The evening started out pretty chilled, sitting around drinking beer and making small talk but somewhere along the line things took a nasty turn and I found myself on my feet, him on his foot, face to face in a nasty battle of shouting.
I can't remember his name but I will never forget how tall he was, towering over me, spittle flying from his lips as he swore at me.
I was behaving just like the maltese poodle we had when I was growing up; she would charge at cars and try to bite their wheels as they careened past at break neck speeds. This is incidentally how she met her eventual end, poor Moppie.
Marius! That was his name. We called him VoldeMarius afterwards because just saying his name felt wrong.
I had just met Marius that night and already he had made a very bad impression on me. The way he drank (rich coming from me who also drank like a fish and used drugs at the time, of course), the manner in which he addressed my friend, the way he kind of leered at me with a mixture of lust, hatred and fear.
Writing this today I can't for the life of me remember how the fight started but I do remember standing there with my face upturned to look him dead in the eye and simply refusing to give in to the fear of him possibly swinging his crutch at my head and taking it clean off.
He was really mad and really drunk and well I guess so was I.
The fight was about my friend somehow but she seemed awfully Switzerland in the whole situation, puttering around, fixing pillows and taking empties back to the kitchen. Probably just keeping an eye to know when to phone the police/an ambulance or a taxi.
Either way, this screaming fight between me and Marius may have lasted anywhere between 10 minutes and an hour but when I finally flew out of there in a fit of rage and hurt, it was around 03:00 in the morning.
I had to drive all the way from Wonderboom to Moreleta Park, zinging from adrenaline and under all kinds of other (self-administered) influences.
When I got home I was furious and felt all alone in the world. I raged at the way men ruled the planet and if you are a single girl you just get swept up in the manness of it all and if you wanted any hope of keeping your head above water, you needed a man by your side that could be your champion. Well I did not want a man and resented the fact that I needed a champion.
I sommer decided to scream at God a little because where was He all night while Marius was ripping me a new one.
(Probably saving me from getting my head bent by a crutch, in hindsight.)
I cried and yelled at the unfair, uncaring air around me, alone in my bedroom until finally the sun came up and I was left feeling very very tired and close to being overcome by despair.
A thought occurred to me. I wanted more than just "a feeling" from God. I wanted an answer, concrete and resolute.
I got up and went to my extremely dusty bookshelf and whipped out my super dusty Bible and did something no one should ever do, unless you enjoy coming upon a phrase in the Bible condemning you to eternal suffering, etc... I flipped it open randomly and placed my finger on a point on the page.
I noticed with dismay that it was the Old Testament. Gosh, this was going to be brutal.
It was Isaiah 54 verse 5 to 8 and it said: (please note that I am paraphrasing here)
"You, deeply sad and slightly unhinged woman without a husband, I will be your husband just please quit crying and screaming.
Yes I was pretty pissed at you for doing all them drugs and alcohol and marrying the wrong person, making a promise and then divorcing him and gaaning on and for a little while there I didn't want to see or talk to you but now I'm back and will never leave you again. Mkay? Will you please calm the fudge down now?"
I sat there absolutely stunned, my mouth hanging slightly open, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Had God just spoken to me, directly, almost like a WhatsApp message but through a book written over 2000 years ago?
Throughout the years this experience has kept me coming back to faith, even when at times I felt like I was the only living being in the whole universe, even with people around me.
I jealously guarded it and told almost nobody for fear of them rendering it meaningless in their cynicism, but today I suddenly felt moved to write it down and publish it to the internet.
Enjoy!
