head but I don’t speak.  She continues, “Did you hear about Mark?...he jumped in front of a train last night.”  She sees that I am staring at he in disbelief but thankfully there is no way for her to know my thoughts are more about me than about Mark.  Mary continues, “He is gone.”  The bell rings, we are late for class, I scurry on.  Mark had been dating our good friend Katy.  Katy is in our “circle.”  (I guess I am in the circle too.  But somehow it seems they are all “in” it, and looking in.  I am looking out).  Mark was two years older than Katy and so we still thought of him more as Mike’s older brother, rather than Katy’s boyfriend as we had known Mike all throughout grammar school.  Now, none of that mattered.  And now his family was shattered.  The town mourns.  I don’t go to practice.  I don’t ride the train.  My next memory is from Mark’s wake.  There must have been 400 people at the wake.  All I remember hearing is, Forever Young’s lyrics,  “Do you want to live forever?...Forever Young.”  All I remember seeing is pain, no one’s pain in particular.  800 eyes, none of them dry, none the same but all identical.  That night none of the 400 people had blue, brown, or hazel eyes, just eyes of sorrow.  It is then that I conclude I am not worth dying.  I don’t know these people and they couldn’t possibly care about me.  But they don’t deserve to return to this place to go through these same motions for another teen meeting another train.  I avoid trains for a while.  I never jump.  Slowly, I begin to notice and enjoy ocean breezes, bright butterflies and thousands of other simple blessings.

How did Alphaville’s Forever Young teach me to love?   I am 32 years old, living in Stuttgart Germany and about to have my first child.   “Can you believe how insensitive he is?”  I ask.  My therapist pauses before answering and gives me a chance to rethink the story I have just shared:  Saturday night Jim and I had been invited to dinner.  Klaus picked us up at the S-Bahn station while Anja remained at their country townhome preparing a delicious green curry.  We have an incredible time filled with laughs and plans for the baby soon to arrive.   It is one of those too-good-to-be-true life experiences for me.  (A girl with LaGrange, GA barbershop roots isn’t likely to be communicating in a native language of a foreign land with true friends…).  After delightful and cheerful good-byes Klaus drops us back off at the station early for our train before heading home to finish the dishes with Anja.  Jim and I are alone. This is not a downtown train station, more of an open few platforms in the country.  It is empty.   Yet my heart is full.  I am with my husband holding my baby.  I yearn to be even closer to him and to bring him closer to me so I ask, “Did you hear what song was playing when Klaus picked us up?”  It was three hours earlier, but without hesitation he answers, “Alphaville, Forever Young.”  It is not one we hear but every few years or more and remember it was a German station, so it stands out.  I get encouraged and press on literally dying to bring the love of my life to the deepest recesses of my soul, “You remember what that song means to me?”  Of course I had previously shared with Jim the whole story about Mark, me being suicidal in high school, etc. I want him to hug me, to hold me, to tell me how pleased he is that I am living, I am his wife, and we are growing a family together.  Jim walks away, looks at the timetable posted on the cold cement wall and after about 2 minutes says, “You know if we walk over to platform 3 and catch the S-4 we can get home 8 minutes earlier.”  I walk down the stairs, over, and up stairs as he instructs but I am cold and crushed.  How could he ignore my feelings?  How could he care more about a schedule, a table of facts than about my soul?  Doesn’t he know I don’t care about getting home 8 minutes early when the only person I want to come home to is right next to me?  By Thursday I found myself in my therapist’s office asking, “Can you believe how insensitive he is?”  Finally, she responds,  “I don’t think he was being insensitive. I think he was caring for you.  You, his beloved wife, stood 9 months pregnant with his first child on a train platform.  You made him think of a time when you almost jumped in front of a train.  He did the only thing he knew how to do to keep you safe: get you home earlier.”  Perspective. Ouch.  It was then and there l began to learn how deceiving our feelings can be and how different love can look.  More importantly, I learned how blessed I am to have a God whose unending love and care empowers us to give each other the benefit of the doubt and accept human love in whatever form it is presented.

One song over many decades teaches me to live and then to love.  I hear it again, different yet the same.  I welcome it as the simple sweet reminder that God is in control.  I feel a tug on my shirt.  Is it my son pulling me out from behind the menu so he can show me his artwork?  No, it is a tug on my heart, not on my sleeve.  The tug is the song “Forever Young.”  This time the song is by One Direction and it is unmistakably pointing me to only one place.  The song informs me that to live and to love is not enough.  I must also trust.  Now is the time for me turn my life into only one direction, to totally entrust my life to the God who controls it.



