What I am about to share is
my history and battle in finding true love and fatherhood. I too felt
"the nudge" from God to share some of my past struggles and relational
blunders. I'm going to to begin this story where I believe the seeds of love and
fatherhood got deeply implanted in my heart.
In my early 20's I was in serious relationship with a girl that was extremely volatile, immature, and impure. My naivety led me to think maybe she was the one. Shortly after dating for a year, she told me that she was pregnant. I can remember thinking, "Wow! We did it. Maybe this will mean we can settle down and start a real 'grown up' family!" I can still think back and feel the initial excitement I experienced. Even as a young man, when I pictured happiness, I would imagine my wife and I sitting on a porch swing watching our kids play in the yard. Yep...that's it, and not much has changed. The look on her face will be forever etched in my memory; she didn't have to say a word. Her thoughts and plans were obvious and settled, and they cut through my enthusiasm like a knife. I tried to come up with any justification or argument I could as to why we should keep the baby. Unfortunately, I was stonewalled at every attempt. When the time came for her abortion, I desperately wanted to go with her. I realize it sounds strange, but I still wanted support her even though her decision was crushing me. She wanted no part in having me there and even opted to have a friend accompany her. I was deeply hurt and felt completely helpless. Our relationship came to an ugly end shortly thereafter. From the moment she told me she was pregnant, I felt strongly that it was a girl. Though it has been 15 years since the abortion, I can still say not one day goes by that I don't see a little girl playing in the yard, helping mom push the cart at the grocery store or holding dad's hand on the way into church. And every time I am reminded of the hole in my heart and my longing and guilt for a life that should have been. I will touch on this more in a bit.
From that point on, I spent much of my 20's drinking heavily and smoking marijuana. What started out as fun eventually became a daily ritual to anesthetize my pain and live in an alternate reality. After all, I wanted no part of my own life anymore. I was bitter; I did not like people and had major issues with God. I can remember saying, "If this your plan God, I gotta be honest, I'm not that impressed. I'm looking around and this planet really seems to be an ugly, violent and cruel hell hole." Perspective is everything.
In my early 30's, I was set up on a blind date that eventually led to my first marriage. We had a long engagement and often spoke of our future plans, what we would name our kids one day and how many we would have. At the time I owned a house and so did my fiancée. We decided that it would be best to try and sell my home, and I would then move into hers. I found a family friend and realtor to help me put my home on the market, and I moved into my fiancée's house. She moved in with her parents temporarily until we got married, at which point she would move back in with me. I was working as a stonemason, and my career went from being extremely lucrative to barely making ends meet. Due to the housing market crash, I lost about a third of my income and my home's value was sinking like the Titanic. I reached a point that I could no longer sustain the cost of supporting two homes. By the way, my fiancée worked as a mortgage underwriter and she too lost a large portion of her salary. The financial weight was too much, and we had to let my house go into foreclosure. I also had two beautiful boxer dogs at the time, Titus and Bren. My fiancée was extremely allergic to dogs, and I had to make the difficult decision to give them up for the sake of my new life with my soon-to-be wife. I was able to find a woman who ran a boxer rescue that was looking to adopt two boxers. I suppose it worked out sufficiently for my dogs, but it was brutally difficult for me: I spent close to 5 years raising these dogs, they slept in my bed every night and greeted me at the front door with wild joy when I got home from work every evening. At the time, giving them up seemed like the noble thing to do, but I have struggled with guilt over that decision ever since.
My fiancée and I eventually married in May of 2008. Over the course of the next year my wife never moved back into our home with me. She stayed at her parents' house about 5 nights per week for various and ever-evolving reasons. When I eventually and formally confronted her, she told me that she wasn't cut out to be a wife and it took a year of marriage for her to realize it. She also decided that kids would not be part of her future. In this moment, I felt like I had just stepped into the twilight zone. I had no idea who this person was that was saying these things to me. Had a con-artist just conned me out of my own soul? Here I thought once again I would have my chance to finally be able to sit on that porch swing with the one I loved and watch my kids play carelessly in the yard. For a bit, I thought I was going crazy. My reality was turned upside down. Here's the kicker -- this is really good -- I had taken a position working for my wife's father's trucking company. Now I'm working for my father-in-law, my credit is shot, my dogs are gone, the repo man is in my driveway, and my wife just quit our marriage. I went to a shrink just once to make sure I wasn't crazy. He said I checked out but it sure didn't feel that way. I probably should have gone back for a while because I'm pretty sure I had a screw or two loose at that point. I had the marriage annulled 6 months later, and I was still working for my now ex-father-in-law's business...over the course of the next year. Awkward!
On the heels of one loss after the next, I sunk to the lowest point of my life. I truly did not care what happened to my life and systematically tried to drink myself to death. No joke. I was mad at everything. I was mad at women. I was mad at myself for being so naïve to get myself into this predicament, and I was especially mad at God. How could you do this to me God? Why didn't you save me from this? If you are so good then why is everything so bad? I have to be honest: I went through a season of tempting God, testing the limits of what I could get away with and doing everything I could to spite Him. Utterly lost with no idea of my identity or what I was doing anymore, I virtually surrendered. To what? Feeling that I was destined to just be miserable, mediocre and live out the rest of my days counting down to death. My family was somewhat aware of what was going on in my life, but I worked hard at hiding the depth of my misery. My brother and sister-in-law convinced me to come down to Georgia to see what I thought of it. Though I had no interest in ever moving to Georgia, I took a week off work and used 3 days to visit them in Atlanta and the remainder to travel to Northern Michigan. My trip up north was specifically planned to seek solitude and answers from God.
