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"I have to make a telephone call," said my husband, beside me on the sofa. "I'll be right back."
"Can't you make it here?" I asked in astonishment.
"No."
"Whom do you have to call on Christmas Day?"
He didn't answer, just smiled and walked out. Puzzled, I tried to reason this out. My husband and I were close. We always shared everything, I thought. Why would he leave the house to telephone? He must be in some serious debt was the only conclusion I could come to.
My eldest daughter came and sat beside me. She looked grave. "Do you think there is someone else, Mommy?"
Someone else? That thought had never occurred to me.
A short time later, my husband returned and resumed his seat beside me.
"Is there someone else in your life?" I asked teasingly. He looked down at me. Shocked, I saw his face go tense and white.
"I've been meaning to tell you for a long time. Yes, there is someone else."
I felt my body go numb. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. We had just returned from a happy Christmas dinner with my folks, I never suspected anything. It was as if I had lost all feeling. I couldn't cry. If he had been my enemy, then I could have borne it, but this was my husband whom I loved and trusted. We had been equals and had shared life together for 19 years. We had kept company in God's house and attended regularly. Suddenly we were estranged. Darkness overwhelmed me. How had I failed him?
"Who is she?" I asked weakly.
He wouldn't tell me. He just got up and walked away. I began to think of circumstances that now made sense. He was working a lot of overtime, yet when a friend tried to reach him at the office, there was no answer.
The wife of one of the men in his company said that she had seen him skiing in Bend, Oregon.
I laughed. "He doesn't ski," I replied.
"It was he," she said. "I saw him!"
"You must be mistaken. It must have been someone who looked like him," I assured her.
My husband travelled a good deal in his business. He had been away a lot on weekends lately. I had never clued in.
That night my husband left, and I lay awake crying. In the early morning hours, a Scripture verse clearly came into my mind which I had never memorized and couldn't recall ever hearing before: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned" (Isaiah 43:2). The words gave me comfort and peace. I knew that God was with me and that He would take me through this time of sorrow.
For two years, I wept my way through depression. People who had dined at our table, I never heard from again. Friends looked the other way when we met at church.
However, God gave me a friend who stood loyally by--Marguerite. I discovered a wonderful truth: "A friend loves at all times" (Proverbs 17:17). Her heart answered to the cry of my heart. The sweetness of her counsel was like a healing ointment. She and her husband included me each week when they dined out. Whenever they had friends in, they invited me too. Later, when death left her alone also, we travelled together. We enjoyed the same things and had the same preferences. It was a David and Jonathan friendship.
During that time, I discovered the greatest friend of all. He brought us through that difficult time of grieving so that the children and I did not feel left or forsaken. He is the Lord Jesus Christ.
At the present time, each of my five children know the Lord. I am enjoying retirement, and living again through my 13 grandchildren.
Jean Cox lives in Vernon, B.C.
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