The Rescue | Part III

Part 3 - The Redemption

“… Return to me, for I have redeemed you.” (Isaiah 44:22)

Because of many small compromises made over the course of a year, Claire now found it easier to excuse behaviors in Silas that she once would never have tolerated.

All that began to matter to Claire was protecting the love she feared losing. As Silas’s attitude hardened toward her parents, friends, and church, the very people who had once protected her began to feel like threats to the relationship, and Claire slowly allowed herself to become isolated.

She didn’t know it then, but she was now willing to walk alone where Silas led, even if that came at a high cost.  

Her need to find love, identity, meaning, healing, and purpose in the love of someone else trumped all else. She really believed that God was first in her life and that her love for Him and desire to please Him was leading her, but she had replaced God with a man and her feelings alone were now leading her.

Silas found it easy to touch what had once seemed so untouchable. He reached out and profaned what was sacred and instantly an impenetrable darkness put out all the light. 

Once, not so long ago, he had wanted to protect Claire, guard her, steady her, and hold their boundaries with care. 

But staring back at himself in the mirror now was not the man he had once thought he could be. Rather, it was the reflection that had been there once before. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes on his breath and wrinkled clothing that he’d slept in. Deep shame stared back at him from blood shot eyes.

Claire had always believed that love meant protection and safety. 

But in that horrible moment she did not think of boundaries when the need to belong outweighed her need to be whole. She thought only of belonging, of finally not being afraid of losing him.

Something sacred was falsely entrusted to a man whom she once believed would shield her from harm. She could not have imagined then that he would be the one that would cause it.

They had secrets and guilt to contend with now and the next weeks and months became the long, slow death of their relationship. 

All of the true joy of being together had ebbed away with the loss of purity and innocence between them. What had begun so beautifully had now become ugly and hollow. 

Claire had always believed that her purity was the most valuable thing that she had to give to her future husband. Now she felt ruined, spoiled, and fully and irreparably damaged. She had given her heart and body to the wrong man. 

She felt little hope of redemption for herself or their relationship but she stayed because she felt she had little else besides a man whom she’d given everything to that was beautiful or worthy about herself. 

Her prayers fell silent. She now felt there was too much between her and God for her to reach out, to ask for help, to ask for forgiveness.

Claire hadn’t heard from Silas since early that morning and as evening came she tried in vain to reach him but there was no answer.  

She longed to confide in her Mom and tell her what was happening, that she was afraid, but there would be too many questions she couldn’t answer. To talk to her Mom might mean that she would lose Silas and he owned too much of her now for her to ever be free. 

She passed a sleepless night and when morning arrived she still hadn’t heard from him.

She became worried that he’d come to some kind of harm. He had never gone without speaking to her for this long before. 

She finally reached out to one of his friends. He told her that Silas had been at a friend’s house partying and had fallen asleep on the couch. 

Just weeks before she may have had the desire to end things, but now, even though she hated her need for him and hated what he did, he felt like the very oxygen she breathed. He possessed her and possessed all of her secrets.

She met up with him, exhausted, but relieved that he was alright. She didn’t even try to confront or contend with his behavior any longer because it didn’t seem to matter anymore. 

But it was as if a monster in Silas was unleashed that day. 

When her playful tap to Silas’s face was met with barely controlled and undisguised rage, flashbacks of a story he’d told her about his violence towards an ex-girlfriend flashed through her mind. 

He got close to her face with his own, a strange smile on his face, “never do that again.” It felt like a warning. He made it clear that he wouldn’t be disrespected in any way, not even playfully. 

The story he’d told her of his violence toward an ex was not just something in his past. It was just beneath the surface, waiting for her to displease him in some way, and she was close to being his next story to tell. 

Once inside the house, he slapped her leg, hard. She was shocked and taken aback. He claimed it was playful, just like hers had been. But she knew that this was different.  

A line had been crossed and she realized now that this must be what it’s like to be one of those people whose protector becomes their abuser. Why was it so hard to leave? Why did she feel numb instead of angry? 

Her growing isolation, her shame, her secrets, were drowning her. She believed that if she were to tell her parents all that happened, she wouldn’t be set free, she would be rejected.

She had come to despise herself and believe that she was no longer worthy of protection or respect. She deserved to be used and abused. 

But she had no idea that God, her loving, gentle Father, had never left and He would use her own earthly father to set in motion a beautiful rescue mission. 

Not much later, Claire’s Dad discovered that Silas had returned to old habits he had sworn to leave behind, and with that discovery, the careful scaffolding of their secrets began to collapse.

Claire’s parents swiftly removed any support they’d shown for their relationship. They began to feel a sense of urgency that Claire needed help to leave Silas. 

Claire was angry, heartbroken, and felt as though she had been backed into a corner. She wasn’t ready to leave. They didn’t know all she had given up and all that Silas now possessed. Any future that she had once dreamed of seemed impossible. If she were to leave she would have nothing and her secrets would stay secrets that she alone would have to bear.