Georgia did not appeal to me much during my visit. My brother and sister-in-law did their best to convince me to move down and start over. I knew I needed change but went home unsure of where and how to start. The second leg of my vacation took me to Lake Superior in Northern Michigan. As mentioned, I went on a quest for solitude and answers from the Lord, and He showed up in a major way. I had a radical encounter with Jesus that set the course for the rest of my life. Immediately heading home, I knew for certain that I was to move to Atlanta. I had no idea what I was going to do when I arrived, but I had total peace since I knew God said to "go." The next 2+ years, from 2009 through 2011, were filled with some powerful, supernatural experiences with God. Visions, dreams, electricity, prophetic words...the whole bit. It's all real, folks. The first century church is still alive and well, though that's for an entirely different post. I won't go down a rabbit hole, so this is where my struggle with the abortion picks back up.
I was worshiping in church one Sunday and was taken into a vision where I encountered my daughter. Yes, the one that was aborted 15 years ago. She was playing in heaven with Jesus and many other children. She told me that she wasn't mad at me and said, "I'm proud of you, Daddy." She then shared with me that God had an amazing wife for me and she would be there soon. The last thing she said was that she was happy and would see me again one day. As I snapped out of this encounter, a man at church approached me and told me that God wanted to tell me something. Okay, I responded curiously. He told me that my kids would always be protected wherever they go and that God had angels to surround them at all times. I graciously explained to him that I didn't have any children. He responded with a smile, "But you will." Now that was a good day at church!!
Three months later in early 2012, I had my first date with my now wife. Just as my daughter said, "Soon." My wife, Chrissy, and I had a short courtship and engagement; from the first date to our wedding day was exactly 9 months. Shortly after we started dating, Chrissy sat me down and explained to me that she had a pituitary tumor which could impact her ability to get pregnant. I knew without a doubt that it didn't matter. I loved this woman whether or not she could have biological children. Though I still longed for children, for some reason I had complete peace. God had long since confirmed through visions and dreams that Chrissy was the one. He often told me, "You will love her," not as a command but affirming the reality of our relationship and reminding me that I was purposed to love her from the beginning. Chrissy is the most incredible, loving and faithful person I have ever met. Loving her isn't hard.
From the very beginning of our marriage in November of 2012, we decided to go ahead and try to get pregnant. We had quite a few people tell us to wait at least one year, but we didn't think we had the luxury of time or even knowing if it was possible to conceive. What started off as hopeful expectation slowly turned into a roller coaster of disappointment and questions. Pregnancy tests became a source of tremendous grief for us, especially Chrissy. She felt betrayed by her own body. As her husband, it was so hard to feel helpless to do or change anything. Most of the time, all I knew to do was pray and hold her as she grieved and questioned all of the whys and unknowns of our future with children.
In January of 2014 we decided to put more of our focus on adopting a child. We knew we were called to adoption even before we were married: Adoption was never to replace biological children. As we embarked deeper into the Georgia state adoption process, our focus turned toward preparing for an adoptive child. We both believed it was the best thing, as it got too difficult to keep all of our eggs in the biological child basket. We completed our adoption training in late March of 2014 and started the waiting process. (Update: We received our approval to adopt on Tuesday of this past week!)
Chrissy and I visited my former church about a month ago, and we sat in almost the exact seats where I was when I met my daughter in a vision and received the prophetic word about my children nearly 3 years ago. Again during worship, a close friend gave us a word about the coming of our child: It was like deja vu! Not 2 weeks later we found out Chrissy was pregnant, though she still has not had a menstrual cycle in over 2 years. What a MIRACLE! We are now off to the races preparing for the birth of our child and praying about the timing of adoption. God can turn the impossible into possible in an instant. Circumstances and obstacles can seem so overwhelming at times to overcome. God spoke the universe into existence; it only takes His mere breath on our situations to radically transform them. In Genesis 18, Sarah was barren and past childbearing years, yet God gave her a son, Isaac. When the Lord told Sarah about the coming of her child, she laughed in disbelief. God said, "Is anything too hard for the Lord?" I love that! I suppose it's only fitting that we moved into our first home together on a street called Sarah's Lane...God knew all along.
What God did for us, we know He will do for anyone. We are not unique in our faith or spirituality, nor are we more favored than any of God's other precious children. In summary, as tough as the road has been, I have always sensed it was the right road. I have grown to appreciate this road, and I'm grateful for all that God has taught me along the way. Cherishing the light can be elusive unless you know how it feels to crouch in the darkness. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life." We are so thankful for His light. Please feel free to comment or leave your name, as we would love to partner with you in praying for your impossible.
Gratefully His,
Matt Bruso
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