Idols Aren't Just Little Gold Men

It would be easier to spot idolatry if they were.

For nearly two years after Erik disappeared, I prayed the same prayer.
Lord, let me see something in him that will change my mind.
Help me see the truth of who he really is.

Throughout that time, the people who loved me tried to help.
They named the patterns.
They pointed to the silences, the lies, the reversals.
They laid out the inconsistency, the imbalance, the harm.
They told me: This is not love. This is not safe.

What they were really trying to help me see—what some of them said in words, and others in patience—was this:

You were seeing Erik through the lens of who he could be—
...not who he actually was.

You were holding onto the man you loved, the one who said poetic things, who saw your mind and spirit, who told you he wanted you, who said you were worth the risk. You saw the man who felt real to you in those moments, and in your loyalty and hope, you gave weight to those moments even when everything else contradicted them.

They were trying to help me see:

He was not telling the truth—not to me, not to his wife, not to his church, not to himself.

His actions were not confused—they were calculated.

The man who “struggled” was actually managing everyone, so he didn’t have to confront the harm he caused.

I wasn’t crazy or needy—I was being manipulated.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt after he had already walked away with my trust and my love, in his pocket.

And, they were trying to help me stop waiting for his voice to validate my version of the truth.

Because it was already true.

But I couldn’t hear it. Not yet.

His words still held more weight than theirs.
Even in his absence, I believed him.
Even after all that unfolded,
I believed his version more than I believed my own eyes.

Because that’s what it’s like when someone gets inside your reality—
they don’t always shout their control.
They just shift the frame.
You start seeing yourself through their eyes.
You live in their version of the story.
By the time you realize the truth is missing,
it’s already been replaced with something that feels like love.

But healing has a quiet rhythm.
It doesn't rush and it doesn’t stop.
Slowly—sometimes painfully, sometimes in a sudden rush—
I changed.

I stopped asking God to show me something about him, and I started seeing what had been there all along.

And it wasn’t a revelation that cracked the wall.
It wasn’t a big confession or dramatic closure.

It was this.
Telling my story.

This is what finally revealed him.
Piece by piece, the veil slipped.

He wasn’t just silent.
He was hiding.

I used to think his silence was a weapon to protect me.
Or maybe to protect him from my grief.
But now I see it:
I had assigned the wrong objective to the weapon.

His silence wasn’t shielding anyone.
It was protecting the lie.

It kept the truth from his seminary.
From his church.
From his new job.
From his community.
From his wife.

And then came the final fracture.
When he had his wife call my husband—once I started telling my story—so he wouldn’t have to face me himself.
He sent her to pour out some tired version of a spiritual potion—using Scripture and a narrative that didn’t apply to me.
Not to tell the truth,
but to condemn me, so he could play the righteous victim and keep his story intact.

She didn’t tell the truth.
She couldn’t.
Because she didn’t have it.

He didn’t just hide behind her.
He used her.
He made her the messenger of his omission.

Suddenly, I saw myself in her.

In that moment, I finally understood:
He wasn’t afraid of my sadness,
or my strength,
or even my words.

He is afraid of being seen.

And maybe that was the point all along.
The story wasn’t just mine to survive.
It was mine to tell.

Only in the telling did I begin to see—
He was never hiding from me.
He was hiding from everyone.

Now,
I see him.
I don't need to pray for those answers anymore.

A Note on Trust

One of the first heavy truths I shared with Erik was that I have a hard time trusting people. He told me he wanted to earn my trust. And together, we forged it—slowly, honestly, with care. So when it broke, I had to dismantle something I helped build. Not blind hope. Not fantasy. But something I had shaped with intention. That kind of undoing is its own kind of grief. What I see now is that the problem I began with—the difficulty of trusting others—is the same problem I ended with, only sharpened. I reached for something sacred by taking a path that was sinful. I tried to build something worthy on a foundation that lacked truth. In so doing, I found myself farther from trust than where I started.

As I tell my students, there are two kinds of redemptive stories: the ones that show us the good things that happen when we make the right choices and the ones that show us the bad things that happen when we make the wrong choices.

The fact that this ended badly is, to me, a testament to the loving grace of God. Rather than allowing me to continue placing my trust in Erik as an idol, He crushed the idol and lifted my gaze back onto Himself. As I began to see Christ more clearly, I also began to see the people around me more clearly—through His love, by His truth, and for His glory—as relationships were restored. Praise God!