Haven't you heard? I'm moving on. My new blog is Carrie Moving On.

My husband sent me a text message telling me that he was filing for divorce. I was sleeping, so I didn't receive the message until a few hours after it was sent.

What woke me up from my slumber to find this text message on my phone? A dream.

I dreamed that I was at my Grandparents' house. (I grew up "next door" to them. I put next door in quotation marks because I grew up in the country, and next door was actually a couple of acres in front of their house.) The sun was just coming up in my dream, and I was standing in my Grandparents' front door, a door they rarely had open. I looked outside and saw that Jonathan was at my parents' house getting into a car with another woman. I ran down to him and said, "You are having an affair!" He replied, "Of course I am."

I woke up sweating and shaking. Then I saw the text message.

I know that this dream isn't proof of anything, but the Davis family does have...something.

When my uncle died 50 years ago, my Grandparents awoke to knocking at the end of their bed. When my Grandfather died in 2005, I dreamed that I drove into a blinding white light. Others have their stories too.

It can all mean something. It can all mean nothing.

But what it true is that their has been a death of a marriage. In my life, I have never seen Satan destroy something quite like this before. I'm not shedding any tears tonight. I don't think my parents are either. Something happened to the man I married, but I don't know what it is. I do know that I don't want this new man back.

Tonight I did something that I never pictured myself doing. I thanked God for this hardship. I have changed dramatically since Jonathan left me a little over three months ago. Never have I been this close to God. And if all of this happened just to make myself right with God, well then it is all worth it.

Don't ya think?

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY

You are sure that this moment is frozen in time somewhere. You know that somewhere in the world it is tangible. It must be an exhibit in a museum.

You are on your knees, nearly prostrate to the floor. As he is shoving things into a duffel bag you are at his feet. You are begging him not to leave. You are begging Him not to let him leave. He looks at you with emptiness on his face: no sign of compassion exists on his face. He only looks at you. He doesn't talk to you. How could this be? He was the most compassionate man you ever knew on this earth, with the exception on your father. You want to scream, but only sobs and wails come from your mouth.

Still on the floor, you huddle in a corner as he continues to gather his things.

You call your best friends. You call your parents. Your dad answers the phone. He can't understand you at first because your sobs cover over the words. But you finally get the words out in a way that he can understand. "He is leaving me." Now two people are sobbing. Then three people are sobbing as your mother hears your father repeat your words. You imagine

that God must be sobbing too.

From then on, the situation becomes a little hazy.

That first night you don't even go to bed, the bed that just the night before the two of you had shared. You just huddle beneath a blanket in your chair, talking and sobbing on the phone with your mother during the night into the morning. Sometimes you can hear your father crying in the background.

Somehow you survive. The arrival of your parents is a gift from God. They cry with you. They pray with you. They get you a hot water tank. They help you find your way around the city. They bring you food. You haven't eaten in two weeks. But eventually they have to leave.

You look at the calendar today and see that it has been two months since he left. You realize that you have said the stupidest things ever in those two months. You realize that you have said the meanest things ever in those two months. You realize that most people have abandoned you. They don't want to get involved. Your friends aren't your friends anymore. People who said that they would do this or that have forgotten about you.

They don't realize that you hurt too. They don't think about how lonely you are, your family and friends being over 600 miles away. They don't know that every night you ask God to take you Home in your sleep.

You understand that you screwed up. You understand that you keep screwing up. You understand that you hurt him. You understand that you hurt Him. You blame yourself for everything. Maybe outwardly you try to blame him, but inside the guilt eats at you.

"Forgiveness", "repentance" all become foreign words to you. But at the same time, it is the first time you have ever really begun to understand them.

Somehow God gives you the strength to carry on. This is the hardest thing that you have ever had to do because you don't know what to do. Song lyrics run through your head.

I can't see how You're leading me

Unless You led me here

Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led

Satan constantly tugs at you. "Run away," he says. But God won't let you run.

You feel every emotion at once. But mainly you feel disappointment. You are disappointed at yourself. You are disappointed because this isn't how it was supposed to be. All of your hopes and dreams have been shattered: there has been a death.

You know that people hate you. The Church is supposed to be a safe haven, a place of no judgement. Yet, The Church is one of the most judgmental groups. "Look at what she did! She drove her husband away!"

It seems that the only people who care are hundreds of miles away. You sit in your car in a church parking lot talking on your cellphone to a pastor who is in a church 650 miles away. He has known you since you were a baby, but it still doesn't seem right that he is the only one willing to talk to you.

Satan keeps telling you to "Run! Run!"

But you stay. You have decided to stay. God has told you to stay. It doesn't seem like He has told you much else. You pray and wait. Oh, He did tell you to read the book of Proverbs.

And so you sit in an empty house with the only sounds being clocks ticking and cats purring. The cat who would never sit in your lap, who would only sit in his, now won't leave your side. It makes you feel sad. You aren't the only one who feels abandoned.

What will you do next? You will crawl into a bed that was made for two people all by yourself. But you will be thankful that God loves you and has forgiven you. You will be thankful that He gave you parents, even if they are over 600 miles away, who love you unconditionally. And they even love him.

And maybe tonight you won't pray for God to take you in your sleep. Instead you will ask Him to carry you. You will ask Him to take over your words. You will ask Him what to do because you don't have the slightest idea what to do.

And you will pray for him. You will pray that hardened hearts will become soft again. You will pray that Satan stays away from both of you. You will pray for love, grace, and mercy.

Because love never fails.

(Right now this is my favorite song - sorry Rich Mullins. I wish that she had recorded it. This YouTube version of her performance doesn't include the first verse.)

