Mavis sat on her bed, looking down at the pile of painkillers that had spilled into her hand on top of her normal dose. Her feelings echoed Psalm 88: “You have put me in the lowest pit, in dark places, in the depths.” Her thoughts murmured, I could just take all of these pills and not have to deal with the real pain.
Since childhood, Mavis had been used to seeing little details that affirmed the Lord’s leading. From Sunday school to youth camp to Bible college to working at an outreach camp in Alaska, some clear sign or circumstance had always come along to lead her into serving Him in a way she enjoyed.
She met her husband at the camp in Alaska, where he also served. He was 13 years older, but they shared a desire for missions. They followed that desire and served together at a Christian school in west Africa for a decade: Mavis in the kitchen and her husband working in maintenance.
When a civil war there forced them to return to the U.S. in 2004, Mavis’ experience as a kitchen supervisor in Africa opened the doors to the job she still has in the kitchen at the local jail, her “new mission field.”
Mavis had gone through hardships, but all of her steps forward had been clear. Even when her only choice of shift meant she had to work on Sundays and miss church, she says, “The Lord was very good to me. He sustained me, kept me focused.”
But other things were starting to change. Several years after returning from Africa, she came unexpectedly upon her husband involved in an entangling, dominating sin. Heartbroken, she wanted to believe his promises that he would repent and change.
They sought pastoral counseling and accountability tools. Mavis tried to do everything she could to help him and preserve their marriage. But time and again she encountered fresh evidence that he continued in the same sin.
In 2021, Mavis was able to choose a shift where she got Sundays off. But things had changed at her church as well, and she found herself actually dreading Sunday services. At the next bidding time for shifts, she voluntarily chose to work on Sundays again, and that meant her retired husband wasn’t going to church either.
Disconnecting from church kicked off the most difficult season she’d ever gone through. Mavis had essentially cut herself off from God’s provision for her challenges. “I really felt like God withdrew the grace that He was giving me when I had no choice not to work on Sundays.”
Finding her husband in sin again a short time later, she asked him: “Are you ever really going to change?” “Probably not,” he said.
That’s why Mavis’ thoughts drifted toward darkness as she sat on her bed with the pills in her hand. Her life wasn’t making sense anymore. The way forward wasn’t clear. “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to deal with my husband. I don’t want to deal with life.”
By God’s grace, that night she chose to put the pills away. The next day, co-workers prevailed upon her to seek help and her supervisors gave her time off. But she still felt lost and betrayed.
“I felt like God had abandoned me, because I had prayed so hard for my husband to change, and he didn’t.” She cried out to God, demanding an answer.
And there she saw it in her Bible: Christ on the cross, in excruciating pain, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He knew. He understood. She may not get the answer she wanted, but He remembered her and would be with her each step forward.
Mavis texted Chris Kopp, a Faith member she had met at the YMCA, and Chris connected her with the Faith Biblical Counseling Center. There was a long waiting list, and she wasn’t yet free for church on Sundays. Meanwhile, she had to take steps to separate from her husband of 30 years, who had become completely unresponsive to counsel or accountability for his ongoing sin. At her first chance to get Sundays off again, she started attending Faith.
That was when Faith’s sermon series was in 1 Corinthians and Paul’s teaching on marriage and singleness. While these passages aren’t popular sermon material, Mavis felt relieved to hear them: “There were questions I had that were being answered from the pulpit.”
Attending the Fundamentals of the Faith class, and her Growth Group reading Trusting God together, also provided answers directly from God’s Word. Her biblical counselor was helping her trust in “stabilizing truths” about God: He is always good. He will always meet our genuine needs. Mavis still uses the book God Is More than Enough by Jim Berg to review and trust in what the Bible says about God’s character.
During their separation, Mavis still watched over her husband, helping him with health care, financial stewardship, and finding housing, all without much gratitude or any effort on his part to preserve the marriage. Meanwhile, she heard a sermon on 1 Corinthians 5 about not associating with people who claim to be believers but persist in unrepentant sin. She began to see that her “help” could actually prevent him from seeing his greatest need, the need for repentance and change.
Divorce was something Mavis never wanted, but her situation matched the narrow range of situations in which the Bible permits it. After years of seeking biblical counseling and elder oversight, she made the decision. She still cares about him, but she chose to leave him in the Lord’s hands.
“I had to remind myself over and over, God cares about him more than I do. … I think that was the hardest part of letting go, trusting that God was going to be there for him, take care of him, get him the help he needs, even if I’m not involved. That’s been the hardest part, letting go and trusting God with his future, and basically his eternity, because I really don’t know where he is spiritually.”
Mavis says reconnecting with the church by coming to Faith has been wonderful, being fed from God’s Word and encouraged by other believers. But she still has to personally choose to trust God one day at a time with her concerns and worries, believing that “in (God’s) book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139:16).
“I’m learning that it is a constant choice we have to make to trust and to believe that He is the God who He says He is.”
Lynn and her husband, Doug, lead a Growth Group. Lynn serves as a writer and editor for Living Faith magazine and other church communications.
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