Tuesday, May 13, 2014

for frailty, burden, and death: reflections on falling in love

With every day that passes, I am increasingly convinced that I didn't truly love Justin until today.  I loved Justin before we were even dating, but I loved him in a way that I love most of my friends - a love with strings.  A love with borders.  A love that waits for the end.

And then I realized I wanted forever with him, and I thought that meant I loved him.  In many ways, I did.  Then we were inseparable, and certainly that meant love.  I suppose it did.  Partially.  Then we were engaged, and the doubting made me wonder what on earth I was doing engaged to this guy so far removed from my world, this college dropout Navy guy with not a lick of musical talent.

Today I reflect on the painful reality of love.  I never understood until Justin that love is not happy.  Love is not bliss, and love has nothing to do with what Justin offers me as a life partner.  Love is torturous joy, emphasis on the torturous.  Love is death to myself, love is sacrifice, love is taking on his burdens as if they were my own.  Love is watching people hurt the man I love with their callous disregard for all that is good and holy and learning to forgive them with the same grace he does.  Love is putting him before me every single time (which I almost never successfully pull off).  Love is being willing to do anything to help him.  Love is courageous honesty, love is vulnerability and complete openness. Love doesn't have borders, doesn't have "but..", doesn't ask what will be given in return.  Love just gives.  Love refuses to put up walls of protection, love forgives every single time.

Because I love Justin, I'm beginning to understand on an experiential level what it means for God to love me.  What it means to sacrifice himself, what it means to love people who won't ever be able to repay him.

And this is just the beginning...we're not even married yet.

Love is crazy.

Friday, May 9, 2014

for the words that built castles

I'm a word person.  From a toddler into adolescence and beyond, I was trained in words - trained to talk and sing, to read and then to write.  My Sunday School training turned that training in words into a spiritual vocabulary of sorts.  This vocabulary earned me favor.  I could find the verses faster and answer the questions more accurately, and later I could do the Bible Instruction Class homework more faithfully.  I was a pro with words.

My words built castles.  Evidence of salvation is found in one's fruit, and my fruits were my words.  I constructed elaborate palaces and fortresses of sung and spoken and written words.  I was a Christian, and my language proved it.

And then I was a small fish in a big pond of words with which I was not familiar.  The words latched onto my soul and drug it to the bottom of the pond.  I struggled against the words, casting them off just in time to fight my way to the surface.

And then I learned that writing was the best kind of therapy.  This place is a whole kingdom of words.  Words that have propped up my dying soul, words that have temporarily revived me and that have disguised the truth of the matter.

