In 2008 my husband and I bought ten acres of Virginia jungle to build a cabin on. The cabin had been a dream we had discussed for a couple of years. The property would be the place where we would rebuild our lives after his betrayal. Our pastor – the one who was given oversight of my husband’s discipline after Mongolia – had given us a wooden stake on which he had written scripture and a Hebrew word. He instructed us to pound it into the ground on the land we purchased as a symbolic gesture dedicating our property to God and to restoring the “years the locusts had eaten”. On the day we bought the land we did that. We planned to homestead, homeschool, and live an idyllic life.

Nestled within the ten acres was a quarter acre plot set aside as a cemetery. Under Virginia law, no one could build, clear, or otherwise mar that plot, but we could expand it and bury our own family there. We decided to do that. And, somewhere along the way, my husband had picked up a large granite headstone that we decided to keep to be used when we passed.

From the very earliest days of our relationship, taking walks in the woods and day hikes together had been our thing and, during the year we spent preparing the property for the build, we regularly wandered the land and talked about our dreams.

Because the cemetery was a protected location, the trees in it were all stately and old. One ancient cedar, its gnarly branches reaching heavenward, stood sentinel where we had cut an entry path. Underfoot were the depressions that marked the resting places of men and women and children, and at least one infant. And over the entire plot, as if a blanket over the dead, was a lush covering of purple vinca.

It was a magical and serene place that encouraged contemplation and introspection in me, and I loved walking there with my husband.

But like most things in our relationship, at just about the time I became comfortable and settled, the rug was pulled out from under my feet. Almost as soon as we moved to the property, the walks together ended, and the talk of dreams vaporized.

Exactly how the move and build occurred are tales of woe that I will save for another day. Suffice it to say that, eight years after we purchased the property we finally had a mostly finished cabin. Then, one winter night shortly after Christmas, my husband announced that he was leaving me. Among the many tearful conversations over that weekend was a revealing one that went something like this.

Him: You don’t get any more chances!

Me: I don’t get what? What chances? What are you talking about? What have I done?

Him: You stole my dream!

Me: What? When did I steal your dream? Isn’t this (gesturing around) your dream? Let’s talk.

Him: I said no! You don’t get any more chances.

Me: What chances? When have you given me chances? Let’s talk about it.

Him: No!  I’m leaving. I’ve been planning this since you told me that you wouldn’t go back to Mongolia.

There it was. The dream, like my marriage, was a sham. Not a dream at all, but part of a long-planned, far too frequent, “screw you” from my husband just for me.

That home and the property we used to dreamily wander together are now owned by someone else. Those dreams buried under the blanket of vinca. And for the past five years I have lived in a home that I purchased on my own and there I have built new dreams. And during that time, I have also been slowly building a career.

My home and the job I left last week are the first things that have ever been genuinely mine. Even my first career as a missionary was based not on my own behavior, skill, or merit, but on my husband’s position and ended when his did.

Never have I known the kind of independence and security that I have now. And it has taken a full seven years to accomplish it. This is safe. This is mine.

And I am giving it up. I am taking a calculated risk that stems from the love and friendship that I found in a rather modern and unexpected way in 2019.

After more than three years of long distance back and forth and talking about possibilities, I have found a new job and I am moving to be with my partner. And it is decidedly not as safe.

I am choosing to give up what I have for what may be. What feels sure for what may be better. A home I have built for myself for a home built by two of us.

It’s definjtely not safe but it is hope.

Former evangelical homeschool mom and one-time missionary and pastor’s wife, Stephanie Logan, aka Snicklefritz, writes from her life story and four decades of experience in the evangelical movement. Her views and stories are her own.

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