Tearing My Life Apart – Yvette’s Story

We lived in a nice house in leafy suburbia, and had plenty of money for food and clothes. I was in my mid-twenties and had two healthy children with my husband, Nick. I adored my family. I was a housewife, and my fulfilment came from being the best wife and mother I could be. After all, that was my childhood dream.

However, I did everything I could to tear it all apart. I was desperate to have more children, but was rewarded with nothing but heartache after many early miscarriages. Overwhelmed and frustrated, I attended a fertility clinic and was put on a fertility drug. My life was spiralling out of control. I felt time ticking by, as each month was a complete failure. Because every hour of my day was consumed with my ‘cycle’ and desperation to fall pregnant, I lost focus on everything else that was important to me.

My relationship with Nick was stretched to breaking point, and during a particularly nasty altercation I shouted out the cruellest words I knew. I wanted to hurt him. My temper once awoken would not be controlled, and I exploded with venom on my beloved. Nick’s response to me was measured and better than I deserved: ‘that’s not fair. It’s like me saying to you that you’re a lousy wife and stupid mother.’

He didn’t say I was a lousy wife and mother, but that’s the way I heard it. My life suddenly had no meaning, because being a good wife and mother was my sole purpose and I was failing miserably. I may as well exit the planet! I decided that suicide was my only option.

I stormed out of the room and went to the medicine cabinet to swallow the first tablets that I found. After popping about ten tablets I sat on the lounge and waited… and waited. Nick was still at home but unaware of this turn of events. As I sat there, waiting for the drugs to take effect, the phone rang. It was my husband’s brother with an emergency. A bushfire was threatening his house, and Nick was about to rush out the door to help him.

So often in times of crisis bad decisions are compounded with poor judgement, and the effect is magnified. Providentially, this was not my fate. By this stage, time had given me opportunity for my clouded judgement to become clearer. I was having second thoughts about what I had done, and if Nick left, so did my ticket to life. I humbled myself and asked my doctor husband what would happen if I swallowed all the medicine I had just taken.

Owning up to my stupidity was the only good choice I had made in the last twenty-four hours. Nick couldn’t believe I could do such a thing, called me an idiot (fair enough), but in his concern also asked the neighbour to sit with me while he went to help his brother.

The tablets were antibiotics and thankfully the dose was not life threatening, although I did have the biggest case of thrush you could ever imagine! Through my own impatience and foolishness, I was even further away from having a baby. Another month went sailing by as I waited for my infection to clear up.

This experience left me questioning the reason for living. If we were just physical beings, then it would make sense that we would get completely fulfilled from the physical things in this world. Food, shelter and clothing should be enough to satisfy our needs. But there is something inside us that yearns for more than just our physical needs being met.

Perhaps if humans had just a body and a soul, then the physical world and relationships would be enough to fulfil us. But are they? I know that was not my experience. So I tried the spiritual realm, it seemed the only option left.

As a child I believed in God, but as I grew older and became more independent, God became less important in my life and I assumed control. I tried to attend church regularly, but duty and guilt motivated me. I tried praying and reading the Bible, but always gave up after a few days. I knew something was missing in my life but I didn’t know what that was. Religion seemed static and boring. Was God really like that? Was He really that stale?

It was time to seek answers from God, not from the religious world and its rituals. So, for the first time, I asked Him a question I truly believed He could answer.

I asked God if I could be more excited about Him. As I prayed, God stirred my faith to start a group that would support young mothers. For three years I had wished that someone would start a group at the church to help young mothers. I never dreamed it would be me. I didn’t think I could do it. I was clumsy, unskilled and ditzy.

But I found that God was more interested in my heart, than my ability. Despite my poor planning, He managed to use me, and others, to start Playgroups and women’s gatherings that helped other women in my situation. The miscarriages and marriage problems from my past were now redeemed. I could use my pain to identify with other women who had similar stories.

There is a passage of scripture that now makes a lot more sense to me,

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives”.

We can feel alone and isolated in our pain, secretly comparing our inside story with everyone else’s front cover. But when we share our inside story, our vulnerability can be used by God to help others who are also struggling with life. What’s your inside story? Is it time to share it?

To read more of Yvette’s story visit www.heavencantwait.net