What Empowers Me

by Nancy C. Gaughan

In a word, God.  From my traumatic childhood through a husband leaving me for another woman and a second husband, one with a violent temper, dying, to today with the love of my life, I have felt God with me, strengthening, comforting, and guiding me.

One may ask, “Where was He,” when I endured incest as a child, when my father went to prison, when I was in high school, for something he didn’t do, when my first husband left, saying terrible things to me on his way out, when my second husband ranted, screaming at my children and his own son, when my daughter became clinically depressed and threatened my life, because her step father had died.  Yet, I tell you, He was there.  He is here. 

When my second husband died, I told God that I wasn’t going to meet anyone new.  My friends said that at age 43 I was too young to spend the rest of my life alone.  The story of how God brought my Sweetheart and me together is one example of God’s intervention in my life.

In the first place, I didn’t meet anyone new.  This love of my life was my deceased husband’s first boss.  He’d been to our house for dinner and been to my older son’s Bar Mitzvah.

I didn’t like him at all.  When he was at our house, he did not speak directly to me once.  I knew he’d been divorced as knew it was his fault.  I was a victim of divorce and knew.

He’d been living in San Diego when my second husband died. I’d wondered why he was the only one from the company who hadn’t signed the condolence card. He moved back to town.

Twice, a month apart, we saw each other in the parking lot of Costco.  Each time, he wrote down his phone number if I ever needed something down around our house. He thought I was his daughter’s age because my son was only three.  He saw me only as the widow of his former employee with a 3 year old baby. Twice I took his phone number home and threw it away.

Before I saw him again, again at Costco, I had occasion to call the company to find out if anyone was in contact with folks who had been laid off the same time my deceased husband had been.  The only person in the company who did was my Sweetheart.  I admit I was surprised and impressed.  So when I saw him again at Costco and he, again, gave me his number, I added it to my list of neighbors and friends.

December 31 each year I call everyone on my neighbor and local friends list to wish them, “Happy New Year”.  So I called him.

“Hi.  This is Nancy. How are you?”

“Terrible.”

One cannot hear such a response and say, “Well, Happy New Year. Bye.”

“What is the matter?”  I thought I might be preventing a suicide, even.

“I just got back from visiting my grandchildren and really miss them.  I love babies.”

“Really?” I ask. And add, “I love babies too.  That’s why when people said was crazy to have a baby when I was 41, I told them that I love babies.”

There was a silence you could drive a Mack truck through.

“Who is 41?” he asked.

“I have no idea.  I was 41 when Will was born.  He’s 3 now.  I think you can do the math.  I don’t know anyone 41.”

Three days later he called, asking if he could take me and the kids out to dinner.  When I said, “No,” he asked if there was anything he could do to help.

I wanted to get rid of him and figured if he did one thing to help out, he would have done his good turn and leave me alone.  I told him he could come over and disconnect a pool skimmer that malfunctioned and was back where my son played.

He came over the next night after work and from the moment he saw me, he knew I was the woman God had picked out for him.  God hadn’t told me.

God broke down the only real barrier between us.  He was a born again Christian.  I was a nontraditional, traditional Jew.  That is, since I was in third grade I’d know every word of the Bible is true.  But my Bible ended with Malachi.  I spent my life following the Bible, not man’s laws that grew out of the Bible.  There is a huge difference.  Most people who believe the Bible is true, follow the man made laws that came from the Bible.

My Sweetheart was the first man I could ever talk to about my faith, and all we did was argue. That ended the day he heard a Messianic Rabbi talk about all the arguments I’d given him.  That night we went to the service at the Messianic synagogue.  The rabbi showed, without ever referring to the New Testament, God’s definition of a sin, falling short of God’s standard, and all the prophecies regarding the person, life and death and resurrection of the Messiah. 

So, you see, God, Who had been with me all along, turned my mourning into laughter.  With the forgiveness Christ offered with His sacrifice, I was finally able to forgive all the people who had scarred my life.

Now I am free and empowered to love freely and speak and inspire others.