When you are married with three small children, having a date night is something like a child arriving at an amusement park and staring at the mountains of steel that will soon move his insides in ways he never thought possible but which are surreal and exhilarating. Just the thought of getting to sit at a table and have food delivered to me, just me, especially when it comes in the form of Lettuce Wraps from PF Chang’s, gets me excited. And staring at my husband, even when we have nothing to say, gives me a new appreciation for silence. (And I’m quite aware after re-reading that paragraph at how it could be taken in a sensual way…I assure you that Lettuce Wraps are sensual in their own tofuey, soy saucey, crunchy noodly way.)
Last night, sweet Laura came to our rescue once again after receiving an e-mail that perhaps forcing us to have a date night would be a good thing, given that I really, really didn’t like my husband at the time the words were emphatically typed. Mentioning, “If we haven’t killed each other” always helps too.
After going out to eat, we went to Wal-Mart to get an iron (which I am realizing at this moment, we forgot to buy). While standing in the car isle, trying to decide which refrigerant to buy for our leaky air conditioner in our ghetto van, I found it necessary to have Thomas massage my very achy neck. As I was making the oohing and awing sounds that may have left quite a few employees wondering what was going on in aisle 17, for the first time in about a week, I felt whole. As Thomas compared products, I stood there, peacefully, allowing the humor and seriousness of our evening to ensue in my mind, recalling the conversation we had over dinner. I had shared with Thomas how I doubted God’s goodness and provision for this “calling” He has both burdened and blessed us with. How I was feeling “done” in the sense that we are slowly moving to our destination, all the while living in limbo of trying to embrace the present while longing to be in the future. I am finally to a place where I really, really want to get to Italy, set up camp, and get to work. But here we are, awaiting His timing, His provision. In the meantime, thoughts of doubt and guilt and very earthly frustrations have been nearly drowning me. Here is a word picture of this:
I’m in the ocean, in the midst of drowning…and there is this life-saving device attached to me. As I frenziedly try to stay afloat, the little ring moves with me, waiting for me to notice it, like my friend Joy’s dog. My to-do lists push me under…the calls and e-mails and meetings. Worry and anxiety push me further down. I try to swim, but guilt comes in the form of a giant wave and I’m barely making it to the top.
Little lifesaver, gently knotted around my ankle, bobs up and down, wondering why I haven’t noticed it by this point. It stays on top of the water, moving this way and that as water fills my mouth three feet below. We drift along, moving toward the shore, as the Wind takes us where only It can.
My arms: flailing. Lifesaver: riding the waves like a tanned surfer.
Just as I start to give up, realizing my destiny at this point is to die a sad and lonely death in the middle of a murky sea, my toe catches on something. My other toes begin to feel it too. My feet and ankles are now immersed in this familiar squishy feeling. I press my foot down, as this is my last hope for survival. Sand meets my feet and I straighten my tired body. My head comes up from the water as quickly as it immersed from the womb. I look down and notice that not only is my head above the water, but my neck and shoulders as well.
I look to my right and notice the tube. I grab it for fear that it will float away. It must have drifted out here from the shore. Then I notice it is attached to something and that the something is me. I grab onto it, as I am very weak at this point. It guides me, nearly pulls me, to the shore.
It was my destiny all along. Oh the needless and ridiculous thrashing about. The questioning. The missing out on all of the blessings right in front of me. The exchange of the quiet drifting only to be inundated by waters too chaotic for my helpless body to endure. The Holy Spirit alongside me, pushing me ever so slowly to the shore. Jesus, my companion, never leaving me, attached to me, for that is His promise. The Father, the ground on which I stand when alas I have been too ignorant to receive His Helper and His Son.
And this is the cycle in which, day in and day out, I find myself.
But in that dinner conversation with my newfound friend Thomas (a.k.a. my husband), he reminded me that this is our life, not someone else’s. The way Jesus moves in our lives is not like the way He moves in your life…or the life of your best friend or your brother or your mom. Each of our journeys is so unique. And each story is meant to bring glory to Jesus in its very distinctive hurt, pain, suffering, laughter, joy and contentedness. We cannot take what works in someone else’s life and replicate it in our own.
I was talking to this guy at our friends’ wedding last weekend. He is an actor who has been in a couple films. The one he just finished is about the early years of Billy Graham. He talked about what an incredible opportunity he had to be light among some very broken people in Hollywood. But he also mentioned that the film lacked something because of its secular take on a very spiritual figure. “It lacks the Spirit of God…. it’s told like a story rather than what it really is.”
This is so true in our lives as well. When we try to be someone or do something or live someone else’s life that we were never intended to live, something inside of us dies. Suddenly practicality and earthly comforts and anxiety rush in to meet us in our shirts that are too baggy, our shoes that are too small, our hair that is too long or too short or too pink or too green. Something is off. And I believe others can feel it when we aren’t living a life guided by the Holy Spirit. We thrash about like a tired two year-old.
This past week, I’ve tried to force myself and my family, mostly my husband, into a plan that was my own and not God’s. Sure, my plan makes sense to me. And I bet I could get a list of a hundred people who would agree with my plan. But if Jesus isn’t on the list, what good is it? I only get the wonderful opportunity of becoming a nagging and bitter woman with whom I wouldn’t even want to live (and I’m pretty sure there’s a Proverb about that one…something about it being better to live on the corner of a roof than with a bitter wife. Too bad we don’t have an accessible roof).
But grace and redemption have once again met me in the form of a new day and a very forgiving husband (of course, I must say there is always forgiving to be done on my part as well. For those of you who know us… and I mean “us” in terms of the messy, catty us, you know that my husband needs lots of forgiveness and grace. Almost as much as I do. See, I couldn’t just be the quiet, humble wife that many wish I were. I had to go and insert my pride in here).
