I recently had the most amazing revelation!

My story: I spent over 40 years married to a narcissist who, although I didn’t realize it, was abusing me in one way and another much of the time.

I loved him: It was emotion-based love in the beginning. But by the time he’d killed the emotion I’d learned to love him by choice.

Here’s the thing:

He was a Christian. Yes, I understand the contradiction. How could someone who had accepted Jesus as Savior ever abuse another person, especially their spouse and kids? They do it, I believe, by accepting Jesus as Savior, but not as Lord.

Jack told me once, when I was talking about seeking God’s will on something I wanted to do, that he believed we were to make our own decisions and God would bless them. I was stunned, left totally speechless. I didn’t even try to argue with him both because I’d already learned that there was no arguing with him and because I was so completely blown away by his… Hubris is an old-fashioned word that applies well here.

To me, that one statement best illustrates that he, while accepting Jesus as Savior, was determined to be lord of his own life.

He served God. He did all the right things. I believe he actually spent several seasons being right with God – as much as he could be while not being right with me. Our friends and his co-workers thought they knew Jack. Over the years, more people began to see through the cracks in his carefully crafted image, but not many.

After he died, you could tell who had a clue and who didn’t by how they reacted – not just to his death, but to my decision not to have a memorial service, and to my lack of reaction. What few tears I did cry in those first days were based mostly on the sudden release from bondage. More tears did come later, though.

He was a gifted photographer, and while going through his photographs in the next few weeks I found myself truly crying, bawling, for the first time. I wasn’t crying over the man I’d been married to for 41 years. I was crying over the man I’d thought I was marrying, the man I’d seemed to catch glimpses of on occasion. I was crying over the man God had intended for him to be.

Which brings me to the revelation that hit me out of the blue at some point in the last few weeks.

I know Jack was right with God when he died. Based on things that happened in the months leading up to his death, I know God was dealing with him. For instance, he went to the altar more times in those months than he had in the entire time we’d been married. That sudden humility and hunger was noticed by more than just me.

Then there came the day he asked me to pray the prayer of salvation with him. He’d spent years making it clear that he knew more than me about everything. Any time I shared something exciting God had shown me, of course he already knew it and it was no big deal. His ego was huge. For him to come to me for that prayer was a bigger deal than even I understood.

While lying in the ER for the last time, he broke the silence to say, “I don’t want to be here.” I reassured him, told him we hoped it wouldn’t be long. But I’ve since come to believe I misunderstood what he was really saying. 

I think he meant he was ready to put off this life and go home. I think he’d decided he would rather leave while he knew he was right with God than fight for a life in which he would most likely fail again.

I asked God once, and He assured me that yes, Jack is in Heaven.

Do you know what that means?

It means that, when I get there, I will get to know the real Jack Cardwell – the man God had intended him to be. I WILL know Jack.

That’s the revelation. I will one day get to know the Jack Cardwell we were all supposed to have, and we’ll be friends for eternity. That makes me very happy.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C