In the year after the No-Contact order expired and his probation ended, things were touchy. I felt very nervous and uptight around him. While he seemed he wanted to be friendly, then unfriendly at moments, I had finally made it to the anger stage. An anger that took years of silenced abuse to create. The consequences of rape were the hardest for me to temper myself over. I had to be careful around him and speaking to him, not just for my fear of him, but fear of myself.
Anyway, my son wanted to invite him to his arrow of light cub scout pack meeting. I took a deep breath, and sent the invite text. His father chose to come.
It was an evening of difficult self control. He and our children sat around one of the round tables to eat the desert, and the children chatted.
I look at my children sitting around the table, took a deep breath and forced myself to eat dessert.
As we politely chatted, the subject of D's cruel first grade teacher Mrs Haynes came up. Okay that's a huge story that leads in countless painful directions. I took a deep breath, self control. It was either my son or his father that mentioned Mrs Haynes as his "second" grade teacher.
Now as the mother who biked her son to school every morning, and attended every parent teacher conference, called the school and teacher frequently when issues came up, I couldn't help myself.
"Mrs Haynes was his first grade teacher." I said, knowing it would be rude to correct.
Looking at me with a commanding air, "No Mrs. Haynes was his second grade teacher." His father said.
Something inside of me said to not let him "put me in my ignorant place" and disregard my experience.
"Have confidence in yourself and your experience" a little voice inside me said.
"Um, no, Mrs Haynes was his first grade teacher" I said again.
With bold punishing commanding his father said, "No Mrs. Haynes was his second grade teacher."
He had a habit of putting down every statement I made. Here I was the one who would have known.
I looked away and sat silent for a bit.
The "friendly" chat went on.
I told myself it ignore it and go on. Of course the thought to pull out his report card tempted me. But I told myself to let it go. And I tried to let it go.
A few days latter, I as I was cleaning out my sons room, and sorting through his K'nex box, a thin yellow folded paper fell out.
Okay, prior to this I had gathered all his report cards together, but some pages were missing.
Now, at that moment, I unfolded the missing yellow paper.
My son's First Grade Report Card, signed "Mrs. Haynes."
"Natalie, trust yourself, have confidence. Know that I am God. Know, I know the truth. Do not let him discount you. The truth will always be there for you. Stand up for it."
Even when I tried to ignore the truth for the sake of peace, here the truth was jumping out again at me, refusing to be silent.
Truth has a voice of it's own. The more you ignore it the bolder it shouts.
So, that was the vertical experience. One of countess experiences of him discounting my view.
Another vertical experience.
I came home from the doctors office in March of 2001, after an immunization and a 1 month prescription.
Two of the ten grandchildren on his side, had serious birth defects.
One was born with a cleft pallet that required surgery.
Another was born with a hole in his heart, his diaphragm his heart started to fall through, all his digestive organs outside his belly in a sack, 3 rare syndromes, mental retardation, deafness, um, and the painful list goes on. And I do not know the count surgeries this poor child suffered through.
I can not count the number of painful, tear filled phone calls from the child's mother I tried to be strong for.
Also, I had introduced my husband to Ricky Hall. A 30 year old man, withered in his bed watching Disney movies. He was born healthy, but his doctor made a mistake with a common prescription for a common childhood illness when he was 9 months old. I remember as a child seeing him in a wheelchair in his mother's kitchen, his head hanging, his mouth hanging open drooling, hearing strange grunts. He never walked or talked. I remember seeing his parents care for him tenderly for over 30 years.
Yes, I've always been terrified of even prescription drugs. For good reason.
And at the time, I needed surgery, but I hadn't the courage to speak to my husband about it yet. I was afraid of how it would inconvenience him. But I knew that without it any future pregnancies would be a risk for me and my child.
So back to the Vertical Experience. Standing up, I told my husband when I returned from the doctors office, that "Considering the cocktail of drugs in my system, if I get pregnant this month, our child will have two heads."
He just walked away from me while I was talking to him.
Hurt at his lack of interest in me, I dealt with it.
I knew how to tell when I was ovulating. We had plenty of condoms in my undie drawer next to the bed. We would just have to be extra careful in case the meds hid the symptoms of ovulation.
Now the horizontal experience, told here with great um, well, told there. In summary I told him I was ovulating twice, he was on top, he was stronger, and told me I was wrong.
After the trauma, I tried to deal, I was used to him discounting me, but this was too much. I tried to forgive him and go on.
Each morning I opened that drawer to change, I saw them, talking condoms. "you are going to have a disabled child!", "Your husband never listens to you." "Your husband raped you and the child will pay the price."
By the second trimester, I took those talking condoms and gave them to a transient homeless couple on the street.
I tried to bury his crime. Little did I know then, how much the truth screams to be told, to testify of itself.
Just as the Lord dropped the little yellow slip of paper into my lap, as evidence, I would be shocked by the countless was the Lord would drop the greater truth into my lap.
Until I finally came to the realization that trying to be silent would kill me physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
If He doesn’t listen to you when you are Vertical, He will not listen to you when you are Horizontal.
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