Hey bloggers, this is a true story written by one of my dear friends, Jim Gray. In fact Jimmy helped to launch the inner city church in Michigan. He is one of the fine writers I know.
Jim’s Story
She didn’t have a lick of make up on.
Her hair was a crazy tangle of curls that had been carelessly rammed into a scrunchy, forming a kind of naturally occurring Daniel Boone-style coon skin cap. Her hands gave an appearance of being on the steering wheel of our minivan, but in truth they only floated over the ten and two position because they had to remain nimble for all the other duties (besides steering) they had to perform. Her mouth moved at light speed as she recounted to me all the various activities she was about to engage in in the next 48 hours while I was in Minneapolis.
I loved her like this. No make up. Crazy hair. Driving our minivan, so filled with toddler toys that she looked like a mobile Gymboree factory. Merrily rattling off activities as though she was planning the invasion of Normandy. All this while barreling down the 215 to drop me off at MacCarran Airport in Las Vegas.
Becky finished going over her invasion plans and we lapsed into a short silence. I peeked at Olivia, our 3 year old , asleep in her car seat. Even at three, Olivia’s large head barely had any hair. The hair that she did have was a translucent fuzz. That big fuzzy head was slumped over as she slept, her lower lip jutting out with the ever present line of drool falling onto her bib.
How I loved this life. I was over come with a deep sense of gratitude, and for a fleeting second my mind drifted.
It hadn’t always been like this. Six years before this trip to the airport, I was searching the Bible rigorously looking a loop hole. I was very unhappy. I was unhappy with her. I had been unhappy with her for quite a long time. I was tired of being unhappy so I was looking for a loop hole. The loop hole that I was looking for was something – anything – that would allow me to divorce Becky while remaining scripturally compliant.
Yeah right.
I looked hard. I found nothing. I had been a Christian for over twenty years at that point and I was well aware of the “God hates divorce” drum beat in the church. And I was also aware (although vaguely) of the whole, “the woman needs to serve her husband” deal. I wasn’t completely sure what all of that meant, but I was sure that I was getting no service and that had to count for something, I thought.
Way down deep, I knew that no matter how hard I looked, no matter how far I felt Becky fell short in our relationship, no matter how much I thought that my needs weren’t being met and the significance of the unhappiness it was causing me, I had no Biblical out. The commitment I made to her on April 23rd, 1988 in a bit of haphazard theatre called a “wedding” was one that I was required to keep. Until death. No take backs.
Well, crap.
At this time, I was 32 years old. The people in my family lived into their eighties. Becky’s grandfather was almost 90. If genetics was any indicator of how long she and I would live as husband and wife, it was going to be a long, long, long time. I knew that there was no way, that I could simply grit my teeth and face forty five more years in a marriage like this. There was just no way. I couldn’t face being this unhappy for that long. Who could, I reasonably asked myself? No one, I concluded. So my search through the scriptures continued until I found myself in the Gospel of John in the 13th chapter. I had only read this chapter about one million times over the last twenty years.
“Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, blah, blah, blah.”
Jesus, the Son of God, was on his knees washing a particularly unclean piece of the human body and then standing up and saying that this was his example to us that we should follow. Pretty straight forward stuff, I had always thought. I’d even been through those fairly awkward ceremonies in small groups where we’d wash each other’s feet and then say afterward how “moving” it was. It was never moving for me. It was always odd. For me, it was just another bit of empty (although well meaning) theatre.
And then it happened.
God spoke to me- clear, even. Unmistakable.
“Jim, wash her feet.”
Everything seemed to stop. I sat, frozen, at my desk in the dining room of Becky and my little apartment in West Hollywood. I vaguely heard street sounds wafting through an open window, but everything within a 3 foot radius from where I was sitting was absolutely still.
The concept of what I had just heard was permeating my skin. It was oozing into my muscles. It was dripping into my bones. It was gently, powerfully, irreversibly penetrating my DNA.
“Wash her feet.”
“Wash Becky’s feet.”
I quietly closed my Bible and began to think.
