Debbie--My "Dancing Queen" (Abba)--Our Marriage after "Waterloo"

I had dated two women that I had seriously considered marrying.  I realized that the first was not the "one for me."  Unfortunately, I didn't break off the first relationship as definitively as I should have.  When it reared it's head again, the second relationship didn't survive.  I was despondent.  Both of these women--particularly the second--had met my definition of a woman to be married--they were both attractive and they came from a certain background--they had successful fathers.  Then, I met Debbie.

The first time that I saw Debbie I was out with friends at the old Upside Down Plaza--the one which is now occupied by Hot n' Hot Fish Club.  I was instantly mesmerized.  Debbie was the most beautiful woman that I'd ever met.  As we talked, I realized what an amazing, kind disposition she had.  To me, she was "young, sweet, only seventeen"--a "Dancing Queen."  I recall trying to get her phone number, but she wouldn't give it to me.  She had some excuse (true I'm sure) of having recently given it to someone else, and he wouldn't stop calling her.  She told me that we would see each other again--out on the town.  Well, one of my friends got the phone number from Debbie's roommate (this was before cell phones--all they had was a house phone).  The next day I called and invited Debbie to lunch.  Debbie: "I'm sorry, I'm running out the door to have lunch with a friend."

So, rebuffed TWICE by Debbie or, at least, that was my perception.  I was crushed and mad.

That Sunday, Debbie and her roommates were having a housewarming party.  I went to see Debbie even though I didn't see much chance with her.  When I got to the party, I found out that Debbie's sister was there, and I immediately began talking her up--"hitting on her" in the vernacular of the day in hopes of generating a reaction in Debbie.  After 10-15 minutes, Debbie came over.  She swears that it wasn't because she was jealous.  Maybe so, but I was intent on getting Debbie, which was the only reason that I was "hitting on" her sister.

We went to dinner Monday nite, and then had a second date Tuesday nite.  I had to work fast, because she was the "one for me," and I was leaving Birmingham to work the rest of the summer in D.C. and then back to law school.

So, I PROPOSED, on our second date.  Debbie thought that I was crazy.  She was right.  I couldn't imagine life without her.   Over the next three weeks, she met my family, and I met hers.  My father approved, and Debbie's grandmother approved.  From what I recall, the other family members didn't say anything--I'm sure they thought we were crazy as well.

Marriage is rough.  Your wife goes from being your "Dancing Queen" to being your chief enemy.  I had a picture in my head of what I wanted our family to be like--a good Southern Baptist family--with a successful husband, dutiful wife, and respectful kids.  I did everything I could to achieve this goal.  In doing so, I killed my "Dancing Queen."  We had a picture of Debbie as a 3 or 4 year old in which she had a mischievous grin--a really mischievous grin.  I lost this person over the first 12-13 years of our marriage.

Even though my friends would have told you that I was a passionate person who cared about others, I was screwing my marriage up terribly.  Rather than letting Debbie be who she was, I was trying to turn her into a Southern Baptist "Stepford wife."  Sometimes, I did this with express admonitions, and sometimes with only implicit ones.  This was death.

Over time, I learned that Debbie didn't have a very high opinion of herself and I was making it worse.  I was squelching the life out of her--so much so that in 2000 or so--she told me that she was "plotting her escape" for when the kids graduated from high school.

I was floored.  I had no idea that I was her "prison guard."  Thankfully, we had both been going to life-giving Bible studies for a couple of years.  This allowed us to pray together, and from that day forward, things began to change.

I had come to my "Waterloo."  In addition to learning that I had screwed up my marriage and family, along about the same time, I received a diagnosis of a rare auto-immune liver disease, and I learned that my efforts for one of my best clients had all been for naught.  I had lost.  My efforts to create a good Southern Baptist family had failed.  In retrospect, I'm so thankful that I failed.  I finally learned that I had no control over anything and that my efforts at control were damning, not helpful.