We Want the Same Things (Please Don't Make Me Beg)

Written by Jon Foreman and Amy Grant

I can hear it like a whisper, I can feel it on the street
Please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg
And I see it on the face of every stranger that I meets
Please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg

When I handed you my heart I thought put that need to bed
Darlin please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg
For your time and your attention and the thoughts inside your head
Oh please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg

The meeting of our minds, the touching of our skin
We both have different ways, to let each other in

We want the same things, to be loved
We need the same things, to have enough
We want the same things, someone to trust
We need the same things, please don’t make me beg

There’s a man down on the corner, guitar case at his feet
Oh please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg
And he’s singing out with gladness, and he’s doing it for for free
Oh please don’t make me beg, please don’t make me beg

Such a simple choice, to share the things we have
He’s got an angel voice, it’s money that he lacks

We want the same things, to be loved
We need the same things, to have enough
We want the same things, someone to trust
We need the same things, please don’t make me beg

Said the Son to the Father, must I drink from this cup
Please don’t make Me beg, please don’t make Me beg
And let My death be the redemption, for every single one
Oh please don’t make Me beg, please don’t make Me beg

That Man changed everything when He was lifted up
Can’t you hear Him say just don’t run from love

We want the same things, to be loved
We need the same things, to have enough
We want the same things, someone to trust
We need the same things, please don’t make me beg

Don’t make me beg

The title of the message at my Grandma's funeral was "Pauline's House". How appropriate that title was! The sermon, based on Psalm 23 and the first part of John 14, was about Grandmas's Heavenly home - her Father's House. However, those of us who knew her well, those blessed to have been part of her family, could find another meaning to that sermon title.

"Mom, I'm going up to Grandma's house!" (I lived next door, or rather, in front of my Grandparents' house.)

I didn't say that I was going to Grandma and Grandpa's house. No. I was going to Grandma's house. Of course Grandpa would be there too, sitting on the porch if the weather was warm or in his chair if the air outside was cold. But it was GRANDMA'S house.

Before her health started to fail, she took great pride in her house and the things in it and outside of it. She would scrub the kitchen floor on her hands and knees, she made sure the plants in her front window were thriving, she would iron everything, from Grandpa's Sunday shirts and pants to the sheets that went on the mattresses. Outside, the leaves would be raked in the fall. (Her back yard was a mini forest!) In the spring, daffodil, tulip and gladiolus bulbs would be planted. A garden of bell peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, or "cukes" as she called them, would be planted as well. During the summer she insisted on mowing the lawn around her house - my Dad's riding mower just wasn't good enough for her house. And I think she had the greenest thumb in the state of Pennsylvania. In the summer, her porch would nearly be overflowing with pink petunias.

The house now belongs to the WLD RANCH, just the way it should be. But it will always be Grandma's house to me.

I know that it will all hit me - my Grandma's death - when I am back at home tomorrow. I wanted to stay at my parents' house for as long as I could for this very reason. I haven't really grieved yet, but I know that I will. When I am home, I know that her death will somehow become more real. I had no time to prepare myself for her death. I had no chance to say goodbye. I didn't know that the hug I gave to her on Christmas day would be the last hug that I would ever give her. There have been people around me since her death, even if at times it was just my parents, to comfort me, to somehow make me feel like she was still here. When I am back at home, I will have many hours of just me and my cats alone in the house. Thank goodness Jonathan and I gave my Dad a webcam for Christmas so we can Skype.

I have a feeling that many more blog posts will follow.

A GOD WHO WON'T LET ME GO

If I were to suddenly "leave the Christian faith", I'm sure that non-Christians would shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, what has God ever done for her. The prayer that she and hundreds of others have prayed for her hasn't been answered." I might even find a few Christians who wouldn't really blame me either.

Just in case you don't know, I've suffered from chronic debilitating back pain for ten years. It just started one day when I was twenty-one. (Sorry, I had to throw in the "pain card" somewhere in this blog post.)

But I don't think that God will ever let me go. I may have even tried to leave a few times, and He didn't let me. (And I believe that this has little to do with Calvin and "TULIP".) God can be incredibly stubborn like that.

So why hasn't He let me go?

In those tumultuous preteen and teen years, I didn't do a whole lot of praying. But every night as I was staring at myself in the mirror, washing my face and brushing my teeth, I would pray, "God, don't let me go." As I type those words now, tears come to my eyes. When I was praying those five words half-a-life-ago, I didn't realize just how powerful they were. How powerful they are. I didn't realize just how seriously God took those words.

So now as I sit here typing this, my body racked with pain, I believe that God takes all my prayers just as seriously, even if my prayers are just wordless sobs. Amy Grant sings, "We pour out our miseries/God just hears a melody/Beautiful, the mess we are/The honest cries of breaking hearts/Are better than a Hallelujah." So I know in my heart that I am foolish to think that God has turned a deaf ear to my cries and prayers of, "Heal me."

The truth is have no idea where I'm going. And honestly, I can't even tell you where I've been. I'm a person who has just enough wisdom to tell you that I don't know much of anything. I know God loves me. I know Jesus died for me. I know I need to be more like Him. The other stuff, the "stuffy theology", just doesn't interest me that much. If I learn some of it along the way, well that's a really good thing.

So like everyone else in this world, I'm on a journey. Some people's journey will end in suffering. Mine will end with a beginning that is more glorious than my worldly mind can possibly comprehend.

So while I may feel lost, I know that I've already been found, even if I don't feel it.

And you didn't think I was going to leave you without part of a Rich Mullins song, did you?

I can't see how You're leading me unless You've led me here
Where I'm lost enough to let myself be led
And so You've been here all along I guess
It's just Your ways and You are just plain hard to get