All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir

by Beth Moore

He was a no-count dad. Only dad I had. And he was a no-count dad.

One force was my troubled past. I’d kept that broken person crouched down as long as she was willing, and the moment I became too vulnerable to cover for her, she stretched her folded legs and stood to her feet, the size of Goliath. Some of the guilt and self-hatred that plagued me in the midst and aftermath of this season came from the absolute certainty that others had suffered far worse and handled it far better. How pathetic could I be?

Another force in this perfect storm came from the domain of darkness above and below, from the haunts of demons tormenting bearers of the divine image, where unseeable wolves are unleashed to steal, kill, and destroy. A darkness descended on me during those months that wasn’t simply the absence of light. It was the presence of evil. Intelligent, cogent evil with a frighteningly uncanny knack for timing and the wherewithal to cause complete havoc. It surrounded my home and closed in on it and, had God not given it a boundary it could not pass, would have consumed us to dust. It came for my mind, my heart, my body, my husband, my marriage, my children, my home, my relationships, my fruitfulness, my hope, my joy, my ministry, my faith, and my future. The old flashbacks from my youth have faded now, dissipating into the light. Any flashbacks that make me shudder these days are of this season.

The third force, preeminent over all persons, principalities, and powers, was God himself. He was at hand in the fury, hidden and unhidden, revealing—not himself so much, but the pact I’d make with self-destruction. It was a time of divine testing, of tearing down and clearing out. The first months of my perfect storm, the worst part, when my mind was the least coherent, lasted the better part of a year.

Part of me would not survive this season. I’d experienced a killing. God had come with sword and shield to kill what was killing me. Destructive patterns I’d fallen into all my life would ultimately be broken. I’d stared into the surfaced face of the victim lurking within who kept falling for lies, falling prey to poisonous relationships. I’d ultimately get the help I needed to keep from self-destructing, and my victim mentality would gradually be starved of oxygen.

Once you’ve broken to pieces, the luxury of imagining yourself unbreakable evaporates. Your outlook changes, not for the better in every way but in most ways, I think. Does compassion ever come easy? Where are those with no need of mercy to find it within themselves when someone desperately needs it? I still bear scars sustained in the casting-about of a perfect storm, but the hit to my pride, having believed myself whole and above certain lows, has never scarred over or scabbed. I figure it never will. I hope it never will. It’s not a bad idea for wounded pride to bleed for a lifetime. Let that self-righteous fool in me hemorrhage.

I was as good as done, sinking to the ocean floor, and he who walked on water plunged his hand beneath the churning brine and brought me forth from the belly of the sea.

The trick to dealing with criticism is letting it do its good work but forbidding it to demoralize and destroy or to embitter.

We’re faulty for a thousand reasons, but we aren’t people of low tolerance. We’re hardy in this family, hard to run off and not hard to please. We’re too flawed and too challenged by history, circumstance, and chemistry to hoard grace for long. So when I say we came to a place where we believed my husband and their father was gone forever, I’m not writing for dramatic effect. I slept in the house with a stranger. A stranger slept in the house with me. A man I didn’t like. A man who didn’t like me. My life, his life, our girls’ lives, became unrecognizable, and as is often the case, especially for people in ministry, we were trapped in a secret, unsure who we could trust with the truth.

But one day about three years ago I stormed through the woods around my home, mad, miserable, and screaming, “How long, O Lord? How long?? What do you want from us? How long will you punish us?” That may be one of the worst parts of being a religious person with a dark past. The temptation to view persistent hardship as punishment is almost too much to resist.

“GOD, WHY DON’T YOU LOVE MY HUSBAND?” Fact is, you don’t carry a fury, a deep offense, over a person being unloved that you don’t love. I loved Keith Moore. I wanted him back. God, forgive me, right then, I felt like I loved him more than God did. And I wanted God to answer for what he’d put that man through all his life. And what he’d put us both through for decades.

Said he keeps the hymnals of other denominations and chooses from one every week in case a wanderer is in the house pining for home.

God loved my husband. He’d loved him all along. Of course, I knew it inside, but I’d needed in the worst way for God to show it. And he’d chosen a way I could not possibly miss. Could not possibly forget. I’d awaken to it every morning and drive up to it every evening after work. God was the unseen architect of our chapel in the woods. Keith had built it for me, but God had built it for us.

I’m growing old now, quickly, the clock ticking, the days flying. I’m not very sure of myself anymore, if I ever truly was. But I am utterly sure of one thing about my turn on this whirling earth. A thing I’ve never seen. A thing I cannot prove. A thing I cannot always sense. Every inch of this harrowing journey, in all the bruising and bleeding and sobbing and pleading, my hand has been tightly knotted, safe and warm, with the hand of Jesus. In all the letting go, he has held me fast. He will hold me still. And he will lead me home. Blest be the tie that binds.