Have you ever had a double life, one that is hidden from everyone, that is except from your children? (You can’t fool your children.) That’s what my husband and I did for years. We hid behind religious masks and sought to look good on the outside - counselors, teachers, and home group leaders.

Doug was a successful businessman, respected, and one of the youngest managers in his field. But we were more committed to looking good on the outside than to getting our family relationships in order. We were both raised in large churches where the norm was to put on a smiling face and act like everything was just wonderful. We may be hurting, but we certainly are not going to let anyone know it.

Doug was an angry man on the inside, and he was verbally abusive to me and to the children—not physically, but verbally—putting us down and using domination, intimidation, and control tactics. We were afraid to speak up and be ourselves and say what we were feeling. If you’re made to feel inferior when you speak, you eventually shut down. So my children and I put on the victim mentality—my daughter and I pushing everything down and looking sweet on the outside, and my son rebelling outwardly with drugs and alcohol.

But if you saw us in church, we looked wonderful—the perfect family. People use to say, “You have such a wonderful family!”—and the people at church and those who use to work for Doug said, “Doug is such a wonderful man. It must be so great to have such a nice Christian husband like that!”

You know what happened? I got tired of living the double life! We had people coming to us for counsel, and we would give them good, Godly advice. But finally I said to Doug one day, “Does it bother you that we are not following the same advice that we are giving other people?” and he said emphatically, “NO!” (That meant, “Don’t pursue this conversation!”) He said, “God’s word is true whether I do it or not.”

But we had a pastor who is a good counselor, and by this time we had met Jack & Trisha Frost. Their transparency blew us away, but it began a journey of healing for us. Jack’s openness gave Doug the courage to find out why he was an angry man. Inside he was a hurting little boy who had been in a family where his dad physically abused his mom and verbally abused everyone. It made Doug angry because he couldn’t protect his mom, and so on the inside, he hated his dad. He emotionally divorced him and refused to allow himself to feel the pain.

So, even though Doug’s dad received Christ and changed when Doug was 18, those early years of hurts were still there. Doug had accepted the Lord and forgave his dad but he didn’t know how to lower the walls of self-protection and allow God's love to heal the pain. But as Jack stood in for Doug’s father and asked that hurting little boy to forgive him, healing began to come. Love began to replace the pain.

There was repentance needed on my part too. Even though I was raised in a good home and had good Christian parents, my sins were not as glowing and spectacular. I had to repent for trying to be Doug's Holy Spirit (we women are good at that)—for keeping the standard so high that Doug never felt like he could measure up—you know that condemnation you can’t put your finger on but you feel it.

But this began our journey of walking a new walk. Doug was 50 and I was 49 and that was in 1991. Did we get it all at once? NO! We learned to be truthful and transparent to one another and not to point the finger. We learned to talk about our feelings and get help from Pastor Chip and Jack and Trisha when we couldn’t resolve an issue. This process went on for 12 years until Doug died in 2002 of complications from malaria after taking the message of the Father’s love to Uganda. That’s what he loved to do—take God's love to a hurting world—because we had hurt so much and God had rescued us.

Where does all of this leave me? For all you out there who believed for a loved one to be healed and they weren’t - while Doug was sick, did we pray all the right prayers and have thousands praying and believe to the end that he would live and not die? YES! But as our lead intercessor, Papa Johnnie prayed, “Lord, we don’t understand, but we love You and honor You.” And Father brought me His comfort.

I want to offer hope to all you single people out there. At age 61, I found myself single, and it’s hard to remember being single. I started dating Doug in high school and we got married when we were in college and were married for 41 years—so we’ve always been a couple. Did I like ministering and teaching as a couple? Yes!

So am I incomplete without Doug? No! God is now taking me on a new journey—removing ungodly beliefs and lies of the enemy:

• that Doug was the funny one and the one people want to hear,
• that people would rather have a couple minister than just a woman,
• that I can now only speak to women’s groups but not mixed groups, and
• that I really don’t have as much to offer people as Doug did.

Even though Doug is gone, I am finding deeper hope and healing as I realize that before I was born the Lord called me for His purposes and plans. From my birth all my days have been numbered. He has He planned a course for me and I know that I am complete in Him not just with Doug. God is opening new doors and closing old ones. (see Isaiah 49:1; Psalm 139; Colossians 2:10) "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)

So I offer you hope - hope for healing and a future no matter where you are - single, married, divorced, widowed, or hoping to be married. You are complete in Christ and He has a loving plan of healing, hope, and purpose for you!