Written October 9, 2009

As I write this I am no longer where I normally write.

I’m not at my three thousand square foot dream home in the office or upstairs in the prayer room with a cinnamon bun scented candle burning.

No. I’m in a place and time I never thought I would be.

My new home is a small apartment in the barn of my employer who is a local physician. Imagine yourself in a hotel room and in the adjacent room there is a pony named Monica who likes to kick her stall in the middle of the night, eight goats, four dogs, five cats, a rooster named Flower that gets up really early in the morning and a steer with an attitude named Lucky.

As I look around my new and alien domicile, I see the things I hastily brought with me: eleven shirts, seven pairs of pants, a jumbled bag of toiletries, my bible, laptop, cell phone, iPod and a box of Q-tips.

Twenty-one days ago my existence exploded.

I fell out of life.

My wife of seventeen years told me she wanted a divorce. There was no chance of working it out. She told me she wanted space and everything to remain as is. We could live in the house together until the divorce was final and our home sold. Just as friends.

God knew a storm was coming. In August the Holy Spirit led me to hang up teaching the youth at my church and stop writing for this blog.

I didn’t see the clouds swirling or batten down the hatches of my boat. I was caught on deck and hit full force with a category five hurricane.

Crap happens.

My house was no longer my home. I couldn’t stand it. It was too overwhelming. I had to get out and didn’t care where I landed. The next day my wife was going out of town shopping with friends. I made up my mind I wouldn’t be there when she got back. When she left for her shopping trip I called the only person who could help me. My boss. I told him I had about eight to ten hours to find somewhere to go. I didn’t care where, even if I had to sleep on a dirt floor. I desperately needed a sanctuary. He held up his hand and said, “No problem Cec. I’ve got you covered.” Then he whipped out his cell phone and called his main farm hand. “I have an employee with a personal emergency who will be staying in the barn apartment for a while. Would you get it ready for him?” He looked at me and with a smile said, “Cec, give him a couple of hours then head that way.” It pays to work for a Godly man who loves his employees. Crying with gratitude I hugged him and went back to the house my wife and I had shared. I walked through every room and cried. In anger I went outside and ripped up the five hundred feet of underground fence for our chocolate labs Dolly and Lexi that was almost finished. And then, like a great husband should, I mowed the yard.

After mowing I sat down at the table where we had shared countless meals, holidays, celebrations and prayers and wrote her a  letter explaining why I was leaving.  She wanted space. I was giving it to her. All she had to do was call me. Then I called my pastor JD.  What a great man of God he is. He talked to me for several minutes then prayed for me. It was very comforting.

I went through the house and started grabbing things. Just the basics. When I got to the barn the farm hand was so kind and gracious. He helped take my tattered and torn life into my new home. I was in a stunned stupor. When I got squared away in the barn, I started to pray like I’d never prayed before.

Laying flat on my face on the carpet I was crying out to God for a restoration of my marriage. I was groaning and sobbing. Words cannot describe how wrenched I was. God was so silent, it deafened me. My face into the carpet in between sobs I took a deep breath and discovered the carpet smelled like pee. Very, very fitting. Later that night my boss came down to the barn to check on me. Standing outside I told him, “Doc, I’m smoking to help me deal with this” then pulled out a menthol and lit up right in front of him. “In fact Doc, I’m gonna smoke my brains out. I’m going to smoke at work too. I’m gonna wear the back door off its hinges going outside to smoke. So get use to it.” I puffed like a freight train. I thought he would fall over.

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