The truth is, words are often all I have.

~~~

Jonathan Martin writes of his vocation as a pastor, saying "all my favorite words are dying."  As soon as they are out of his mouth, they die.  Evidence of his kingdom crumbles with the evaporation of the sound into the atmosphere.  For him this is difficult because he can't see evidence of the power of his words.

My words die too, and it's probably for the best.

My dead words remind me that my salvation does not hinge on my words.  I could never sing, speak, or write a word and if I would only love, it would be enough.  If I would only serve, it'd be enough.

Only when my words serve my neighbor, only when my words love are they enough.  My tongue is powerful, the pen is too, but not because the words will be remembered.  These implements of language are powerful because they either build or destroy something much more tangible: the kingdom of God.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

for the crazy days of engagement: 65 days left edition - or, "what no one told you about being engaged"

Ah, engagement.  Fun times, and, uh, stuff.

There are things I heard whispers of prior to being engaged.  I heard about "bridezillas" and that wedding planning could be stressful.  I heard about intrusive family members.  I heard about these things, filed them away somewhere in my subconscious and figured it'd never happen to me.  I never put too much emotional stock in my future wedding day - I didn't know if I'd ever get married and even if I ended up lucky enough to find someone, I wasn't particularly excited about the event itself.  

And then, he was down on one knee, that moment for which I had been not-so-patiently waiting for months.  I said "yes."

Craziness ensued.

We had to figure out a date and a location and a photographer and a caterer and things were so crazily stressful.  I was looking forward to our wedding and dreading it all at the same time, knowing that in many ways our wedding day was only the beginning of the countdown to deployment.  I mourned his loss six months in advance.  Then, one day, our world came crashing in - he might be deployed in as little as a few days, who knew if he'd be back in time for the wedding.  That scare was over as quickly as it arrived, but the uncertainty of when exactly he'd be in port and if we could send out invitations with confidence continued well into April.  

We nailed down all the big things, he got into off-crew, got leave for the wedding and honeymoon: things have fallen into place.  God is good.

But there's another side of engagement that no one warned me about.  I'd heard the echoes of it and seen its effects, and I guess I never put two and two together.  You see, I said "yes, I'll marry you," and in that moment, my world changed.  In that moment I committed to a huge life change.  I said, "yes, I'll follow you around the world."   "Yes, I'll give up some of my dreams and desires so that we can be one."  "Yes, I will love you and only you for the rest of our lives."  Even so, it is a commitment not fully cemented yet.  I can still theoretically back out (as can he).  I haven't pledged my life to Justin in front of God and these witnesses.  

Once a friend was engaged, and she asked me to pray for her, that her transition into married life would go smoothly.  She talked about the changes that were coming, like moving into a new house and sharing a life with someone.  I didn't fully get it.  "You love him," I thought, "so what's the big deal?"  

I've heard of weddings being called off, but I never imagined I'd consider such a thing.

And yet, I have.  Several times.  Not a week into our engagement, I sat at Starbucks with one of my closest friends and we talked of my doubt.  "Am I crazy?"  I asked, "I just don't know if our love will last, if I'll love him forever."  She said, "Nope, you're not crazy, but you'd be crazy if you didn't doubt at least a little bit."

A month or so later, I sat in another coffee shop with the same friend and admitted that I was seriously considering calling the whole thing off.  We are just so different: I am a thinker, he a doer; I am a little liberal, he's a little conservative.  Maybe I had made a huge mistake, sometimes the distance from my heart to his seemed so impossibly wide to bridge.  It felt as if he didn't really understand me.  Plus, he is in the military, and I'm not such a fan of this life.  It's so impossibly hard for me to imagine him leaving me for months at a time, so impossibly hard for me to imagine carrying on without him while remaining emotionally one with him.  What does it mean, anyway, to carry someone in my heart?  I'm not strong.  Not nearly strong enough for this life of separation and uncertainty and no control.  I'm not nearly enough for him, for us, for our future family.  I do so much better on my own with a shield around my heart, moving on to new horizons when things get difficult or stagnant or boring.  I do so much better living only for myself.  

A few minutes later, I sat at the piano at the assisted living center that some friends and I visit every Wednesday, and I tried to hold it together.  For that hour, I pretended to be fine.  Inside my world was falling apart.  I imagined my life as it'd be if I called it all off that night.  I felt so impossibly empty inside.  I cried out to God: "what do you want of me?"  "Where is Your heart in all of this?"  "What am I supposed to be doing?"

If I'm to be completely honest, I never heard a voice from the clouds saying I should marry Justin, and I never heard a voice from the clouds saying I should call it all off.  That's what makes it so hard for me: I want to be in the center of God's will, but 100% of the time I am only about 51.3% certain that I have any sense of what God's "will" is.  My faith is fragile and weak.  God's so silent so much of the time.  I entered this relationship with Justin not knowing where it was headed, and at some point I became convinced that we serve God better together than apart.  He felt the same way.  We got engaged.  

As I sat at the piano that night at the assisted living, singing and playing random hymns and pretending everything was fine when it most certainly was not (story of my life), God's presence washed over me.  There was no "yes, go marry Justin."  There was no "no, don't marry Justin."  There was just the knowledge that God was with me, and that I would be just fine.  

Whenever God has shown up in my life, that's how it has always been.  "Daughter, I love you, and I will walk with you through this storm.  Move forward boldly, knowing I am with you."  He gives me the choice to walk either way, and the confidence that He'll walk with me either way.  Sometimes, life is that way.  There are choices to be made, and there's no black and white, no right and wrong.

But I chose Justin.  I choose Justin.  I will always choose him.  In a couple months, I have the insanely high privilege of giving my life and my love to him before God and my family and friends.

This is what no one ever told me about, the doubts that assailed me, the terrifying uncertainty and the pressure of moving from "single and free" to "married and tied down" in five short months, the process of realigning my thought processes and my dreams and my ways of doing life, and doing that all while trying to plan a huge social event at the same time.

I've heard people say that falling in love never happens all at once, that they love their spouse more with every passing year.  I think I understand a bit of that.  With every day I spend with my love, I love him more.  There was a time when I loved him, but could imagine my life without him.  That time has passed, thank God.  The season of wondering if I've made some colossal mistake is past, I think.  Things won't always be easy, our love won't always be perfect, and I'm sure I'll doubt things again, in other forms.  Marriage isn't going to be perfect and easy.  But I have such confidence in our relationship, in the hand of God in our relationship, in His blessing on our future union.  

God is so good to bless us like this.  He's such a good God to not demand of me that I marry Justin, but to allow me to come to that place on my own, where I have the opportunity to try and test it on my own time, and to find it good.  He is so good to promise that no matter what I choose, He'll walk with me.  He's so good.  

God's name be praised.