revelation at the lake

upon this boat dock i spoke the first words of my coming out.

 
so...

i believe

GOD spoke to me

and i choose to trust what i heard, felt, saw, and experienced.  

i'll allow you 

to believe what you choose 

or do not choose to believe.  

"it's time...

she's waiting for you to talk to her.

she's preparing for her future without you."

those words resonated 

so loud, so clear

i could do nothing more than prepare myself to tell her...

my faithful wife for 22 years.

it was a challenge to speak such profound

life changing words to the person you love 

in a tiny house filled with others i loved.

so i chose to write my initial words.

i have no idea what i wrote.

i trust i wrote about my love and 
that it had never been a lie.

i also know i wrote about my denial 
and the truth i had been pushing away.

i most likely admitted that these two truths 
were not necessarily compatible

ingredients for a future either one of us deserved.

i wrote something like this.

later that day when my wife

was sitting on the deck talking on the cell phone

i walked up to her and handed her my words 

then immediately walked down the steps

down the hill 

and to the end of the dock 

and sat.

when i sat down

tears like i have never cried before

came flowing out of me.

they ran down my face 

into my shirt 

down my leg.

i wept.  

i could hardly breathe.

life had shifted and moved

and there was no turning back

no more pushing away the reality of my 

GOD created nature.

then i heard footsteps 

on the dock.

she had read the words

and she came to me

and sat by me

and said to me

the very words 

GOD had spoken to me the night before - 

"I've been waiting for this moment."

and she spoke.

she spoke beautiful

unconditional

compassionate

loving words to me.

so many words of love.

for we had not loved each other in vain.

what we lived had been real and genuine.

we respected each other.

we protected each other.

we supported each other.

we were proud of each other.

we had created a most phenomenal family with each other. 

we had served churches together.

we had struggled together fighting 

for the fuller acceptance of women 

in the church 

and combating ongoing racial injustice 

as our son is bi-racial in a world where race still matters. 

we loved each other

and that was our story

despite what anyone thought or would think when 

the news of our divorce and my "gayness" hit 

the gossip mill.

but for that moment we held on to each other

cherishing what we had lived.

we cried for three days.

we took long walks and cried.

we listened to favorite songs while every
one else was asleep 
and cried.

we looked across the room at each other 
and silently cried.

tears dammed up for so many years

flooded our lives.

(of course this is my telling of our story
i do not presume to speak for my ex-wife...
i simply tell what i remember from my 
perspective.)

we didn't know it then 

but those tears would continue 

into the next months

and years.

in that moment 

and in that space

we simply held on to each other

because what we had 

was real.

in the midst of the tears
we made plans.

as the prudent, responsible people 

we are....

we made plans.

we would stay together 

until our daughter graduated.
our son had already
launched into his life. 

we had lived 22 years together 

we could certainly live 

2 more together.  

so we had time...

time to adjust to the unknown future.

at

least 

that was the plan 

we made that day.

like many plans

our life didn't 

take the course

we had charted.

we did not anticipate 

how deep grief can get.

i won't share the details of the darkness

that is a story for GOD's 

dealing and healing.

i will share 

from my perspective 

the journey i took.

i seemingly lost all

only to find out 

the shadow of the valley of death

does not have the last word. 

while at the lake 

i spoke my story to my wife.

then to my best friend

and then

i began to slowly prepare my daughter.

dietrich bonhoeffer said:

when we speak our brokenness

it no longer has power over us.

i was prepared to speak...

but i had no idea 

just how difficult

breaking the power of brokenness 

would be.

it was 

the hardest thing 

i've ever had to do.