I immediately started compiling a mental list of what serving Becky would look like. I decided that I would never mention her weight again. I would never push having sex on her again. I would never compare her, verbally, with anyone ever again. I would take seriously everything – everything – she said to me and act on it. If she asked me to do something, I would do it. If she asked me not to do something, I would stop. I would work to listen to her without mentally or emotionally attempting to maneuver her to adopt my personal agenda. I would try to understand what she wanted and give it to her without comment or complaint. I would examine all of my behavior and evaluate it against how it would make her feel. I would modify all of my behavior so that, to the greatest extent possible, I would eliminate anything that caused her pain, embarrassment, sadness or anger. And, most importantly, as I did these things in increasing measure, I would expect no reward from her. My mission to do them was simply because it was Jesus’ example and command.
Now, make no mistake—I did have a hope of a reward in all of this. The reward that I was hoping for was, somehow, someway to find joy in marriage and in life. I would go so far as to say that I would have had no hope of long term success in this mission if somehow joy didn’t emerge out of what I was doing. But I had a vague sense, very early on, that the joy I was looking for wasn’t ultimately going to be conveyed to me by receiving effusive “thank-yous” from my wife because of all of my so-called “big changes.” What I was looking for, without really understanding it at the time, was something even bigger than that. Deeper.
I made no announcement to Becky that I begun this mission. I didn’t want to taint what I was doing by saying anything. As I considered my new way of thinking, I began to realize what a jerk I had been for most our marriage. I began to realize that, really, the only person I actually cared about in this relationship was me. I was realizing that everything- quite literally everything- in our relationship was done ultimately for my benefit and by my design. I specified what we were going to do and I evaluated the results of what we did by criteria that I developed with no input from anyone. And- surprise, surprise- I always measured up very well and Becky rarely measured up at all.
And so, I began my attempt. I began my attempt to wash Becky’s feet. I began my attempt to serve her without reservation or condition.
What happened next is difficult to describe. As I committed more and more to washing her feet, slowly over time, I began to witness, quite literally, a transformation. The interesting thing about transformations is you can never be too sure who it is that is actually being transformed. Each legitimate act of service on my part seemed to unlock something within her. I started to become aware that there was another woman entering my life. The qualities that this woman possessed were alluring. She had an ease that my wife didn’t have. This woman smiled a lot. She was so open. I was aware of how sensitive she was. The smallest thing could make her sad or happy. More and more I found myself hating the idea of her being sad and it became fuel to me in my pursuit to serve her. Each smile was a victory, each frown required a mental note to do better in the future.
But then it got weird.
She seemed to develop a rather strong interest in me. She wanted to know what I thought of things. But this woman didn’t push, or poke or shame me into a ridiculous, (and usually grotesquely self-serving) linguistic act that Christian’s commonly call, “sharing.” She just wanted to talk with me. And her ease as she approached me to talk was irresistible.
I talked to her. She listened to what I said. She talked to me. And with every fiber of my being, I listened. Unexplainably, I was overcome with a need to listen. It was primal. To not listen would be a violation of her trust and, at this point, that was unthinkable. I knew I was on very dangerous ground now. How had I let this get so out of hand? I could see what was happening. I was forging a very deep, very thick emotional bond with this woman. I was in love with her.
What would I tell my wife?
But this woman was my wife. She had always been my wife. I just never knew it. I could never see it. Up until this moment, I wasn’t the man she needed so that she could reveal her true self. But here she was now. It was sweet. We experienced joy. And then a whirlwind of events exploded into fast forward: We got pregnant, my job started going great, our baby daughter was born, we bought our first home in Southern California, bought our first brand new minivan , my job got even better, Becky stayed home full time, we had a great church, our relationship deepened, my job moved us to Las Vegas, we bought our dream home, we found a great church in Vegas, our relationship deepened, we began to try for our second child, I started my own business, we sold our dream home and bought our forever home, we made great friends at church and our relationship deepened. And deepened.
