In Love with Jesus

By Cate Vaughan

I am one of those people who is in love with

Jesus…….... and it is the direct result of having

my life wrecked; including my formula for

success, my ministry, my marriage, even my

spiritual paradigms.

Let me give some of my background: I was

raised by an atheist father in a strict and

disciplined home, with emphasis on

performance. There were merciless

consequences for all infractions but rewards

for achievement. By the time I was a teenager,

I seemed incapable of complying with my

parents expectations. Eventually, I was given

the threatened consequences and was sent

away to be my aunt’s nanny in another state.

I could not wait to get out from under

authority. The day after I graduated, I went to

work at Yellowstone for the summer. It was

the first time I was free, and in my first month

there I smoked a carton of cigarettes, dated

everyone who asked me, attended all the

employee dances I could get to, and worked

hard 6 days a week cleaning rooms at Old

Faithful Inn. By the end of the month I was

afraid this life style would kill me!

Then I noticed the most virtuous employee. He

was head and shoulders above all his peers.

There was something safe and familiar about

him. I didn’t realize at the time that he

reminded me of my father. After we both

finished our undergraduate degree, we got

married. I tried living up to his standards. I

believed that if I could do things right, then my

life would work well, and I would be happy.

Those first 10 years of marriage I worked the

plan. By the time I was 30 I’d accomplished

everything I thought would make me happy:

I’d married this virtuous man, continued my

education, became a social worker, bought a

new house, had a baby, and lived in 7 states.

But, I was not happy.

I thought it was because my husband wasn’t

working my plan as well as I expected. I wrote

a list of what he needed to do to change so I

could be happy. After I read him the list, he

silently got up and walked out. That night I

picked up a book my sister had given me called

“Something More” by Katherine Marshall.

Because I was raised by an atheist father and

outside of any religious influence, it was a

shocking surprise to discover a man named

Jesus came to carry off my sins. I’d been

looking for a scapegoat my whole life. By the

third chapter I’d read the sinners prayer, and

hadn’t yet met a Christian! After that,

Christians were everywhere!

I was really caught by surprise by the

transformation in me! I was happy, I felt love, I

had intimacy with the God of the universe.

When the load of sin was taken, even the

colors became more vibrant. Everything was

vibrant. I was experiencing life! I’d been dead

my whole life until that moment.

When my husband came back the next day, he

discovered his wife had gotten religion. For a

while he stood back and watched as I was

absorbed by a group of Southern women who

treated me like I was a spiritual baby Einstein.

Being raised a Methodist, he decided to get

ahead of this spiritual avalanche, and we

joined a tame local congregation.

We felt called to become foster parents, and

for the next 15 years we raised our daughter

and 12 other children who passed through our

family. I was incredibly smug about our

parenting, describing us as Fred Astaire and

Ginger Rogers when it came to parenting.

After taking Bill Gothard’s Basic Youth

Conflicts seminar year after year, I was well

schooled in the formula for family success:

wives submit yourself to your own husbands.

During these 15 years, I helped co-found FVPS

as a court ordered treatment program,

variously setting up the court process in 4

counties, hiring and training staff, leading 2

weekly women’s groups, and fundraising.

As our daughter went off to college, I quit

FVPS to homeschool one of our foster

daughters. She and I began a flower ministry

to give us a daily break from academics. We

grew and arranged all the flowers in our

church for 2 years. We set every table, did

each table arrangement, set up a Sunday

morning coffee table, did the sanctuary and

parlor arrangements every Sunday.

Then the unthinkable happened. Our foster

daughter ran away. In confusion and grief, I

felt God call me outside the camp to seek Him

with my whole heart. I left for a 40 day train

trip around the US by myself.

My first stop was Washington DC. I went to

the Holocaust Museum. In those dark,

cramped and confusing passageways I felt

cornered and afraid. I was led through the

history of Jewish prejudice in such an

experiential way that I could feel it. I felt I

could be the next victim.

Instantaneously, I also saw in my heart that I

could be the next Hitler. I realized that if I’d

been given public support to add a few more

consequences to assure parental control. I

would have, even if those tools were

murderous. I wanted control that bad and I

could have justified it. This was the first crack

in my understanding that maybe my Dad’s

parenting wasn’t the best. Maybe mine wasn’t

either.

Although I was a controlling parent, I felt

controlled as a wife. We had agreed he could

make the decisions, but I felt enslaved.

Distrust and disappointment replaced my

former cover story of happily-ever after.

However, no matter how painful the marital

relationship was, I didn’t feel free to leave. I

had a spiritual paradigm that kept me a

prisoner to marriage. So, 20 years into my

Christian walk, I discover my formula for

success, my foster care ministry, my marriage,

even my spiritual paradigms are wrecked.

I started by saying I am in love with Jesus. Let

me be clear during these 20 years I couldn’t

have honestly said that. I thought I loved Him

because I was obeying Him even if it killed me.

What changed so I could say today, 15 years

later, I’m in love with Jesus?

I went from being a slave to a failed Christian

formula into freedom in Christ. This is how it

happened. Those years of obedience, first to

my father and next to my husband really was

killing me. “I die daily” was my mantra for

years. I sought God with tears about being

enslaved to a Christian legal system requiring

obedience. One fine spring day on my walk,

God completely changed my paradigm. He said

the only way to escape the law is to die. This

already happened, not by my daily acts of

obedience that were killing me, but I was in

Him when He died. My death has already been

accomplished, AND I was in Him when He was

resurrected. In an instant His death and

resurrection became mine. The life I now live

by faith is Christ’s. God is love.

Suddenly, I knew I was free to stay or leave my

marriage. But love compelled me to stay.

Divine love had kicked in. God’s love expressed

to me and through me became more delicious

than any difficult life experience. God’s love

confronted my need to control and gave me

courage to confront my husband’s need to

control. Control is the fruit of fear. Perfect love

casts out all fear. My new paradigm, Christ-in-

me, speaks the truth in love. Love never fails.