Although outwardly Claire pretended to listen to her parents and end things with Silas, they secretly remained together and even spoke of marriage and her leaving her parent’s home.

Silas held on to shreds of hope and there were moments where he thought it really was possible to change and to be what Claire deserved. But these moments were fleeting. 

He knew that he had slowly destroyed her. He saw more proof of it when she showed up on his doorstep with a desperate look on her face. She was pale and he noticed for the first time that she was far too thin. 

She’d come secretly to see him because her dad had requested a meeting with him that night. He already knew that her parents considered their relationship to be over. He knew that he would never be given their blessing to openly be with her and he had decided he would no longer try to convince her dad of his worthiness

Claire must have sensed in him this resignation to her dad’s decision about him and she needed to see him to try to convince him to keep trying. She knew that if this meeting didn’t go well, it would be the end of ever being able to be together openly.

She was surprised to see a cooler on his floor filled with beers. He had plans that night after he spoke with her dad. His ability to go and party in the face of all that she was feeling seemed cruel. A strange smile played across his face and he seemed strangely energetic. 

He hurried her out of his room, seemingly unmoved by her misery and desperation as he got in his car to leave. 

He sped away from her, eager to leave her behind.

He called her late the next evening. He told her that he needed to tell her something. 

“What’s the worst thing that you could imagine that I’d do?”

He didn’t even have courage to speak the awful words. He had to have her say them for him. 

“You’ve been with someone else.”

“Yes.”

The cooler full of drinks had been for himself and another woman, an ex-girlfriend. A girlfriend he’d cheated on years before and now this same woman had helped him cheat on her. 

It was all making more sense now. From the beginning of their relationship, a text from this same woman he’d tried to deny was anything but a friend. A flirtation that was caught in a photo that he’d denied but later admitted to. 

He’d never been faithful. 

She had no strength left for anger and she was no longer surprised by the depth of his betrayals. 

She felt numb. His betrayals had been many. But like a robot she found herself once again offering words of forgiveness and grace, the words he wanted to hear, maybe even that he had come to expect.

But although she told him the things he wanted to hear, she felt a cold anger seep into her once trusting, hopeful heart. 

But later, on her own, the pain she felt couldn’t be contained.

She screamed and pounded the steering wheel as she drove and told herself that if the pain became too much she had a way out. She could stop the desperation of her spinning thoughts. 

Nothing and no one, not even God, could reach her. She didn’t pray anymore and she turned her music up loud in her ears so that she could shut out His voice.

But through the loud and angry words in the music that Claire listened to, it was as if God broke in.

A song began playing that she’d never heard before and the words immediately jolted her out of the angry chaos in her mind and heart. 

She felt, for the first time, that God was speaking to her. He was pursuing her no matter how far she ran and he was allowing her to hear his tenderness and kindness toward her.

She had stopped praying but somehow a song spoke the words she couldn’t.

…the pain was swallowing me…I couldn’t even get up to turn the lights on…the dark was swallowing me…

…I was breaking down and I saw only two footprints in the sand…thought you’d abandoned me and let go of my hand…but you were carrying me to safety…

…I forgot the things I knew, it was I who’d abandoned you…forgive me, I was lost in doubt…

…You had never left my side, picked me up when I thought I’d die…You held me and I was found…

The early morning cool came through her open window on a Sunday morning in late June.

The breeze helped her breathe through the overwhelming pain in her heart. The pain of loss. The loss of dreams and hopes. The loss of a person who had once felt like a part of her. 

She was broken beyond what she had ever known. She had given everything precious away only to have it thrown away like it meant nothing. She had turned her back on God and she wanted so badly to cover up the pain. 

For years she had believed that light dwelled within her, yet now she felt only darkness. But the truth she had once known through scripture and prayer had not disappeared. The chaos had simply grown so loud that she could no longer hear it.

Flashes of her old faith began to meet her brokenness. 

She longed to open her clenched fists and finally face the deep pain she’d been running from. 

“Do something with this. I have nothing left to offer, nothing to give. My life is a mess. I don’t want to walk through this.”

Despite her desire to walk away, to be rid of Silas, the power of guilt and of the secrets she still kept from the people around her still swathed her in shadows and confusion. 

She still felt a terrible, irresistible pull to answer when he called. One night he video-called her, drunk, as he was almost every evening now. 

Every time she spoke to him it seemed that he no longer hid from her his baseness and cruelty.
In that call he called her terrible names and cursed her and her family. 

When he looked at her through that phone she suddenly felt like she was staring at the devil himself. 

She wondered if there ever really had been a loving, tender, faithful, gentle, or genuine Silas or if it all had been an act he couldn’t keep up. She would never really know and maybe he wouldn’t, either. 

Everything changed on the afternoon of July 4th. 

God lovingly, beautifully, reached down and picked up her broken heart and body and showered her with His grace, kindness, and hope. 

Her parents found out the awful, shameful, ugly truth of the secret life Claire had been living. 

