Falling Forward: ...into His Arms of Grace

By Sandi Patty

For every mother who has thought, "I just blew it with my kids," for every wife who thinks she just can't stand to pretend anymore, for every friend who thinks she's reached the end of her patience, for every headline you read about someone who has compromised?there's a story that started from birth and led to the chapter she is currently surviving.

Sandi Patty knows more than a little about such stories. At the height of a spectacular singing career, Sandi found herself in the middle of an affair, a divorce, and a fall from grace that couldn't possibly have been more public.

How could she have mde those choices? What are the warning signs that disaster is ahead? What are the steps needed to rebuff temptation? How do you recover from such a visible shame? Is there life after failure?

Sandi describes the red flags that indicate a crisis on the horizon as well as the path to recovery. She shares how she managed to move on, with God's grace and the help of friends and family . . . and she shows how you can see crossroads looming in your own life and find safe places to fall. From relearning joy to finding the right support group, Sandi helps us all to begin anew, embracing the power of God's redemptive grace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Apr 8, 2007
• ISBN: 9781418554729

Sandi Patty

Sandi Patty is the most awarded female vocalist in contemporary Christian music history, with forty Dove Awards and five Grammy Awards. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2004 and named an Indiana Living Legend in 2007. She has released over thirty albums with over 12 million albums sold. Sandi was introduced to the world with her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Virtually overnight she became one of the country’s best-loved performers. Sandi and her husband, Don, have been married for over 20 years and are a proud blended family, with eight children and three grandchildren. They currently reside in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. www.sandipatty.com

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falling forward

...into His arms of grace

Sandi Patty

Falling_Forward_0001_002

Copyright © 2007 by Sandi Patty

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other— except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, International Bibles Society. Used by permission of Zondervan.

Other references are from the following sources: The Message (MSG), copyright © 1993. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [e-mail].

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Patty, Sandi.

   Falling forward / Sandi Patty.

      p. cm.

   ISBN-10: 0-8499-1886-3 (trade paper)

   ISBN-13: 978-0-8499-1886-5 (trade paper)

   1. Failure (Psychology)—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Suffering—Religious aspects—

  Christianity. 3. Healing—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Christian life. I. Title.

  BT730.5.P38 2007

  248.8'6—dc22

2007001539

Printed in the United States of America

07 08 09 10 11 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

I sincerely and humbly thank Women of Faith for

letting me fall into their hearts. I have truly found a home.

I lovingly dedicate this book to anyone who has fallen

and thought they would never get up. Hallelujah for

second, third, fourth . . . and many more chances!

contents

Foreword by Patsy Clairmont

Author’s Note

Chapter One: Meet My Perfect Family

Chapter Two: Falling, Falling, Falling

Chapter Three: Falling into Soft, Safe Places

Chapter Four: Falling into Joyful Choices

Chapter Five: Falling into a Whole New You

Chapter Six: Falling into New Circles of Friends

Chapter Seven: Falling into the Truth

Chapter Eight: Falling into Your Faith

Chapter Nine: Falling into Serving Others

Chapter Ten: Falling into Amazing Freedom

Chapter Eleven: Falling into Further Study

Sandi’s Bookshelf

Scriptures to Help You Fall Forward

Counseling Resources

Notes

Foreword

Into His Redemptive Arms

by Patsy Clairmont

Moving ahead while being aware of the scrutiny of others is not easy. To begin anew takes a mixture of courage and humility. It also takes a growing awareness that God is on our side, that He not only has forgiven us, but He supports us during our shaky transitions. I have found that integrating the Lord’s new mercies into our life walk takes time, while we are stumbling about in our humanity, trying to grasp that we could possibly be offered yet another chance.

Once we own our mistakes and our failures, the hardest person to forgive is ourselves. We meant to be more. We meant to do better. Yet somewhere along the path we veered, and Good Shepherd that He is, aware of our willful tendencies, the Lord passionately pursues us until we are safely back in the fold.

I have watched my friend Sandi make her way back, not only to the safety of God’s forgiveness, but to the liberty of His calling on her life. And I have celebrated the obvious working of His Spirit in Sandi’s inner life, expanding her grace, mercy, and compassion toward others.

Sandi has a heart for those who have veered and are trying to regain their footing on the narrow path—and really, isn’t that all of us? How this must please the Father to see His dear daughter tenderly regard others. The pages ahead are full of vulnerability and kindness. You won’t feel judged, I assure you. This book has been dipped deep in God’s immeasurable love.

It’s noteworthy to recognize the way we often learn how great and deep and wide the love of God is: by falling forward into His redemptive arms.

— Patsy

author’s note

Dear Reader,

You and I may not have met, but the fact that you’re interested in taking this journey of Falling Forward with me hints that we may have something in common. Though we may have walked completely different paths to get here, we each find ourselves in need of healing, in need of the big, wide-open arms of the Savior to comfort us and restore us to wholeness. I hope I’m able to offer you some encouragement and inspiration and maybe even a little understanding. So, first, I want to welcome you with a great big virtual *HUG* and an assurance: You’re safe here.

We’re going to talk about some of the nitty-gritty details of recovering from a major life crisis, and we’re going to get real about how it feels to fail in some way. Since this book is all about honesty, I’ll start by filling you in on a few details about myself. I’m sure some of you have been familiar with my name and perhaps even followed my story ever since my first album was released back in 1979. But many more of you may know nothing about me, so I’ll give you the thumbnail sketch.

Throughout the 1980s and early ’90s, I was a young wife, mother, and Christian recording artist, living what looked like an exemplary Christian life. However, behind the scenes I had been struggling, and by 1993 I was separated from my husband and in love with another man. Eventually, amid great scandal and the loss of my career as a singer, I was divorced and then later remarried to my husband, Don, to whom I’ve been married for twelve years (at the time of this book’s release).

