In 1980 I met my first husband.... I was a teenager living alone in a new city after leaving home because I had been very unhappy and had been beaten regularly. Shortly after leaving home I found Bruce Springsteen! I was alone, lonely and lost - his music resonated with the pain in my heart and the promise of a new land of milk and honey. I'd never had a boyfriend before - I was the shy quiet awkward girl at school. One day my brother told me that a boy who he worked with also liked Bruce Springsteen. The boys name was Paul. No-one in the Uk had really heard of Bruce back then in 1980. My brother arranged a meeting between Paul and I. Paul came to my bedsit. He brought around the recently released 'The River' We played it over and over all evening. Strange as it was Paul lived round the corner from me. We connected immediately. A bond was formed that night which is still here 31 years later. We became inseparable. Paul also had experienced and unhappy childhood - much worse than mine he had been seriously abused and abandoned, he told me everything. We used to spend nights holding each other listening to 'Drive All Night' by Bruce. It became our song. 3 years later I became pregnant. We had a beautiful liitle girl. Life became tough. We were both struggling with our past. Both insecure and out of control. Our baby was difficult - screaming all the time. Nevertheless for some reason in the middle of all this turmoil we decided to get married. We had a beautiful wedding, a special day. When I made my vows at the altar I meant it for life. A few months later after another huge argument Paul left and went to stay in London with his brother.
To start with I was relieved. I had peace in my home. 3 weeks later Paul came back and said he wanted to try again. I said no. I couldn't go back to the fights and tension. He still continued to visit our daughter - maybe for another year or so. Eventually he met someone else. As time went on I began to realise how much I loved him and how much our little girl needed her Daddy. I tried to talk to him and asked him to come home. He was adamant he wouldn't. It hit me like a ten ton truck... He was my husband i loved him, i didn't want a broken marriage, a broken family. He was my soul mate, the only one who could ever really know me and love me. He wouldn't come home. I began to slide into drug addiction and oblivion. Trying to blot out the pain. I called him and cried and begged him to come home - all to no avail. He cut all contact with me. I sunk lower. I started to get involved with other men. I needed someone to blot out the pain - but it never did. One day I called Paul - there was no answer, he had changed his number, i couldn't contact him. I was delirious, demented with pain. I tracked him down by going to the library and searching for him. On a cold November day in 1987 I got my brother to drive me to the address i had found for Paul in London. I knocked at the door. Paul answered - he looked shocked. He invited me in but told me he had moved on he was 'mixing in different circles' now and had rich friends and didn't need or love me. I was an unbeliever having been brought up in a non christian home... at this moment I felt a hand on my forehead it touched me gently and held me still, i have no idea how but I knew it to be God. Paul drove me to the bus station, I was crying all the way.
Once back in my hometown i jumped off the bus and decided to step in front of it as it pulled away. As I took the step I felt the same force again on my chest as i had felt on my forehead. I went home, invited all my friends round and got blasted. i was so out of my head - at 2am i remember looking out the window. I heard a voice it said 'go to church'.
The next morning i called my friend who I knew went to church - a spiritualist church. I figured she would know about this sort of thing. I asked her to come with me the next day 'to church' the one on our estate a 'Church of England' one. She said ok. So we went. I was probably out of my head still that Sunday morning. We stumbled into this very 'posh' middle class, ordered, sedate, well dressed well healed church. Wow what a culture shock for us!!! Two poor struggling broken single parents! Anyway the music played, the speaker spoke and we stood/sat/stood/sat trying to cope with it all.
I wondered what the hell was I doing there... then they sang this song..... 'Father God I wonder how I managed to exist without the knowledge of your parenthood and your loving care'... I was gone, blasted, on the floor in a heap sobbing, shaking, inconsolable. In that moment I met my maker. I KNEW he was real I KNEW the Bible was true I KNEW Jesus had died for me and why he had died. In that moment I became a Christian. I walked out that church that morning a new creature. I had been born-again. I never bothered with drugs again. My life did a 180 degree turn around. I was his and he was mine, I was in love with Jesus completely and utterly. I sat in my little flat and I prayed endlessly. I heard God again speak to me he said ' Stand for your marriage'
Stand for my marriage?! so back then in 1987 I began standing. No one else it seemed was doing this. But I persevered. Paul, still was having nothing to do with me. Eventually though he did start to see our daughter again a few times a year. Each time we all met up it was like hell for me - i loved him but didn't know what to do. I told him i had found Jesus but he wasn't impressed. I prayed and fasted for days and days at a time all to no avail. I enrolled at Theological College and asked everyone about marriage and divorce. I was encouraged to 'move on, let go and told I could/should divorce as my non-christian partner had left me. After 7 years of standing Paul asked for a divorce. I crumbled and went off the rails. I met someone else - a non christian and married him within a year and had 2 more children. The marriage was hell. My new husband wasn't a believer. I tried so hard to make it work, my new husband was a good guy and a great dad, but the spiritual differences made the marriage a nightmare. After another 7 years our marriage ended in divorce.
Fast forward now to today. I have been on my own for 9 years now. It's 2011. Recently I was praying about the future and i told God i am ready to get married again, to be in a relationship. I had long ago put Paul in my past and really have not thought much about him for probably 15 years. As I was praying the Lord impressed very strongly on me that it was Paul - he was my 'husband' I was shocked to my core. This seemed crazy, nuts, what on earth was happening to me? How could he be my husband....our daughter sees Paul occasionally. He has remarried and has a child. What was going on? this was me being deluded - surely. I felt rocked to my core.... but slowly the pieces started to fall together. If this was the case my life suddenly 'made sense' all the relationships which hadn't worked no matter how hard i tried. Other huge errors of judgement i had made made sense if Paul was still my husband. I took to thinking about Paul again. Seriously. And I started to get tingles through my whole being. Could this REALLY be of God?
So I was a reluctant stander to begin with. It's 19 years since we divorced! As the weeks have gone on though I have more peace and conviction and God is witnessing in such power that this is his will for me. How could I ever marry anyone else again while my covenant husband is still alive!? And I have to admit after all these years once all is said and done I love him - always have always will!
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| Julie and Paul on their covenant wedding on March 10th, 1984 |
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