All of her lies, her actions, were laid bare before them. She felt so ashamed, vulnerable, and broken but all of the anger and desire to hide the truth had ebbed away. 

She had spent so long trying to hide the truth that when it finally came into the light, she felt an immense relief that she no longer had to carry it alone.

Up until that moment, she had nursed a desire to leave her home and the protection of her parents. She had not known how she had longed to be saved by them. 

Her parent’s anger only lasted a moment when they saw how truly broken she was.

Her dad asked, “Why, after all that Silas has done…did you stay with him?”

The question reached into the place Claire had hidden from everyone. She tried to swallow the answer, but the truth would not stay buried.

“Because I thought no one else could ever want me.”

The words fell from her lips like a confession she had been carrying alone. Shame followed quickly behind them, and with it came the tears she could no longer hold back.

Her dad immediately stepped toward her and pulled her into an embrace, firm and certain, as though nothing she had said had made her less worthy of being held. 

Instead, he held her as though she were still the little girl he had once lifted from scraped knees and childhood fears. The little girl whom he thought of when he listened to the song “Butterfly Kisses” and “Cinderella”.  

Claire wept against his shoulder.

After a moment he spoke quietly, but with a conviction that cut through every lie she had believed.

“The right one will.”

And though the pain had not disappeared, those words settled into the shattered places of her heart like the first promise of morning after a long night. 

Her dad didn’t see her as broken or used. She was simply his little girl. He didn’t know it then, but his love in this moment changed forever how she saw God’s mercy, grace, and hope. 

She was being carried to safety.

The healing was not immediate. Shadows and grief, shame and fear, still haunted her. 

But being able to have an honest, close relationship with her parents was the first feeling of safety Claire had felt in many months. 

Her relationship with God did not immediately become easy or prayer natural as it once had, but she felt as though she knew God in a far more profound way than she ever had. 

She had stopped responding to Silas’s messages. Even when he asked for information about a wedding she was maid of honor in that he had been invited to, she ignored it, knowing he was only coming to see her.

He planned to be there and she dreaded it. 

When that day came, she had her best friends around her who had been loving and faithful to her throughout the last year. But standing up in front of all of those people, she had to put a brave smile on while inwardly she felt brokenness swallowing her heart once again. 

Seeing him brought back memories of the early days, before the brokenness. She saw him there, watching her, and she remembered all of the times they’d spoken of their own wedding day.

After the ceremony was over Claire surrendered to the grief she’d fought so hard to hold back. 

Silas’s sister-in-law saw her across the lawn and despite all that had passed between them, she came to Claire and wrapped her arms around her. No words were exchanged…she simply wept with her. 

Although Claire felt so much brokenness and sorrow in seeing Silas again, there was healing in her relationship with his family, and that felt like a small piece of the redemption she was longing for.

Although her idea of love had failed her, she was surprised when she felt more profoundly loved in her vulnerability than when she had felt whole. 

Claire was woken up at 1 o’clock in the morning by the glow of her phone next to her bed. 

Silas was calling. 

After the wedding she’d no longer heard from him and she’d had no plans to respond if he did, but for some reason, she felt like she needed to answer his call.

When she heard his voice, she no longer felt pangs of sadness, longing, fear, or that addictive emotional pull that she had always felt. She was glad to be far away from where he was, sitting on the sidewalk outside of his house, in the dark, reduced to living and drinking alone. 

She instead felt a different type of sadness. Sadness for him and sadness that all of the possibilities she ever thought she had seen in him were not to be. She felt sadness that all of his hopes and dreams had been washed away with his self-destructive choices and they’d led him here, to this very lonely, dark place. 

She could hardly recall what he said to her because none of his words had any power over her now. They felt empty and meaningless. 

She let him talk until he fell into silence. 

With all of the courage and clarity she wished she could have had so many times in the past she finally spoke. 

Her voice now carried strength, kindness, and resolve. She was finally the one saying goodbye and forever closing the door to darkness.

“Silas… my heart aches for you. 

I hope one day you find your way out of the darkness you’re living in. 

But I can’t walk there with you. I tried for too long, and it nearly destroyed me.

I have to say goodbye.

I’m not saying it with anger or bitterness. I’m saying it because I finally know I’m allowed to leave.

Goodbye, Silas.”

With relief and a sense of peace, she hung up the phone, never to hear his voice again. 

She had finally been the one to walk away. She had finally been the one to say enough.

When she closed her eyes to fall into a peaceful sleep, she remembered again what it felt like to hope.

Claire did indeed find true and lasting healing.

In time, the wounds that had once seemed impossible to overcome were gently restored, and the faith that had withered in the darkness grew strong again as she experienced the depth of God’s love and the love of those around her.

Looking back nearly ten years later, she can see how much beauty and hope God was preparing for her even in the midst of the pain.

And in the life she now lives, in the story of redemption that unfolded from those broken beginnings, she has caught sight of something she never expected: a small glimpse of heaven.

Because Claire is not just a story. She is me.