Chapter Twenty-Five
… I dreaded reaching out to people I did not know well to push a business model that was not my own. Unfortunately, that was the only way to be successful in multi-level-marketing (MLM).
My journal entries throughout 2003 overflowed with prayers begging God to help me develop my MLM business.
On January 23, 2003, I wrote:
"Abba, please give me faith that my business will prosper."
"What is faith?" He asked.
"The substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen."
"What do you hope for?"
"Freedom!"
"From what?"
"Debt."
"Yet you increase debt."
He was right. My debt was increasing, and I wasn't concerned about it at all. Surely, my future income would compensate for the debt I was accumulating. So, what did I want freedom from?
"To buy whatever I want, whenever I want.”
"What do you want to buy?"
I took a moment to consider that.
"Well, actually, I already buy whatever I want. Sometimes I save first. Rarely."
I thought again. Finally, I understood what was driving my desire.
"Having to work for someone else's dream or vision."
"So, if you didn't work for someone else's dream or vision, you would work for your own?"
"Yes!"
"What is your dream?"
"My dream is to be so prosperous that the overflow from my barns would fill the barns of 100,000 people."
The dream of achieving overflowing prosperity, however, had some curious side-effects. For one, I stopped tithing; I needed every penny to buy the products and sales paraphernalia. Another, I lost confidence in my marriage.
On 6/21/03, I went to God in my journal and asked for a separation.
"I DO NOT SANCTIFY THE DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE! Your desire for separation is not blessed; it is abhorred! Do not ask me for separation!"
What in the world had happened to my heart?
Patriarchy and prosperity theology were rooted deeply within the MLM support organization I belonged to. I didn’t recognize it at the time. All I saw were people flocking to the conference stages on Sunday morning to give their lives to Christ. It was quite impressive to see hundreds of people running to seek a relationship with Christ after hearing the moving testimonies of how God had prospered the leaders the night before.
Who was I to say they were wrong? God had prospered me; this book testifies to that effect! So, it did not seem odd to me. It was not out of place. My husband and I were happy to see God glorified on stage. We heard. No, I heard dozens of their testimonials on tape, and by June 21, 2003, I believed my husband was not living up to a godly ideal for male leadership.
By that time, I had stopped calling him Cap, and started calling him by his given name, one much more suited to him.
Noble.
When I met him at that bar so many years ago, and gazed into his large, kind eyes, I saw a big teddy bear looking for someone to love. He wasn’t searching for just anyone, though. He was holding out for someone independent, intelligent, and self-assured, for he was not a guy to take over and lead our joint adventures. More than anything, he wanted to help me get where I wanted to go. However, like me, he had no affinity for aggressive sales tactics, and though he tried, our continued stagnation made him look less in my eyes. I didn’t realize that he was free from their rigid, male-dominated expectations.
God knew. On the day he rebuked me for asking for a separation, he also encouraged me.
“There is no problem in marriage that cannot be overcome by God’s love.”
He assured me that as long as Noble and I felt safe with each other; I was safe in God’s kingdom. So, I took my judging eyes off my husband and set them squarely on myself. It was all up to me—I had to become a go-getter. However, for that to happen, I needed a miracle. I needed God to change me into a person who could freely, and confidently, approach strangers with a business proposition.
In all my subsequent pleadings for supernatural assistance, God never told me that MLMs were disreputable. He didn’t warn me to stay away from them. He also never said I didn’t have what it takes, or that he didn’t create me to be a salesperson.
He always asked, “Do you believe I can help you?”
Every time I answered, “Yes.”
Then he would ask, “What do you have to do to be successful?”
I would tell him. “Show 10 and sponsor 2.”
He would ask, “Is that what you are doing?”
And I would answer, “No! That’s why I need a miracle!”
At a conference in the late summer of 2003, a leader told a poignant story about a young girl who owned a cheap string of pink pearls. She wouldn’t let them go, no matter what. At the end of the story, we learned there were pure white pearls she could have had all along. That, of course, was a perfect segue to an altar call.
“Everyone who wants to trade their pink pearls for pure white ones should come to the altar. Now.”
I ran to the stage, leaving my husband in the bleachers. My pink pearls were who I was, my personhood—someone unable to get past level one. I was letting go of myself.
God responded.
He reached out to me in that crowded auditorium, and I heard his voice ringing clearly in my spirit. What he said wrought a torrent of tears.
Someone nearby dropped their arm around my shoulder. “Welcome, sister,” they said. “You will never regret giving your life to Christ.”
My legs were heavy as I dragged them up the risers to where my husband waited patiently. He took one look at my tortured face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
My torment had nothing to do with my surrender to Christ; those tears had been shed decades ago.
“We have to sell our house,” I replied.
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A Speculative Memoir
In a 1989 journal entry, I poured out my dashed dreams to God. Those few precious moments became a watershed event in an unfolding narrative that began ten years before when I turned my back on God. Turning my back on God did many things, most of them sad, but foremost it made me forget who I was. But there was someone who never forgot. Someone who neve…