Over the last 12 to 15 years, Debbie and I (through nothing but the grace of God) have begun accepting each other as we are.  I'm so thankful for her strengths that her weaknesses pale in comparison.  What's more, you don't get certain strengths without the concomitant weaknesses.

Over and over, we lose--we give up expectations--we accept failure--and we forgive.  To the world, failure and forgiveness are an anathema.  They feel that way to us at the time.  But over time, they are the work of the Holy Spirit.  It's only when we give up trying to achieve our aspirations, that we receive those as pure gifts from God.

Debbie is my "Dancing Queen" once again and even more so.  She has the mischievous grin from her picture as a 4 year old.  She has the best sense of humor of anyone that I know.  She's like Tina Fey, but her humor is simply natural.  She and I have a marriage that we never thought possible.  We're "having the time of our lives." I see Debbie as "young and sweet, only seventeen, (my) Dancing Queen, feel(ing) the beat from the tambourine--oh yeah."

At the same time, we're still deep-down sinners, which is not cause for despair.  Because we're both sinners, we get the opportunity to forgive one another daily (on minor and major things).  We daily meet our "Waterloo."  This opportunity to forgive allows us to exhibit (albeit in a small way) the forgiving love of Christ to one another.  It gives us a present taste of the Kingdom which, according to Christ, has broken through partially, and is breaking through, but isn't yet present in all of its fullness.

Praise be to God who makes all things new, and gives us the desires of our hearts, but only after He has killed us.  So, God, bring quickly death--death to control;  death to our aspirations;  death to our self-birthed identities, and then give us life--life sensitive to the control of the Holy Spirit;  life that gives birth to our aspirations; and life that breathes new identities into our dead selves.

Shymalan's "Wide Awake" and where we really find Christmas

In "Wide Awake" (one of Shymalan's first movies), the protagonist, a fifth grader named Joshua, loses his grandfather.  Losing his beloved grandfather sends him on a "mission" to find God.  (This movie is corny, but I get choked up every time that I see it.  Last nite, I had to fight back the tears since Debbie and Mathis were watching with me.)  (BTW, "Wide Awake" is also, and importantly, full of humor with Rosie O'Donnel as a nun, and Denis Leary as Josh's father.)

Like us, Joshua seeks advice from religious figures.  In his case, since he attends a Catholic school, he seeks guidance from a nun, a priest, and a Cardinal--all to no avail.  He also seeks God through Judaism and Islam.  Again, no luck.

His best friend, Daredevil Dave, sees that Josh is despondent in his failure to find God.  Daredevil Dave:  "This whole mission business is getting out of hand.  You're wigging man. People are talking.  In all this time, in all that you've done, have you one sign, any sign, that there's a god?"  "No."  To Daredevil Dave that means: "either there ain't no God, or He doesn't care that you're looking for him.  Either way, I'd stop."

Joshua thinks about discontinuing his mission--it's been a failure.  Then, he reminisces about his life with his grandfather and his unqualified love for him.  Josh asks God for a sign.  One day in class "crazy Robert Brickman" takes the picture of the Pope off the wall and begins showing it to the kids in the class.  One student says in a hushed tone: "Robert's touching the Pope."  Robert not only touches the Pope but takes him out into the rain and sits on the top of the jungle gym, holding the Pope as high as he can.  Everyone else thinks it's just another crazy antic by Robert, but Joshua thinks it's a sign.

The movie then moves forward to Josh sitting on a bench outside the nun's office.  He's thinking: "something strange is about to happen."  Indeed it does, but like the Gospel, what happened next isn't what Josh was looking for.  As he sits on the bench, he hears a commotion in the nun's office.  Freddie: "I'm not going to go.  I can't leave."   Josh learns that Freddie, the bully who put him in a school locker and put cherry jello in his shoes, is going to have to leave the school given his parents' financial straits.  Josh thinks:  "This should be the happiest day of my life, but it isn't."  Josh is able to empathize with Freddie's pain and offers his hand in friendship to Freddie when he leaves school with his parents, for the last time.

