Thy Maker, Is Thy Husband

I decided that I would clean out the pantry in the kitchen from top to bottom.  Way back in the back, I found a bag I didn’t remember putting there.  I opened the bag and couldn’t believe what I saw.  A brown glass smoking pipe, a part of a clothes hanger, cotton balls and a small bag of white powdery substance, which appeared to be cocaine were in the bag.  I had never seen cocaine in person before, but from what I had seen on TV and in the movies, that is what it looked like to me. 

I was devastated!  I knew something was going on with Brian, but I wasn’t sure what it was.  I knew he wasn’t paying the bills like he should.  He would always pretend that he was short two and three hundred dollars a week because he had a washer and dryer or new wedding rings in lay-a-way for Christmas.  This started to happen every other week or so and none of this stuff ever made it home.  The weed smoking was bad enough, but cocaine!  I heard that that stuff was so addictive, it could drive people crazy.  The experts said that when you smoked it in the pipe, it was even worse.  Cocaine smoked, snorted, shot, or whatever, I couldn’t believe this was happening to us!

Our wedding reception menu consisted of chicken wings and french fries from the prison’s vending machines and chocolate cupcakes with lemon lime soda to toast with.  Carlos and I spent a few hours together after our wedding with approximately one hundred other folks in the visiting room.  Then we said our good byes and Donna took the blushing bride to her bridal suite alone.  I was happy on one hand, but on the other hand it was sort of frightening.  Then I had to remind myself to cast down those imaginations.  My name was no longer Denise Baker Turner.  I became Mrs. Denise Fitzpatrick.  We received a few wedding cards and words of congratulations, but I knew for the most part, that the majority of our well wishers, whom we hadn’t heard from, thought I had probably gone stone zip crazy.  Things of the spirit are foolishness to the carnal mind.

My life in the potter’s house continued after the marriage.  It had almost become comical how the devil was coming at me with one trial after another.  I knew that I was being tested under severe heat and pressure.  Sometimes I used to think, Lord, when will this let up?  When I make it to the crazy house?”  The bills were out of control.  The lights got cut off, for the first time.  The kids both got chicken pox at the same time.  I was almost two months behind on my rent.  The lawyers were calling, wanting money; my phone bill was sky high from the toll calls from Carlos; my job was on a month-to-month basis; and I had had a cold for approximately six months.  I was still trying to cater to help ends meet, but it just wasn’t enough.  I told the Lord, all this is enough to make anyone go crazy, but Lord I am trusting you.  In the midst of all this, I still made every effort to remain a faithful tither.  I believe everything in me was being tested.  I didn’t realize that our trip to the potter’s house was going to be so painful.  As I was suffering out here, Carlos was catching all sorts of hell on the inside.  He was doing everything he could do to be a model inmate and from what I had been told, that was a very difficult thing to do .  He was dodging fiery darts all the day long.  He was dealing with the loneliness and isolation of being incarcerated.  There were many issues from his past haunting him and God was starting to bring them to the surface.  He felt very rejected and abandoned by his family.  I also had a lot of unresolved issues from my past marriage and relationships.  The Lord was getting to the heart of matters.