The Cry of the Bleeding Heart

By Kathleen Brayley

When we are faced with divorce, death, alienation of a child, a prodigal child, or any of the myriad traumas that can strike at any time, it can make us feel that our whole world has been shattered.

Tragedies such as these and others happen more frequently than we imagine, but all too often they only happen to “someone else”. When they knock on our own door, the resulting brokenness of our hearts can overwhelm us.

In Cry of the Bleeding Heart, author Kathleen Brayley tells of how she faced the sudden and devastating destruction of her once close-knit family, which resulted in many heartbreaking years of being alienated from her youngest son. Her story however, is one of victory, as she emerged from the trial with her faith intact and joy restored.

This book offers hope to those who are going through a fiery trial, and reminds us that with God on our side, we too can say, “But He knoweth the way that I take; when He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold”.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathleen Brayley
• Release date: Jun 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463899984

Book preview

The Cry of the Bleeding Heart

The Cry of the Bleeding Heart

Help for when you are going through a storm

By

Kathleen Brayley

Copyright © 2021 Kathleen Brayley

First edition 2021

Published by Kathleen Brayley publishing at Smashwords

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

The names in this book are not real. The people are real but their names have been changed to protect identity.

All scripture verses are taken from the King James Bible.

Published by Kathleen Brayley using Reach Publishers’ services,

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Edited by Sue Taylor for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

Website: www.reachpublishers.org

E-mail: [e-mail]

Kathleen Brayley

[e-mail]

Painting done by

Kathleen Brayley

Contents

Introduction

1. If you make your bed, you must lie in it

2. Adultery – the act of sticking a knife in your spouse’s chest and twisting it

3. Watching a Christian marriage gasp for breath and then die

4. Can this really be happening?

5. Cult involvement – a new nightmare

6. Fight for survival (1)

7. Fight for survival (2)

8. Losing a son – agony that never goes away

9. In the Deep Pit

10. Defeated, but God comes through

11. New beginnings

12. In the slow lane to recovery

13. Back in the pit again

14. Made it! Finally out of the pit and on to a new life

Epilogue

Postscript

Introduction

‘There is nothing like suffering to remind us how not in control we actually are; how little power we actually have; and how much we ultimately need God.’

(Tullian Tchividjian)

‘Only two things in this life are certain – death and taxes.’ So wrote Benjamin Franklin.

With respect to the great scientist and theologian, I disagree.

Firstly, I don’t believe death is a certainty for everyone. There is a promise in the Bible that some of us shall be taken to heaven, still alive. ‘For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord’ (1 Thessalonians 4:16,17).

Secondly, there is something else that is an absolute certainty. Inevitable, in fact.

Life’s storms.

Not the wonderful rainstorms or snowstorms that beckon us to pour a cup of hot chocolate, wrap ourselves in a blanket and gaze wondrously out of the window at the magnificent display of God’s great power, nor the hailstorms that send children, squealing with delight, into the deluge to catch a handful of hailstones. No, the storms I am talking about are the unexpected, traumatic, devastating bombshells that arrive without warning on our doorsteps with one agenda – to destroy us.

Life would be a lot easier if we could somehow avoid these storms that arrive unexpectedly in our lives; these raging tempests which mostly come out of nowhere, knock us sideways and leave us asking, ‘Where did that train come from?’ Then, no sooner do we manage to gasp for breath and get up off the floor (or down from the ceiling), than the icy winds blow with even more fury and knock us, wham! into a pit so deep that it seems bottomless. Down, down we plummet until we land on the cold, black floor of our pit, where we will writhe for what seems like a lifetime of agony. Each person’s pit may differ in depth, depending on the severity of the trauma, but everything else about them is the same … they are dark, cold, and lined with sharp, needle-like edges that cause unremitting pain, and worst of all, they are definitely inescapable. These pits become our prisons, where we have no choice but to serve the full sentence of suffering. Oh yes, there is a Someone who can and will pick us up out of our pit … but in His own time only. In the meantime, we have to keep going until we graduate from the SOS (School of Suffering). We can drop out by cursing God, of course, but it’s not worth it in the long run.

Some storms occur after the death of a spouse, close friend or family member. Other storms come when you hear the dreaded words, ‘It’s incurable, I’m so sorry,’ or ‘It’s permanent, you will never walk again.’ Major storms come with the loss of employment; or a voice on the other end of the phone, ‘There’s been an accident.’ Becoming blind, being raped, having acid thrown in your face … these can and do happen, more regularly than we think. Adultery, divorce, bankruptcy, broken relationships – the list is endless. Then, of course, there are the smaller (but by no means less traumatic), storms like having your car stolen or your house broken into and everything stolen; having a baby with colic; losing a trusted employee, having a friend betray you.

The above is only a sampling of storms that can hit any family or individual at any time. There are many types of storms, and they all hurt. But I think most of us will agree that the most pain, the worst agony, and the very deepest pits come from storms involving our children.

• How do parents get through the pain of a prodigal child? Why does God allow this kind of long-term suffering to happen to parents who raise their children for Him?

• How can children turn against their own parents – who have only been good to them?

• Is it possible that one parent can be so overcome with evil as to turn their child against the other parent?

