I’m familiar with the stories of two women who each lived what I would deem a “miserable” life.
Their husbands were the primary reason many days were spent in a living hell.
One had settled into her dutiful role as a wife decades before she, at last, made her final escape to the grand respite that is “Heaven.”
Before that glorious day, however, she breathed a living hell few of us knew about. Her cooking was referred as “slop.” “Not fit for a pig,” she was told, as the meal, plate, fork and all, were thrust to the floor.
I saw no tears, only sadness as she would grab a hand towel and clean the food, which she had worked so hard to prepare, from the stick-on tile.
She was told she was “stupid,” and “worthless.”
Heartbreaking, but she never left. I don’t know how much stock I put into this, to be honest, but she stated that, biblically, she had no grounds for divorce, since her husband was sexually faithful to her.
Oh, I know she was RIGHT, I just don’t think I have the guts to endure such pain. Whether Christian or not, some of us who were “in the know” about all this madness still have a hard time forgiving her so-called husband, even though he passed away several years ago.
Day after day, month after month, year after year, decade after decade she endured. That piece-of-trash, so-called “husband” never broke her, man. She had a spine of steel which he couldn’t shatter.
The other woman tried to leave many times, but in the end would always come back. Her husband rarely showed her any semblance of love, and was a freaking MISERABLE human being.
Sure, she struggled, emotionally, but never quit.
Now both women and their husbands are reunited in Heaven, having passed through the veil of eternity.
“Wait, Heaven?” you ask.
“How do you know? You just said these men were monsters.”
First, as they say on “Jurassic World,” “monster” is a relative term. “To a canary, a cat is a monster,” it’s stated.
But allow me to elaborate my position.
After the first woman passed away, her husband spent his last years wallowing in guilt, crying and apologizing to a large portrait he had of his wife, hanging right in the middle of the living room. He spent most of his days in anger and cruelty, so he didn’t get visitors often in his last years.
“I deserve to be alone and lonely,” he once told me, when age began to take its toll on him. “Yup,” he forced a smile, “I deserve this.”
While I never heard him, I felt in my spirit he begged that portrait to forgive him hundreds of times before he died.
He would get up at 4:00 a.m. to pray, and sometimes meditated and read the Bible for three or four hours a day.
No amount of praying and Bible reading could erase the horror, but he sure tried.
While many of us still struggle with our feelings for the man, God is much more merciful than I, and if redemption was sought, I’m sure it was granted.
In the case of the second woman, both a pastor and I spoke to her husband before he died, and his soul was ready.
Where forgiveness is requested, redemption is granted, regardless of the past.
That’s all I’m saying.
Such miserable lives, and I really struggled with this for months.
“God, what a waste!” I cried out one night, vehemently angry with the Lord.
“These were GOOD women, and their days were spent in depression and suffering. That isn’t fair!”
Well, after spending a few weeks in this “angry phase,” a revolutionary thought hit me:
“What if the ONLY reason their husbands sought and—I assume—obtained salvation was BECAUSE their wives never left?”
“What if each, upon losing the only stability in their listless, gloomy lives, would’ve grown angry and cold against God? What if they died in bitter, lonely dejection, crossing the threshold of forever, godless?”
One of the husbands told his wife at one point, “If you leave me, I’m going to take our car and run it off the EFFIN’ cliff.”
What if he would’ve done that? Would his soul have been ready to meet Jesus?
WOW…
That shook me, and I pushed it to the back of my mind.
What a terrible thought: one person has to live in HELL so they both can make HEAVEN?
But then another question rocked me:
“What is the worth of the human soul? If it’s worth dying for, as in the case of Jesus Christ shedding His blood for us, then is it worth a lifetime of suffering?”
“Is anything worth more than your soul? (Mark 8:37)”
What’s your soul worth?
Everything.
Ask these couples in a hundred years whether or not it was worth it.
Ask them in a thousand years, and the answer will still be, “a million times, YES.”
That’s crazy, man, I gotta tell ya. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing, and feel wholly confident that I wouldn’t put up with an emotionally and verbally abusive person for decades, as these brave women did.
So what’s the answer to the question: what is the worth of the human soul?
Priceless
Incalculable
Invaluable
Inestimable
Immeasurable
Measureless
Boundless
I have no answers, I’m just posing questions.
That’s the best I can do right now, and possibly will EVER do, until I see Jesus face-to-face. Of course, then, when I finally DO have the chance to ask Him, I won’t care.
Broken People 