I'm All-In!

A few times in the last 6 months my husband told me, “Babe I think you are here, but you’re not really here.  I feel like you’re not all-in, like your heart isn’t really present.  All you ever wanted to be was a mom but you just don’t seem happy”.  So I became reflective and thanked him for his honesty and asked if he’d watch the kids while I went to pray and journal through some of that stuff. 

Actually, I did not do anything of the sort.  In reality, I promptly replied with a laundry list of all the things I did from sun-up to sun-down and grumbled about the trials I engaged in every… single… day.  I would clear myself of any soul-searching and turn the tables on him immediately… guilting him and elevating myself, because that’s what mature, healthy adults do, right? 

But when my mind became quiet, against all of my efforts to maintain the noise, I knew he was right.  I was missing, and not in a small capacity.  I was going through the motions every day and fooling myself thinking no one would know I was empty. 

I began surveying my life.  For awhile I retreated far within myself and covered up with “poor me” blankets and drank “I deserve more” tea.  Months maybe.  This was no short siesta.  A wondrous pitty party hosted by… me, attended by… me, and entertained by… me.  But God was there too… quietly meeting me in my mess, as He always does. 

I got to process and say goodbye to the parts of my life that I’d been striving to hold onto… like cross-cultural work, refugees, dreams of overseas missions.  And the picture-perfect marriage relationship that I had in my head for so long that poisoned my ability to accept real life and love through it.  And to my dreams of parenting, which certainly didn’t include 3 children under the age of 4 and one with the challenging special needs of cerebral palsy.  I believe that God was very good to me in the time of self-reflection because I was able to pinpoint the root of my wars within and really wrestle through some tough things.

And what was on the other side?  What it looks like to live fully right where I am.  Where it’s messy, and hard, and ever so stretching.  But where passion, vision and joy are eager rewards from the One who fashioned our family together before the beginning of time.  The more I accept life as I know it, with the fits and runny noses and merry mess-making and diaper blow-outs, the more I am able to forget myself and give beyond my means.  Contentment is turning into thankfulness, and thankfulness has an uncanny way of producing joy.  Deep, deep joy. 

A New Dance - Reflections on 5 Years of Marriage

 

Marriage. 

There was a time (a long period of time) when that word made my stomach hurt.  Literally.  And then it would make me feel joy I never thought would end, and then in a flash it would end and I’d feel the complete opposite of joy again.  Over and over we’d go, dancing together and nailing each step perfectly yet unaware that we were equally participating in a painful and premeditated dance with each other.  A dance we’d learned the steps to decades ago and perfected together over 5 years of time.  A dance of brokenness and of really good intentions coming from handicapped hearts.  Hearts that didn't know a different way.  A hurtful dance that we know too well.  All too well. 

A dance that is winding down more and more each day, thank you Jesus. 

It’s being replaced by an imperfect set of steps reminding us constantly that we don’t know what we are doing but we surely are not going back to the deceivingly comfortable memorized patterns that decayed our covenant for years.  It’s a dance that often causes us to stumble and fall… but now we lend a hand to the one who is down instead of walking away feeling justified and secretly vindicated that the other is sitting in their mess.  A dance that feels wrong in so many ways, but when we search deep enough we see a love that is becoming more and more void of self.  A dance that is beautiful and freeing yet painful in the best ways possible. 

A Jesus kind of love. 

A love that costs a lot, but without strings attached.  A love without motives.  A love that accepts with warmth rather than with stipulations and unspoken expectations.  I am good at that.  A love that doesn’t keep track and doesn’t keep asking the same secret questions, “When is it MY turn?  Haven't I given enough?”.  An other-focused, I’m all in, meet-ya-where-you-are kind of love. 

Ya know, the love God has for us.  Everyday.    

I’m learning slowly that even though we have handicapped hearts with tendencies to revert to patterns we’ve practiced for most of our lives, there is a simple yet profound realization that the love of Jesus is enough.  It is. 

His love, recognized, pondered, received and penetrated into the hearts of people can love impossibly.  And not only that, JOY will flow forth.  Joy.  I’ve been missing a lot of joy. 

Serving one another instead of standing our ground produces joy.  Realizing the other’s deep soul needs instead of cataloging my own neediness produces joy.  Remaining silent and praying produces joy.  Wisdom and discernment to have hard conversations at the right time produces joy.  Waiting on God to fix the problems only He has control over produces joy.  Releasing each other to Jesus produces joy.  And a whole lot of freedom. 

And that God kind of love, that which is natural and other-focused and an outflow of our deep reliance and desperation for Him will penetrate one another’s souls.  Because it’s not our love for one another, it’s God loving us well through each other.