“I’m not supposed to be here, I’m a Pastor’s Daughter. Divorce is NOT in my family’s vocabulary. It’s a shameful and dirty word.”
Shocked eyes stared at me, so I blurted out, “I started writing a journal for my future husband when I was 16-years-old, and I saved myself for him. I married someone that was everything on my want list. On paper and in photos we are absolutely perfect for each other.
As tears spilled onto the table, the other broken attendees were silent with understanding. Welcome to Week One of Divorce Care.
I wasn’t naive; I KNEW divorce meant pain. I also knew the Scarlet Letter that I would wear the rest of my life if I went through one, so I stayed and I kept quiet, not even revealing my distress to my family, unwilling to shame the man I loved.
The hidden truth? My once my vibrant lover had morphed into an angry stranger. My daily goal had become to disarm his next explosion, and I was weary of the war zone.
Finally, with quivering hands, I dialed my sister: “Faith, please help me leave him.”
“Joy, do you understand how BRUTAL it is to be a single mom?”
“Sister, I know.”
The decision to leave was monumental. I’d slept beside the same man for 15 years. To have our marriage end felt like the house we’d been crafting for decades was now consumed in flames. But wisdom insisted if I wasn’t strong enough to flee with my children, we would burn alongside the photo albums.
A tiny apartment across town gave refuge to our shattered hearts. After a few months of grieving, my kids away for the night, I determined to take a break from sadness. Donning my prettiest holiday dress, I headed out to dance.
On a freeway, concealed in darkness, a black car stalled without lights. Driving full speed, I saw the car right before I smashed it.
Sometimes the night seems darkest right before dawn.
In a bloodstained dress, I posted a picture of my mangled car with the words, “Thankful we all are alive.” Then whispered, “God, please bring beauty out of the wreckage of my life.”
In the morning light, I signed back onto Facebook. The concerned comments from my friends dripped together as my eyes narrowed in on a message from one… Josh MATHESON, a name I hadn’t seen in 20 years.
Forgetting my whiplash, I typed, “Josh, WHERE IS GABE?? Is he in Hawaii riding his motorcycle?”
He replied, “Nope. He’s in Alaska, wrestling moose and dating bear.”
My ex-husband might have been my first lover, but he had NOT been my first love. My heart had been ransomed long ago by a blond Gabe Matheson.
Born in the same hospital two days apart, we hadn’t met until the second grade when I arrived as the new girl.
Sweet and shy, I avoided all boys. That day Gabe became my exception, and I became his first love.
Watching him play pilot everyday on the playground, we soon turned our blushing looks into love letters delivered by our closest confidants. Along with words of affection, Gabe would stuff his envelopes with sketches and treasures he found at recess. We were careful to use coded names so if our letters were intercepted, we could deny our affection.
Our secret messages continued until the 5th grade when I left to be homeschooled. Returning for middle school, I discovered I was no longer the only Gabe fan, and it only got worse in high school. Girls crushed hard on the football playing, motorcycle riding loner, who wore white t-shirts and Converse as his uniform.
No one knew how fierce our connection was because we covered it under the guise of friendship. Laughing on the back of his motorcycle, watching the planes fly in at his secret spot, sharing our truth under the stars, we had an innocent love no one could touch.
I shocked Gabe for our 18th birthdays by taking him skydiving. He shut his eyes and I belly-laughed as we fell through the sky.
Somehow he’d found the courage to jump from a plane, but he couldn’t find the daring to tell me he loved me, so at graduation we hugged goodbye, not knowing that walking away would become our life’s deepest regret.
Through my sad years Gabe had frequented my dreams. I would wake up washed in grief for the love story that was never written. Now after Josh’s message, I was compelled to reach him.
I dug up his 19-year-old digits and sent this text, “Gabe, I doubt this is still your number, but this is Joy, and I was in a car crash.”
A cry escaped me when he texted back, explaining he’d kept his number in case someone from his past tried to find him. My phone rang, and we both laughed with relief to hear each other’s voice.
Finally questions had answers. Gabe had become a pilot in Alaska and had never gotten married. Ironically, he and his girlfriend had ended things the same month my marriage terminated. Both of us had missed each other terribly.
Gabe boarded a plane, determined to spend New Years in Sedona together. With anticipation, I drove to the airport in white Converse and skinny jeans. It had been 20 YEARS that my eyes had searched for his frame, so happy tears escaped when I caught sight of the boy-now-man waiting outside the terminal. As I ran to greet him, he caught me in a fierce hug.
New Years morning, as we hiked in red canyons, Gabe admitted, “Joy, do you want to know the truthful reason of why I never married? No one was you.”
And at last, it finally happened, his lips met mine.
The following year my fractured heart began to heal due to Gabe’s radical love. Every three weeks he would travel to the desert to be with me. He embraced kids that weren’t his own. He paid bills that weren’t his own. He hung pictures, drove preteens, and held me tight when the tears overwhelmed me.
Fiercely proud to be a pilot in Alaska, Gabe had worked the last 14 years to build a career that not only paid generously but allowed him to explore the state’s wild beauty. When his previous girlfriend had asked him to relocate, he had contended that he was never leaving Alaska.
Now that we had found each other, we faced a sobering dilemma. If I joined his life, I would be forced to leave my kids behind due to joint custody.
Gabe knew leaving would destroy me, so at 40 years of age, he made the ultimate sacrifice. He chose to leave friends, Alaska’s splendor, and a bachelor’s freedom. He was willing to give up a lucrative position and go back to training to accept a humble position… all so I could stay in Arizona near my kids.
When I tried to argue against it, Gabe silenced my fears. “Joy, it’s not your decision to make; it’s mine, and I refuse to lose you again.”
As I watched him up late at night applying for jobs, up in the morning studying studying, kissing me with my coffee… I knew for certain God was showing me what radical love looked like. Sacrificial. Brave. True.
One year after our first kiss, Gabe proposed on the same rocks of Sedona. For our New Year’s resolution we vowed, “No more years apart.”
“Mom, it’s time.” I took a cleansing breath as my son reached for my arm.
As River escorted me down the hallway, my daughter, who walked ahead, flashed a wide smile. The narrow walls opened to a room of windows facing the bay.
The ocean glittered in the afternoon light, and everyone stood as Ed Sheeran’s words filled the room.
“Cause we were just kids when we fell in love, not knowing what it was. I will not give you up this time…”
In a white dress, I passed the people who had watched us grow up together: Gabe’s brothers, my sister, our parents… their faces now beaming, their eyes holding tears. Gabe stood proudly at the front of the room, his tender expression slaying my heart. I quietly thanked God for bringing this beauty out of wreckage and pain.
As we grasped hands, my dad began, “Gabe and Joy’s love story proves that sometimes Plan B is the most beautiful of all. They wanted to start this ceremony by going back to the beginning.”
With a mischievous grin, Gabe pulled out a faded piece of paper folded several times and began to read the words of third grade boy.
The letter opened with him congratulating me on Field Day.
Laughter erupted when young Gabe proclaimed, “I like you because you are the nicest and prettiest girl I ever met, and you don’t fool around at school (like I do)!”
With our family still chuckling, Gabe put down the messy words of a boy and picked up the writings of a man. As he took a slow breath, the room grew respectful.
Gabe’s demeanor changed as he spoke with the conviction of one who had battled the demons of regret and now held close the gift he’d been given.
“You are the angel God sent me, the sunrise I wake to see. You are my everything.”
As I watched this brawny man shaking with emotion, I remembered the scrawny kid who had promised he’d love me forever and realized… Wow… he really meant it.
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