We continued to barrel down the 215 toward the airport and a faint smile crept across my face. I was on my way to a meeting to hopefully strike the first deal in my new business. And this was going to be a big one. My little firm (consisting of my partner, me and our attorney) was going to bring a well established regional airline, based in Minneapolis, together with an innovative vacation company to create low-cost, high end vacation packages for travelers who lived in the Midwest. My company would earn a commission on every vacation sold. This was an important meeting. There was a lot of money on the table and both the CEO of the airline and the President of the vacation company would be in the room with me. Becky would spend her time while I was away for the next few days unpacking the boxes that littered our new home and would finish painting the kitchen and family room. My smile broadened slightly when I thought of the last two weeks as Becky agonized over what color to paint the walls. Paint was everywhere. This was our forever home and the color had to be perfect. So, there were swatches of color splashed on walls all over the house. She wanted to see what the colors looked like in the morning, in the evening, at sunrise and sunset. I didn’t really have a preference for the color. But I knew that this was important to her, so I gave her the space she needed to go through this process, knowing that when she discovered the perfect color, it would make her very happy. And, of course, she discovered the color and she was ecstatic.
We pulled into the departing passengers lane at MacCarren airport and it was as I expected, a chaotic knot of cars, buses, taxis, people and luggage all struggling in every direction. Becky navigated our Chrysler Town and County to the Southwest terminal. Olivia was still asleep as I jumped out of the van and pulled my suitcase out of the back. I was going to poke my head back through the passenger side window to tell Becky goodbye and that I loved her, when I realized that she had gotten out of the van and was standing right next to me.
She had that look.
This was a look that I had come to know very well over the last few years. This was the, “I need a kiss, please” look. I quickly obliged by giving her a short peck on the lips then quickly turned away to grab my suitcase. There was a lot of traffic and I knew the airport cops were going to be on us in another second if Becky didn’t get our car moving. As I picked up my suitcase, I felt a firm grasp on my arm. I turned around to see my wife standing there holding me firm, looking directly at me. She took her free arm and slid it around my neck, pulling me to her.
And she kissed me.
One of the things I knew about my wife was that she did not like public displays of affection. That was one of her “things.” Hand holding was ok, but kissing beyond the simple peck on the lips was strictly off limits. So it was mildly surprising when she went to the trouble of getting out of the van for a kiss in such a public place. I gave her the kind of kiss I thought she expected—sincere, but short and fast. But on this day, in this chaotic gridlock of people, luggage and exhaust she gave me the kind of kiss that was reserved for when we were alone. It was the kind of kiss makes a man not want to get on an airplane.
She stepped back from me smiling at the shock on my face. “Call me when you get there,” she said.
The next time I saw my wife was in the intensive care unit of University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Less than 24 hours from the time I kissed her goodbye, she was hit by a pick-up truck running a red light at a busy intersection on the 215. I had rushed back from Minneapolis when I received the call that she had been in a car accident. But, the full understanding of the size and severity of what I was facing didn’t hit me until I stood in that hospital room looking at her. Half of her head was shaved clean. Gleaming in the antiseptic glare of the room’s light were the 40 metal stitches that held together the left side of her ghoulishly swollen head. The hair that remained on her head was soaked in blood. Her left eye had been pushed from it’s socket past the bridge of her nose. A tube was in her mouth held in place by tangle of surgical tape. Blood and puss oozed from her ears and nose. Her entire body was buried under a mountain of tubes and wires. Her chest rose and fell with mechanical precision and in perfect time to a sucking sound made by the machine, the size of a refrigerator, at the side of her bed. My eyes drifted slowly over her and she was all but unrecognizable to me in that moment.
And then I saw her feet. They were uncovered. They had no blood on them. There were no tubes running in or out of them. They were slightly pink. I recognized them immediately. They were my wife’s feet. I reached out to touch them and they were cold. Becky hated having cold feet. She was always wearing socks. I rubbed my hands together and pressed them to her left foot and then her right, repeating this process until I could feel her skin starting to warm.
As I stood there, I began to consider how she and I would get through this. But deep down, I knew. Nothing had changed. God had spoken to me on this subject almost 5 years before.
“Jim, wash her feet.”
And, by God’s grace, that is what I endeavored to do, even to this day.
Hope Experience 