Life As an Afterschool Special

Random thoughts on marriage….

Kim and I play a game with some of our single friends sometimes called “My Husband”. It started one silly night when Tasha, Andrea, Kim and I went out after the Rock. We stayed after chrurch and talked about life and love and singleness until everyone else was gone, and then we ate at a local diner where we laughed so hard I peed two drops. We were being shallow and silly and girly and started to invent “husbands” for each of us.

“Girls I am so glad our husbands are having a boys night so we geet to hang out”

“I know, you and your husband are perfect for eachother”

“Kim remember at your wedding how I sang that song… etc etc”

At the diner we met a whole gaggle of crazy men that tried to convince us to come back to their house for a late night party. We considered for half a second, but remembered our “husbands” wouldnt like that.

Perfect!

I am going to call Kim and see if she wants dinner. I hope her husband doesnt mind.

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Since that time I have swung the pendulem from being a serial dater (a girls gotta eat) to swearing off men all together.

Now I think I am somewhere in the middle.

I still believe in love and romance and some version of fighting for your happily ever after. But I dont need it. I would rather be single and learn how to serve and love and live then be married and be miserable just for the sake of making my imaginary husband real.

Because I want more than the wedding day and the white dress and a fairy tale.

I dont just want the happily… I want the ever after part. The messy part. The coming together because you are better and stronger and a fuller picture of Christ part.

This is the first time in my life I have no man, and no desire for one. I have no crushes. I have no one waiting in the wings… and I am content.

And its kind of an unnerving crazy feeling.

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I was talking to some girlfriends the other day about marriage and ministry, and I said I think I could be really content marrying someone who was in full time ministry and just being a wife and a mother. I would love having people over, I wouldnt mind the 2am phone calls, and I would feel like I was making a difference.

I would feel like I was helping my husband, and that we were a team.

You would have thought I shot womans lib back a hundred years… questions flew at me asking why didnt I want to do full time ministry and why couldnt I serve or make the money etc etc.

And I said I thought that serving my family and my husband and my church would be full time ministry.

And I started to doubt myself . Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am selling myself short.

But I talked to my best friends Susie and Kathy, who are both married to men in the ministry, and they seem content and happy and enjoy their roles.

My theory is life changes and we change and ministry changes with it. Right now I am a single woman. What I do and how I serve will be totally different now than when I am married. That doesnt make one way more righteous, just different.

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Tasha sent me a postcard the other day. It made me laugh really hard…

“But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her out into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt. “In that coming day,” says the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.

Hosea 2:14-16

It’s been a hard year
But I’m climbing out of the rubble
These lessons are hard
Healing changes are subtle
But every day it’s

Less like tearing, more like building
Less like captive, more like willing
Less like breakdown, more like surrender
Less like haunting, more like remember

And I know you’re here
And you’re picking up the pieces
Forever faithful
It seemed out of my hands,
a bad, bad situation
But you are able

And in your hands the pain and hurt
Look less like scars
And more like
Character

Sara Groves

I relate my emotions to music. I think that it’s hard for me to be honest about how I feel a lot of the time… but I can listen to a song and yes… thats it… that is exactly what I want to say.

My friend Susan once sent me a series of mixed cds she called Beauty in the Breakdown… I have listened to them so many times some of them no longer play… They cover the stages of grief, and are wonderfully sad and heartbreaking and encouraging and uplifting.

One of the songs I tend to play over and over is Less like Scars by Sara Groves. I am not sure if it is an example of where I am or where I want to be…

But I am changing…

I don’t know when it happened…

But it is happening.

There is strength in me that I never knew existed. There is a peace that transcends understanding. There is calm below every storm.

I am not at all where I want to be… but I am walking, running, crawling in the direction I want to go.

The truth is I am tired. I am so so so tired. I am tired of looking for love and fulfillment in things that leave me broken and empty and lost. I am tired of lying to myself and to others about what I think and how I feel. I am tired of the fear of rejection and living for the approval of others. Because they fail you. They fall short. You fall short.

I am tired of falling and I am tired of struggling and I am tired of fighting.

