The Con Man's Daughter by Candice Curry

Author:Candice Curry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian Living/Memoir;REL012070;REL012040;BIO026000
ISBN: 9781493409297
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2017-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

eight

God Turns Sand into a Solid Foundation

A year into our marriage I started to take the kids to the church across the street. I wasn’t trying to be a good mom. I just needed the break it gave me from the kids. My cousin had also signed our oldest daughter up for choir, so I was forced to take her to practice.

Every Wednesday night I would stick two of the triplets in a double stroller and balance one on my hip. I would drop their big sister at choir and then I would drop them in childcare. Once there were no longer children hanging on me, I would go to the lobby of the church and just sit. I placed a book in front of me but never read a single word. (The book was simply to deter others from approaching.) I sat with a blank stare and did my best not to cry. I didn’t want to make friends there; I just wanted to sit and be silent. I had no intention of getting involved or becoming “one of them.” I wasn’t like them, and I knew I never would be. If they tried to create a relationship with me, it would only be a matter of time before they saw how dark I was and what a mess I had made of my life. In my eyes, the people who walked the halls of the church had their lives together. I didn’t fit in and so didn’t try.

After a year of going every Wednesday night, I started the same routine on Sunday mornings. I would sneak in, as much as anyone can with three babies and a seven-year-old, and after dropping them off I would tiptoe to the back of the worship center and listen to the sermon. Out of respect, I stood when the hymns played but never opened my mouth. I bowed my head as if to pray but my mind was empty. God blessed our marriage with these babies, and we were making a complete mess of it. Why now? Why would I believe after all this that God was going to come in and fix everything? I thought back to those seven days I had lain in bed and made promises to him, and I knew he was looking at me with disappointment. I had broken every promise I had made. Just like every other time in my life, I had failed miserably and didn’t want God to see me this way. So I hid in the shadows and took a break from the world for one hour each Sunday morning without a single expectation of getting anything from it.

But God doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t watch a mother in despair show up in his house every Sunday without doing something about it. I might not have spoken a single word when I was in that building, but God doesn’t listen to our mouths. He hears our hearts, and mine was screaming for mercy.

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