• Why do some children, who have loved the Lord with all their hearts, turn against Him and follow dead, cold belief systems? Or turn to drugs, prostitution, theft, alcoholism or a life of begging on the streets?

• What makes children, who have respected and loved their parents all their childhood, and who come from stable, loving families, decide to sever all contact with their entire family?

• How do parents survive the trauma of losing a child through death … especially, through suicide?

• Why does God allow some parents to go through the pain of a miscarriage?

These questions, no doubt, have been asked by many parents whose hearts have bled.

I myself have asked these questions from an anguished heart, over a period of 10 years … and I still don’t have the answers. I have not seen my son for almost nine years. I don’t know if this storm will ever be over, if I will ever stop hurting or if I will ever see my child again. The pain never really goes away, and my never-ending, pleading questions to my wonderful God and Saviour are never answered, or so it seems.

Someone once said that tears are the words of our life’s story. If that is so, I am sure that many parents will agree that some of our stories would be books double the size of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.

Here, then, is my story. I have taken it from the pages of my journals, written over the past eight years. I have shared the words in my journals exactly as I wrote them, for one reason only – in the wish that this might help others who are going through storms to know that they are not alone, that their suffering is not unique, and that there is hope. How do I know that there is hope? Because God keeps His promises, all of them! The Bible tells us again and again that we must never lose hope, but keep trusting and praying. During my storm I lost hope many times, and my situation still seems totally hopeless … and yet somehow, I still have hope. I still know in my heart that the Lord will answer my prayers and bring my son back to me … I just don’t know when.

Chapter One

If you make your bed, you must lie in it

‘Is God trying to tell me something?’ I wondered.

The wind had howled and raged in fury the whole day; some of the guests had gotten lost; my brother had a car accident on the way to the wedding; my dad was two hours late, which meant my brother-in-law had to walk me down the aisle; my sisters were in the throes of a family feud and were stony-faced the whole day, bickering with each other; the flower girls sulked because I was not wearing a traditional white dress; there was not enough food for everyone. And then later in the evening, while guests danced to ‘Woolly Bully’, the chandelier fell and shattered, filling the dance area with broken glass.

As I gloomily tried to help sweep up the broken shards, the thought struck me that maybe, just maybe, God was showing me that He was not happy with this union, and was withholding His blessings upon our wedding day.

I had, a few months earlier, suspected that the Lord was not too happy with me wanting to marry this man, but I had prayed about it for a long time and, like Gideon, did all sorts of ‘sheepskin tests’ to see if God would give me ‘permission’ to marry this man who had been married and divorced twice already. God did show me quite clearly, just a few hours before we married, what I would be letting myself in for if I chose to marry this man, and I should have heeded the clear warning. But I loved Lex and silenced the doubts and so, with that disastrous wedding day behind us, entered into a marriage covenant for life (or so I thought) with a man whom I knew even then that I could never trust.

We actually got married twice, first in court for immigration reasons, and then a month later in church. (It was the church wedding that was such a disaster.) On the morning of our court marriage, I was at my sister’s house alone while waiting for Lex to return from a meeting. To pass the time, I was idly going through a box of Lex’s that he had left in my sister’s kitchen. The box was full of photos of Lex and I was enjoying looking through them. I pulled out an unsealed envelope, and thinking it contained more photos, opened it. Inside was a receipt for an hotel room in Hawaii for two guests and a handwritten letter which read, ‘Thank you for a wonderful weekend. Now I KNOW that you love me. Jemma.’ The receipt date was December 1990 – which was just a year before we met, and he was still married to his second wife at the time! I stood there shocked and horrified. I was about to marry a man who had committed adultery and still kept the love letters of his mistress!

I should have heeded this clear warning from the Lord and run as far from Lex as I could, or at least asked for an explanation before marrying him. Instead, I told myself that it was too late to do anything. Besides, it was easier to brush it under the carpet than to confront my husband-to-be just three hours before the court wedding took place. So here I was, a Christian who HATED the thought of adultery and divorce, and with the determination that my marriage was going to be ‘Christian, God-honouring and pure’ and yet knowing in my heart that it was not going to happen.

After our church wedding a month later, followed by a short honeymoon at a Game Reserve, we flew to America where Lex was to start a new job. Not long after we arrived, it became clear that Lex was a closed, secretive person, and I learned not to ask questions. He told me that he and his first wife, Cecile, had been married for only nine months and that they had both been hippies and had smoked marijuana and taken drugs. She had left him and they were legally divorced in 1970. I had never seen a photo of her, and all I knew of her was that she had been remarried and divorced a few times since their divorce. Lex’s second wife also left him, but I never asked why. A few months into our marriage, I found out that Lex had had an affair with Jemma almost throughout his second marriage.

I had been married once before and had three children from that 13-year marriage. Neither I nor my ex-husband were Christians when we married. I became a born-again Christian not long after we divorced, and a few years later I met Lex. He was a handsome and charming American, doing research in my native country South Africa, and I fell head-over-heels in love with him. He told me he had been a Christian since the age of about 22, and I believed him – not because he showed any fruit but because I loved him. How dumb.

Lex had no children with his first wife Cecile,