Donna VanLiere - Finding Grace: A True Story about Losing Your Way in Life...and Finding It Again

FINDING GRACE

ALSO BY DONNA V AN LIERE

The Christmas Promise

The Angels of Morgan Hill

The Christmas Shoes

The Christmas Blessing

The Christmas Hope

ST. MARTINS PRESS New York

The names and characteristics of some individuals have been changed.

FINDING GRACE. Copyright 2009 by Donna VanLiere. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.stmartins.com

Design by Patrice Sheridan

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

VanLiere, Donna, 1966

Finding Grace : a true story about losing your way in life... and finding it again / Donna VanLiere.1st ed.

p.cm.

ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38051-9

ISBN-10: 0-312-38051-8

1. VanLiere, Donna, 1966 2. VanLiere, Donna, 1966Religion. 3. Grace (Theology) 4. Authors, American21st centuryBiography. 5. Adult child sexual abuse victimsBiography. 6. Infertility, FemalePatientsUnited StatesBiography. 7. Adoptive parentsUnited StatesBiography. 8. Life change events. I. Title.

PS3622.A66Z46 2009

813'.6dc22

[B]

2008043920

First Edition: April 2009

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For David and Vicki VanLiere,
who give it away

Many thanks to...

Troy, who kept after me for years to write this book.

Gracie, Kate, and David for providing an endless supply of material, ideas and joy.

Jen at ZSH, who for several years asked, So when do you want to talk about Grace? And to both her and Esmond for keeping me on point when we did talk about it. Thank you both for continued enthusiasm, guidance, and friendship.

Jen E., who wanted to publish this book while chatting at dinner. Without even reading a word she believed. Thank you, Jen, for always making each book better.

Sally, John, Matt, Tara, and the St. Martins sales team, for boundless creativity, feedback, and belief.

Mom and Dad VL., and Lindsey Wolford (making a brief stopover from Ireland), who love spending time with the small people in our family.

David and Marilyn Knight, for the weekend at their home that got this book started.

Chris Carter and Anita Pringle, for reading an early version of the manuscript and providing input and encouragement.

Julie Cranston, Kathy Marlin, Rosie Mitchell, Renee Sly, Charity Compton, Sylvia Fitzgerald, Pam Dillon, Jamie Betts, Karen Parente, Carole Consiglio, and Robin Thomason, for your heart.

Joseph Cassell, for sharing his gift with an old friend.

And to the folks at Meridees, who keep the coffee and pastries hot and fresh, and Graeme and staff at The Mercantile, who have let me work long after theyve closed.

ITS COLD IN TENNESSEE TODAY. From my window I can see the cows grazing in the pasture next door and our dogs breath as she runs around our home. Although she has plenty of space to roam she continues to run the same pattern, creating a twelve-inch barren circular path around the perimeter of the house that is peppered with holes where she digs after moles. We try to explain that she doesnt have to dig that far to get to the moles but she ignores us. My husband cringes every time he sees the path and the holes. I tell him not to look. Hes throwing scraps of insulation and wood out of our attic window; he and my father-in-law have been banging and pounding for weeks as they finish converting our attic space into an office. So you can write, my husband says. Its difficult to write with garbage flying past my window but, save the banging, its quiet in the house so maybe Ill get a couple of hours to pluck a few letters from the alphabet and to arrange them into some sort of shape before company arrives. Our old college friend Bob will be visiting for a few days and I need to change the sheets and clean the bathroom. The dogs barking nowat the cows in the pasture next to us. The barking also drives my husband crazy. This day, the writing, the banging, the sailing debris, the cows, the moles, everything is so different from what I wanted as a child. It seems life rarely turns out the way we picture it, though.

I had a plan when I was little. As far as dreams went it was tidy and organized and well constructed. I used to watch the Little Rascals series after school and on the weekends Id see reruns of The Andy Griffith Show, I Love Lucy, and countless old movies on Channel 43 out of Cleveland. I watched those shows and knew I wanted to be an actress and marry a guy who looked like those men in the movies with dark hair and blue eyes (I assumed; it was black-and-white TV), and I wanted to have three or four children. I envisioned a home like the ones Id see in movies with a charming picket fence and blooming flowerbeds that wrapped around the house. Like all childlike plans I saw my husband loving his job, I was happy and fulfilled in my own, and my children were well behaved, healthy, and well adjusted. That was my dream. Not a lot of bells and whistles. In the grand scheme of things it was really very simple but no one told me then that in one moment life could blindside me and Id never see it coming.

Someone early in our lives should tell us that well never make it to the end unscathed or pain free but I guess for centuries people have all thought the same thing about the next generation: Theyll figure it out. Many never figure it out, though. We just suck up the pain of the divorce, the rape, the abuse, the death, or the financial collapse and carry on the best we know how, hobbling along toward the finish line. It seems that God, or at the very least an angel, should appear at life-altering moments to offer guidance for the life thats now ours but that doesnt happen. Were left to figure out things on our own.

We hope for a life that exceeds our dreams, and when those dreams collapse we simply wish for a soft wing of hope, but instead we get life in a culture of ungrace. I know thats not a word but it works here. (Disgrace doesnt apply since its a different word altogether and nongrace just doesnt sound as good.) If you dont know what ungrace is, just hop on the interstate at rush hour, or watch how quickly Hollywood turns on a star who doesnt shine like he once did at the box office, or sit in a room full of lawyers at divorce proceedings. Ungrace pulsates in our workplaces, our communities, and in the media, and tells us that regardless of what has happened we must do better, look better, and make ourselves better. But to love and accept someone regardless of their flaws and failures is a breath of hope in a harsh, finger-wagging world. That is an undeserved gift, which is life itself. Thats grace.

The following pages are part of my story. If I share these experiences in a way that breathes shape and color into them perhaps youll recognize part of your own life as well. Samuel Johnson said that people need more to be reminded than to be instructed. Sometimes we need to be reminded of why were here, that we are valued and loved, and at the end of the pain there are still deeper and higher dreams to discover. This is the story of how I finally figured that out.