Proof The Bible Is True

I lived with ugly for a long time and it had become invisible. Trash is normal. Unwashed dishes are something I should take care of, and I would. Later. The laundry piled in corners didn’t matter because those clothes were out of season anyway.

We bought our sofa at a garage sale, and it was a little shabby then. Why should I bother dusting tables or removing the blankets from the floor? There can be many reasons for a young family to live in filth. None of them are good. For me, it was a combination of depression and revenge against my husband for not making my dreams come true. I had a long list of grievances against him, not the least of which was his refusal to go to church with the baby and me.

When I left the house one Sunday morning, the baby and I looked fine. We were clean, brushed, and smiling; no one knew the chaos we lived in at home. I liked to attend church, but week after week of watching those happy families only deepened my depression.

Rather than responding to the sermons with repentance, resentment built up inside me. I didn’t want to be in this awful place. It was all Bill’s fault. Why did he have to rent a farm house for us rather than something in town? The country might have been his dream, but it wasn’t mine.

When the service was over, I drove down tree-lined roads and back to the ugly house. When I pulled in the gravel drive I expected to see Bill somewhere around the barn. He usually waved or came out to the car, but I didn’t see him anywhere. I opened the back door and kicked stray shoes out of the way.

“Bill?” I called. There was no answer. Voices came from the living room. I put my sleeping baby down and continued to listen. The voices definitely weren’t the TV. A middle-aged woman sat on the sofa with a girl about six years old on one side and a boy of maybe ten on the other. She looked up and smiled.

“Did you enjoy church?” I felt too stunned to reply. “Your husband invited us in,” she said. She didn’t look threatening, but something about the little group made my skin prickle. We hadn’t had company in the house since we moved in two years earlier.

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