The Time I Ruined My Life
i.e. The Fortunate Fall
In the summer of 2012, I was 25, living in Houston, TX. I was working at a building supply company and singing at 3 different churches in town. I had been dating a man from my hometown in Huntsville, AL and our relationship was “serious.” One of the churches I was singing at sat me down and told me they wanted to hire me. It was a megachurch with a production room that looked like mission control, where AV techs wore headsets. This was also the church that Beth Moore was a member of and led Bible Studies at (before she joined the Anglicans) It was Big. And a Big deal in the city. And to me.
I knew that my boyfriend was settled in Huntsville. I knew we had been talking of marriage. But I still called him giddy, imagining he would be overjoyed with me at the prospect, my dream, that was not hidden from him.
I’m sure over the years I have reduced our conversation down to just a few words. I’m sure there was more compassion and love, perhaps. But all that lasted from that conversation were these words: If you take that job, our relationship is over. My life is in Huntsville, you know that.
I wasn’t exactly crushed as I was stabbed— the way a fishing lure catches the jaws of the fish and pulls it, fast and hard, underwater. I was caught between the waters I had been swimming in that were happy and hopeful in Houston and the lure of this man, this relationship, this dream. I was shocked by the yanking that I felt, the pulling that felt oppressive.
The thing that grieves me to this day is how suddenly mistrusting I became of my own heart. In an instant, I was disoriented. On one hand, I had this man and his community telling me that only they alone could hold the keys to my dream of marriage, community and even music. (Word of caution: if anyone ever tells you that only they can give you what you need, run.) On the other, my parents and friends were trying desperately to tell me I could choose, that the bait that felt lodged in my lungs wasn’t actually there. But I was already pulled hard and fast towards him.
Within a month of the job offer from the church, I found myself living on my friend’s couch in Huntsville. Homeless and without a job, I at least had this relationship.
There is a Latin phrase, felix culpa, that is translated either ‘happy fault’ or ‘fortunate fall’. In a theological framework, felix culpa marks the sin of man as a good thing. Why have a savior if there is no one to save?
‘O happy fault that earned for us so great, so glorious a redeemer.’ I learned this phrase through the artist Audrey Assad, when she was so moved by this she wrote an entire album exploring this theme titled Fortunate Fall that released in 2013. Her creativity took an idea that had been floating around through the ages and tethered it to melody and words and gave them back to me. Art: the generous gift giver.
One of the first assignments of my new life after returning to Huntsville was a mission trip to India. This man had felt a call to work with a particular mission organization, and I joined him. I was only following the line that was pulling me. At night, I would weep as quietly as I could on the couch, wondering what atrocious mistake I had just made.
The people and culture of India are so beautiful and remarkably hospitable. Imagine, a ‘missionary’, being yanked by a hole in her heart to tell people about freedom. I knew nothing of it. Looking back, I see India as the missionary to me.
Less than a month after returning from India, I realized that one mistake was better than two. So I ended the relationship.
I sat in my car one day shortly after the breakup. I had come from a counseling session gone very wrong. (Another word of caution: if a young, brokenhearted woman walks in your office needing a heart transplant and an IV, telling her to memorize scripture with a callous 'this too shall pass’ tone, you have now cut off her legs and asked her to stand.) I was humiliated. I had somehow pulled the hook from my chest but rather than feel hopeful I would survive, I felt a deep fear of bleeding out from the wound.
And then I heard a voice through the car speaker singing to me: maybe it’s a better thing/to be more than merely innocent/but to be broken/then redeemed by love
and I wailed and I cried and I hit the steering wheel until I thought I would break my hands in half. I was angry that it was true; I was relieved that it was the truest. Art: the generous gift giver.
I’ve returned twice to a local art gallery recently. A Nashville local illustrator, muralist and artist Susanna Chapman has an exhibition open on the campus of Lipscomb University called Attend. In it, she plays with the word’s meaning by letting us in to her process of drawing as her form of showing up.
I met Susanna at a party a few years back and began following her on the socials. I had never met an illustrator in real life before! I saw that she was opening an exhibit and went a the first time alone. One installment of the exhibition is called “Bulletins” in which she turns a church bulletin into a zine (self-published collection of poetry, fiction, essays, etc— think comic meets magazine) and tells stories of her life and her experiences in a variety of churches growing up. Yes, these bulletins—16 total—are in the back of beautiful, wooden pews, allowing the guest to slide into the pew (is there another way of entering a pew?) and sit and read.
There was something in me that happened while sitting and reading through these bulletin zines. Susanna’s creativity took a practical tool and married it with storytelling, humor and graphics and gave them back to me. Art: the generous gift giver.
Here is what I know: Someone else has caught me. God surrounds and saves. This kind of saving is not with oppressive hands. It is not with manipulation, programs, guilt, oppression.
It’s through love, mercy and so much grace that it makes the mistakes seem like the only way. Those are so abstract though— how does the God of being surround and speak and invite?
God, the Artist, the Generous Gift Giver— he says, hey, want to make something beautiful with me?
Beautifully written, Becca. A distressing path, but good/God shines through. XX
Well sweetie, you’ve done it again! A master piece! I love how you show us your raw, hurt self. You show us.