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God is a CPA.  Why does that surprise me?  Do I feel estranged since I personally get confused with debits and credits?  If he is a CPA, do I try to box Him in as just a CPA? The reality is He knows all. All includes accounting. 

How do I know this?  It happened when I sold my company TriNet. Sure, constant miracles guided my hand throughout the nearly four year life of TriNet (and my entire life for that matter) so of course I knew I wouldn’t be deserted, but haven’t you ever just sometimes forgotten who is driving the ship?  I would love to tell you about the wonder of surviving a predatory lawsuit or how my marriage was saved when I had to confront my husband with, “you can be my colleague OR my husband, not both.”  But the title says, “God is a CPA” so I’d better stick to that.

I was nine months pregnant with our third child who was due at Thanksgiving.  That November I was approached by an investment banker named Bill asking if I wanted to buy a 20 year old competitor with revenues 7 times ours.  “The deal must close by December 31st” he states matter-of-factly.  At my company, we could barely make payroll, sales were sluggish, profits non-existent, and mountains of debt from the lawsuit still lingered.  Imagine my shock when out of my mouth came, “Sure!”  And it wasn’t just a slip of the tongue.  I put a bid together, lined up investors, and prepared a strategic plan.  At home, my 5 and 3 year olds were expecting Christmas carols, cookies, Santa---the works.  Somewhere in the middle of all this (December 1st at 7:42 a.m. to be exact) I gave birth.

No, it wasn’t logic or overzealousness fueling the bid.  It was faith.  I have always loved the passage that all things are possible through faith.  It is not a mandate to over busy my life, quite the opposite.  I realize that if I feel overwhelmed and can’t “be still,” something I am doing is not meant to be.  Out it goes.  One might imagine “overwhelmed” would have defined that holiday season.  But in reality it was an incredibly blessed time with my husband, three children and extended family. 

The business plan came together with ease.  TriNet had everything the seller did not (brand recognition, experienced team, extensive marketing, and rapid growth).  They had profit.  And with their marketing machine virtually turned off, the profit flowed in at nearly ninety percent.   The strategic fit was impeccable.  Combining the two companies would translate into growth.  But I told you I SOLD my company, not that I BOUGHT one.  I lost the bid.

An overseas firm entered and out bid all three contenders by nearly double.  And guess what they needed to make their investment grow?  You got it: TriNet!  Within a month, Bill called again inquiring whether I would sell.

Do you love it?  How often have you been led down an absurd path to find the miracle solution at its end?  Buying a company when the one I have can barely survive = absurd.  Selling a company with an infant and two other children 5 and under = miracle solution. Often we follow along blindly.  Other times, we get a glimpse that we are on a path.  Standing in the preschool parking lot I received just such a glimpse.  On a Thursday morning Bill lobs out a price.  Quickly and quietly my husband and I ran plenty of numbers while dreams of decreasing debt danced in our heads.  Naturally, the numbers changed a dozen times from that first estimate.  But even back then, we had a target for our tithe.  For years we had talked about giving to our children’s pre-school.  This house of love held our family together as we battled mental illness, financial devastation, and typical stresses leading us into two marital separations.   Return to the parking lot. That same Thursday afternoon a school board member whispers to me the decision that the school will close.  “Close”…  The word twisted like a sword wrenching my heart yet floating in circles around my head.   She provided a long list of reasons but it sounded like Charlie Brown’s school teacher saying, “ “wa wha wha….” Then I heard, “budget shortfall…” and she gave THE same number that was sitting in my spreadsheet column entitled “tithe.” 

Negotiations, contracts, and due diligence begin a sleepless six week rally between 1 of me and 8 of their legal, accounting, and corporate team.  Bill navigates each step.  I continue to toil with tax implications and investor return but generally things are positive.  Emotionally, I struggled with letting go of my “baby” company while being thankful for the real baby nursing in my arms every few hours. 

Then the deal hit a wall.  Buyer wants hold back money in escrow decreasing the first year payoff substantially.  How will the investors approve the sale with this new wrinkle?  Even Bill worried it was a deal killer.  Why was I led so far down a path to a dead end?  I worried, I prayed, I thought of the school.  I jump out of bed.  It is 3 a.m. yet I want to research tax implications of escrowed money, so down to the computer I trot.  Wouldn’t you know it?  The buyer’s requirement is the ANSWER to my tax and investor return issues! Holding back money in escrow allows us to defer large tax bill until the final payoff in subsequent years.  Thus, investors get their return immediately.  To Bill, I explain, “You know I am not smart enough to have figured that on my own, it had to be God.” He could only agree. 



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