Susan\’s first name as girl was Susan James. After she was divorced people asked her what name she was going to use from then on. She thought about it but could not come up anything that she was more comfortable with than her married name.
She associated the name Susan James with the unkindest reatment she had to cope with during her childhood. Strange the long term impact that bullies can have on you. Her married name linked her to people who could and should have behaved better. People she was relieved to no longer have in her life. It was not the name that was the problem just the people so she decided to keep using her married name.
The challenge came when for other reasons she could no longer use her married name. What name could she use now? She dug back into her family history and wondered what would her first name sound like when used with her grandmother\’s maiden names. She liked it and then she asked her family for their approval and they like it so Susan Slater Morris became her pen name.
It sounded good and because she used both of them there was no favouritism. The order was easy as well as it was ladies first i.e. maternal grandmother then paternal grandmother. Better still it was unusual enough for a Google search not to find another Susan Slater Morris. There was a Susan Morris and a Susan Slater but not a Susan Slater Morris. That just added to her conviction that her new pen name should be Susan Slater Morris.
What else does this story tell you about Susan?
Susan is one of those people who are too sensitive according to others. After all the James Bug was only a game and surely a game should not have that level of impact on her. Well it might not have done if it had been nipped in the bud but it was allowed to go on and on for months. No one at school or home thought that it was a real problem. Yet its impact has haunted her for decades.
Another thing it tells you is that her marriage was not as happy as it could have been and has come to an end. The reality is that that marriage lasted many years longer than it should have done. She thought divorce was wrong and was prepared to stick it out no matter what. Oops looking back she made an idol of that marriage.
There again the big thing that she learnt from that marriage is that free will is powerful. She had the free will to stay when all logic said that she should leave. On the other hand he had the free will to make a number of choices that made staying married to him very difficult.
Neither of them were willing to change our minds. Eventually she was became so frustrated that she screamed at God that she was unstuck and needed to get unstuck so that she could serve Him better.
That proved to be the cue God was waiting for. He might not have been able to persaude that man to change his life in one way but He was definitely able to persaude him to do it in another. After 20 years of saying divorce was a good idea God made sure that he went through with it.
Strange as it sounds that is likely to be the one thing that she could say that would really upset him . The reason being that he likes the idea of making his own choices and not being influenced or helped by God.
It had become a marriage of opposites. She was trying to do what God was saying and he had no intention of doing anything that God wanted him to do. There was no way a marriage like that could survive.