My previous book, Broken on the Back Row, chronicles the years from my first recording contract up through my divorce. It also covers my process of repentance, restitution, and restoration, and my marriage to Don. Another book, Life in the Blender, continues the story as Don and I blended our families (we have eight children between us) and began moving on from those early days of heartache and confusion. In that book, you can read about all of my children and how we manage to run our crazy household.

The book you hold in your hands is not so much a chronicle as it is a travel companion for you as you navigate your own process of recovery and renewal. I’m looking back over the last fourteen years of my life and recounting what I’ve learned about how to recapture life again. It is only due to the unbelievable grace and forgiveness of our loving God that any of this has been possible, and my desire to serve Him by serving others motivates this writing.

So let’s just sit back with our lattés, put our feet up, and enjoy spending this time together. I am praying that as you read this, you’ll find the strength and the confidence to fall forward into the loving arms of your Savior. He’s waiting for you!

I’ll see you there.

— Many blessings,

Sandi

1 meet my perfect family

It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.

— PSALM 18:32

It felt so right, this moment my daughter had been dreaming about since childhood. Wasn’t it yesterday she was playing princess in my white satin slip, her tiny feet precariously planted in my sparkly stage heels as she shuffled down the hall, an old swatch of nylon net bobby-pinned to her dark brown curls? Along with thousands of little girls throughout the ages, Anna had anticipated her wedding day, practiced it over and over in her head, and longed for it to be absolutely perfect. She’d be the perfect bride; her sweetheart, the perfect groom; both surrounded by their perfect family as they headed off into a blissfully perfect future.

The day was turning out just as she’d hoped: absolutely, positively perfect—as long as your definition of perfect is as broad as ours has come to be. My understanding of perfection has certainly changed over the last eleven years of adjusting to and enjoying a second marriage, along with our beloved blended (and sometimes, chopped and pureed) family.

As I sat in the front pew, it was such an honor, privilege, and yes, relief, to be the one sitting below the stage with my daughter as the center of attention. All eyes were on Anna, resplendent in her elegant off-white mermaid gown. The siblings and stepsiblings were lined up as attendants, the girls looking magnificent in pale sage gowns. Anna and her handsome groom, Collin, had just knelt face-to-face at the little altar to begin taking communion. Then, something happened (doesn’t something always happen at weddings?) that became a perfect metaphor for our family. Even now, the retelling leaves me alternating between laughter and tears. No matter the outward expression, my internal emotions are joy mingled with gratitude and love, plus a generous dash of sheer astonishment at this perfectly beautiful, crazy life God wrought from the ashes I laid at his feet more than a decade ago.

What happened was that my stepdaughter, Mollie, a bridesmaid and the most sensitive of our blended brood, began to get a little green around the gills as they say in my home state of Oklahoma and—with another nod to an Okieism—was about to go down like the Titanic on an ocean of sea-foam chiffon.

Like a well-trained rescue squad, we automatically flew into action to help the downed family member. Don (my husband) immediately stood up to retrieve his daughter and help her down to the front pew of the church, where he knelt and fanned her with a wedding program. I positioned myself near Mollie’s head, where I went into nurturing mode, whispering comfort and stroking her hair. Mollie’s mother, Michelle, took a place at her daughter’s feet where she massaged her legs, directing the blood toward her heart. John Helvering, my ex-husband, sent someone to get orange juice to help stabilize Mollie’s blood sugar. Anna and Collin were frozen in their places, looking for all the world like wedding-cake toppers with twin deer-in-the-headlight expressions, both of them caught off guard by the family sideshow unfolding in Pew #1.

The various sibs and stepsibs watched the action, waiting for a thumbs-up that Mollie was okay. It turned out Mollie had forgotten to eat that afternoon in all the excitement, and between the heat and the adrenaline, the low blood sugar just got the best of her. Eventually she felt better and decided to remain on the front pew. Anna and Collin were not about to go on until they knew Mollie was okay, but then, seasoned recoverers that we are, everyone took their places and our daughter resumed getting hitched without, well, a hitch.

Later my friend Shari would remark, Sandi, only God could have brought about the perfect coordination of a family that had once been so fractured. She was right. Though the picture that will go in our family album will be the one where we all looked perfectly poised, coiffed, and oh-so-together, the more precious family photo will be the one that the camera missed but is captured for all time in my mind. It will be a picture of the whole family, extended and intimate, working as one to help a daughter and sister in need.

Families may have their squabbles but when one of their own goes down, most of us let the small stuff go and immediately band together to retrieve and revive the fallen. A family isn’t unlike the units of firefighters who went in to rescue their perishing brothers when the twin towers were hit on 9–11 or the World War II soldiers from the miniseries, Band of Brothers. They may have their disputes, but when it counts—when someone is wounded (either by enemy fire or by his or her own carelessness)—families, firefighters, and soldiers stand shoulder to shoulder together in their efforts to restore the wounded one.

Now freeze-frame these pictures in your mind for a moment. A daughter faints, and a family—odd though its makeup may be— moves to help her. A team of rescue workers walk into a burning, melting hell with only one thing on their mind: to save their fallen comrades. It occurs to me that perhaps this is part of the picture Jesus had in mind for his family—his church. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13).

we all fall down

As I’m settling down to write a book about falling and how to do it with grace, a nationally known and highly respected leader, adviser to the president, beloved and esteemed pastor, husband and father, has been exposed in a scandal that I’m sure will rock many circles in the weeks and months to come.

If your first reaction to hearing of a big fall by a well-known person is "Wow. Thank God I’m not that messed up," you aren’t alone. It’s human nature to want to compare sins and scan your world for someone who is lower on the sin totem pole than you are. I’m not sure why, but it’s easier for us to play