In the last three episodes, we learnt that Francis was not prepared to settle down mentally and financially while Dorothy walked into marriage knowing they had personal conflicts between them. Marriage was not a fantasy like what fairy tales describe - “the prince and princess lived happily forever after”. To Francis and Dorothy, marriage was a complete nightmare. Today, let us find out how they progressed as Francis decided to talk to God.

Since Francis’s infidelity first came to light, many people asked Dorothy the reason she persevered with the marriage. Friends urged her to divorce him, especially those who saw him with the third party. They told Dorothy they met Francis with a girlfriend. But strangely, their descriptions of the woman conflicted with each other. One was described as plump and on the dark side; and the other was portrayed as slim and young. For the first time, Dorothy suspected that Francis was possibly courting two or more girlfriends at the same time. In actual fact, Francis was having an affair within another affair then. He had Julie in Singapore while Pim was based in Thailand. Then there was Theresa, a Filipina, and a Thai masseuse named Mui. Francis also involved with an office colleague temporarily. It was then Dorothy realised that she had been a fool for a long, long time. 

Conscience knocked as Dorothy recalled. She gave credit to Francis’ family, especially his mother and sister Shirley, during the hard time. They did not blindly defend his wrongdoings nor put the blame on Dorothy when they learnt about his adultery. Instead they tried their best to reach out to Francis despite his avoiding them. They offered practical help to babysit Benjamin whenever Dorothy was emotionally devastated after clashes with Francis and often prayed for her to receive comfort and strength from God. Francis resisted all their efforts as they tried to patch up their relationship and physically avoided them when he got the hint that they were paying Dorothy a visit.   

During his visits to his family home, the atmosphere was always tense. Hence his visits became brief and sporadic. Everyone at home behaved as if nothing had happened; Francis was even-tempered and even genial. But if his mother or Shirley prepared to give him some gently-worded advice, he would shout them down and told Dorothy later that “I am a grown up man. They have no right to tell me what to do!” Since Francis bluntly blocked them from his life, they looked to Dorothy as the life preserver in the marriage crisis. His mother pleaded, “You are his wife. You have to help him. He is lonely, that’s why he behaves like this. If you leave him, he will get worse. You must be strong because he is weak.”

Dorothy recalled once Shirley apologised to her. The move made her felt so momentous and weighty because in-laws are not obligated to apologise even if they are at fault in the Chinese culture.

In the face of their earnest entreaties, Dorothy reassured them that she would try her best to ‘save’ Francis. But in the aftermath of the shocking STD discovery and the brazen intrusion by his girlfriend, Dorothy acknowledged the truth to herself and to direct her energy to save herself instead. She called Shirley and informed of her intention for a separation from Francis.

The more Shirley begged her to stay, the angrier Dorothy got.  Her feelings of injustice and resentment towards this family had grown more heated with the passing months. Although they appeared caring, Dorothy somehow saw them being manipulative and insensitive about her grief and well-being in her wounded perception. She believed they only cared about Francis and saw his needs but not her risk of getting infected with a sexually transmitted disease. She wanted to scream at Shirley that she was having insomnia, gastric, loss of weight, shortness of breath and taking medication for STD but in reality, Dorothy only said to her, “Enough is enough. No more!”

Shirley relented and advised, “Just separate. Don’t divorce,” finally, knowing Dorothy was at the end of the rope.

On Francis’ side, he heard glowing testimonies from those who attended the men’s only, inner healing course called ‘Encounter with God’. He acknowledged he seriously needed to throw out a lot of old emotional garbage and get himself renewed in mind and in hope.  Although he did not expect anything from the course, he certainly never anticipated God planned to deal with him about his father. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”. It was time for Francis to make his life right again in God’s eyes.

When Francis’ mother was barely out of her teens, she was seduced by a married man and got pregnant with him. After much pain, rejection and disappointment, she left the man and cut off all ties with him. Abortion was abhorrent to her family, so her mother encouraged her to give birth and promised to bring the baby up ‘like her own son’. Then, Francis’ grandparents made an astounding decision to the world that his real mother is his ‘sister’ and his aunts and uncles, ‘siblings’. 

Very few people in the family were allowed into this secret. The lie bound them for four decades and got more and more convoluted as years passed. Yet blood is thicker than water.  Francis found himself extremely close to ‘sister’ Shirley when he was about three or four years old. He asked her, “Why do I feel so much closer to you than to mother?” Shirley broke down in tears and told him she was actually his real mother. Being so young, Francis was not aware of his feelings about his unique circumstances, but he sensed the family was not open to talk about his biological father. Francis never asked about him and knew nothing about him at all. That man had never been a part of his life.

When Francis shared this testimony, he was already 38 years old with a son of his own and was a manager of men. He had outgrown the need for a father. Besides there were other more urgent and important issues in life on which he had to focus. He found it strange that as the seminar proceeded, the lectures somehow led his thoughts again and again to his absent father. Francis began to see that he had buried his feelings about him in the past. He had distanced himself from thoughts and emotions about this man that he was completely out of touch with his feelings. The lessons helped him to understand that a lot of his opinions and actions resulted from being fatherless. Francis started to suspect God was telling him something: his father was a missing piece of puzzle in his life.

Many people say, “for those who leave everything in God’s hand will eventually see God’s hand in everything.” This is true. Francis’ first thought was to restore his relationship with Dorothy, yet God led him to look at the root of his own problem. Proverbs 3:5-6 say, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight”.  

Francis recognised that human behaviour is determined by how we see the world, that is, our lenses. His principal problem was that he had been wearing ‘angry lenses’ all those years.  His fatherlessness caused him to have a hair-trigger temper; he would lash out at people at the slightest provocation. It was until the speaker reached the topic of ‘forgiveness’ and the pastor instructed the class to “think of people you need to ask for forgiveness and think of people you need to forgive” that led Francis to look into the subject mindfully. He went through a mental list faithfully and a stranger approached and prayed for him. This stranger said to Francis, “I sense you need to forgive your father”. As he continued praying, it was like he took Francis down memory lane.

“I recalled, when other boys in school had fathers to sign their forms and take them to school, I did not. My father had neither been there to provide for me nor protect me. I had to be independent since young. As a boy, I would deliberately whip up anger as a self-defence mechanism and this became a lifelong habit.” Pride followed when Francis demonstrated that he could be successful in his career even with such a disadvantaged background.  He blamed every deprivation and feeling of inferiority on his father!

At that point, as Francis confessed, he burst into tears of rage and sorrow, and he cried like he had never done before. The tide of pain kept swelling, overflowing and overwhelming him. He was shocked by the intensity of his emotions; he did not know they had been so deeply suppressed. He had been living in denial about his pain, anger and pride all those years. In that moment of self-awareness, Francis realised how anger and pride had made him hard and cruel in all his ways. And for the first time, Francis also recognised his utter lack of self-worth, 

“I saw that my avid pursuit of material wealth and status stemmed from my need to be worth something to somebody. Having a high powered job was a poor substitute for self-esteem, but it was all I had for a long time. And when the job was taken away, it looked like the very foundation had been snatched away from under my feet.” 

God is wonderful!  When you knock, the door will be answered. Jeremiah 29:12 & 13 say, “… I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.  Do find out how God led Francis through the struggles as we continue the story next week on No More Tears.