Then there's Frank, the class "fat kid" who no one likes.  Obviously, Frank desperately wants to be liked, which makes him all the more unlikeable.  Throughout the movie, to put Frank off, Joshua promises Frank that he will play with him "tomorrow," but tomorrow never comes because, well, "today" is always "today."  When they go on a museum field trip, Frank tries to go through the turnstile with Josh, and they get stuck for 20 minutes--20 minutes of embarrassment in front of "300 people who stopped by to watch."  Josh: "I hate field trips."  After they are extricated, Josh sees Frank sitting alone on a bench and overhears a classmate: "that fat turd, he's going to weigh 5000 pounds when he grows up." Instead of joining in with his classmate's ridicule of Frank, Joshua thinks:  "I better complete my mission soon.  I think I'm really losing it."  Josh then goes and sits down next to Frank who has been crying and is still sniffling.  "Frank, you know what?" "What?" "Yesterday is yesterday and today is tomorrow.  Do you want to go and make fun of those ugly statues?"  Frank's face brightens, he breaks a grin, and they go off together in camaraderie to endure the field trip to the museum.

Finally, Josh discovers his best friend, Daredevil Dave, passed out in the aftermath of a seizure.  (Earlier in the movie, Josh tells us that Dave is the bravest kid he knows.  "If Dave says it can't be done, it can't be done."  So, to see weakness in Dave is particularly troubling.)  Thanks to Josh, Dave is taken to the hospital where he is found to have a broken arm from thrashing his arm against the confines of the closet where they play Galactic Battlecruiser.  Visiting him, Josh says that his mission to find God is over--that it was a failure--how can there be a God when his courageous friend has epilepsy?  Surprising, Dave (who before has told Josh that his mission is a waste of time) says:  "Josh, you need to stick to your mission.  It was a miracle that you found me when you did."

In one of the last scenes, each fifth grader reads their essay about what fifth grade meant to them.  Here's Josh's:

"Before this year, bullies were just bullies, for no reason.
weirdos were just weird; and
daredevils weren't afraid of anything.

Before this year, people I loved lived forever.
I spent this year looking for something,
and wound up seeing everything around me.
It's like I was asleep before and finally woke up.
You know what, I'm wide awake now."

This corny, but profound, movie beautifully illustrates a sermon that Bill Boyd preached at Covenant Presbyterian on the relationship between Mary and Elizabeth, after John leaps in Elizabeth's womb over Mary's pregnancy.  God came in lowliness to a poor unwed girl who wasn't expecting to be pregnant.  Indeed, it was shameful for her to be pregnant, even a stoning offense.  He came to a barren older woman who also wasn't expecting to be pregnant, yet for Elizabeth it was a cause for anything but shame.  Elizabeth was the wife of a priest, and she had experienced shame for decades due to her barrenness.  Given her decades of shame, Elizabeth was able to empathize with Mary--to encourage her in her time of difficulty and shame.  Bill explains that:  1)we find God in lowliness, in shame; and 2)when we find God there, we then have empathy for others and can exhibit God's love towards them.

So, it was with Josh.  His loss of his beloved grandfather sent him on a mission to find God--to settle and quiet the pain.  And Josh found God.  He found God in Freddie, the bully;  in Frank, the pesky, uncool, needy "fat kid;" and in Daredevil Dave who had epilepsy.  Joshua found a God who is acquainted with our sorrows and is most powerfully found there.  He is a God unlike any other.  A God who is not first present in our triumphs, but in our defeats;  not first present in our joys; but in our sorrows;  not first present in our good works; but in our sin.  He is a God unlike any other.  He has a heart for the unlovely, the rejected, and even the victimizers, which then gives us a heart for them.

When we find God in an animal feed trough, follow him through an arduous life where He had no place to lay His head, and then lose Him to crucifixion, then and only then can we love our family, ourselves, and sometimes even our enemies.

Thanks be to our God!