But the difference is I continue to fight. The difference is I continue to believe in goodness and truth and happiness and love and faith, not as childish dreams that may or may not be real but as promises from a loving and good God.

And the biggest change is I truly know that all of today’s struggles are temporary compared to the greater joy that comes when we have perservered.

There is always something better.

There is always hope.

I sat down to type out my feelings and expected to write something dark, and brooding, and melancholy. But as I sat here and thought about my circumstances and my life, instead of feeling hopeless I felt hope. Instead of feeling overwhelmed I felt grateful to know there was a God who loved me and protected me and carried me through every trial and tribulation. And who would carry me through this.

It’s been a hard year… but I’m climbing out of the rubble.

I am changing…

My friend Scott introduced me to the music of Damien Rice.

After seeing him live and getting “O” and “B sides” I must say I am in love. IN LOVE.

AMAZING.

and sad.

and hopeful.

and beautiful.

and perfect.

I have had a rough week, and Damiens music has been passionate and soothing. I love volcano and delicate and blowers daughter and cold water (although the end is odd) and I remember is breathtaking and my new favorite.

But the song I have been playing over and over at the moment is Older Chests…

It it mellow and soft and fits my mood.

And since so often other people say what I feel better than I ever could…

“Older Chests”
She broke down the other day, yeah you know
Some things in life may change
But some things they stay the same

Like time, there’s always time
On my mind
So pass me by, I’ll be fine
Just give me time
Time, there’s always time
On my mind
Pass me by, I’ll be fine
Just give me time

Its nine oclock on a saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
Theres an old man sitting next to me
Makin love to his tonic and gin

He says, “Son, can you play me a memory
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man’s clothes”

Billy Joel
Piano Man

I am a creature of habit.

I know that may surprise some of you, because I also pride myself on being spontaneous, a little unpredictable and wild…

But I like habit. I like routine.

Before I stopped drinking (for now) Jeff and I had a standing happy hour date every Friday at the Saloon. I always got Pineapple and Malibu. The bartender knows what I like and makes it well. I like that.

I like waking up early every morning and working out. I like seeing the same workers at the gym every day. I like that they know my name. I wear the same thing and have the same pattern. Monday Wednesday and Friday I run. Tuesday and Thursday I swim. I can’t run on a Tuesday or swim on a Wednesday. I just can’t. I always swim on the same side of the lane and run on the same treadmill. I get frustrated when on someone else is on it. I have even been known to wait.

I take Yoga on Tuesday and Thursday. Elsie teaches it. It bothers me when there is a sub. I tried to take Yoga on a Saturday, but there was a different teacher and it was in a different studio and it felt all wrong so I had to stop.

I go to the local juice shop at work and get the same smoothie several times a week. They know me. They know what I order. They know my name and where I work and they started carrying Diet Mountain Dew because it was my favorite. I like that.

I have the same salad from the same restaurant for lunch almost every day. I get it with extra spinach and extra chutney. I never have to give my name, or explain what I want. They just know. And I like it that way.

I get my nails done every other week by Lena at U2 Nails. She knows my name. And that I like my nails shorter and squared and I like a French manicure or pale pink on my nails and shimmer pink on my toes. I always get a flower painted on my toenail. I hate dark colors. I tip well. If Lena is busy I wait. I only like Lena.

I go to the same local coffee shop all the time. I know the staff, and the owners. I get the same drink. I am regular. I love that.

I think there is so much of my life that is crazy and unpredictable that I secretly crave routine and stableness. Deep down I want to be the girl with roots and a connection.

Or maybe I just know what I like and how I like it, and once someone does it well I like them to continue doing it…

I’ll think it about it… you think about it… and if you come up with a conclusion, you’ll know where to find me.

You said “Ask and you will receive”
Whatever you need
You Said “Pray and I’ll hear from heaven and I’ll heal your land”

You said, Your glory will fill the earth like water to seas
You said “Lift up your eyes the harvest is here the kingdom is near”

You said ask and I’ll give the nations to you
Oh Lord, thats the cry of my heart
Distant shores and the islands will see your light
as it rises on us

We sang that at the Rock last night.

I love that song.

I have so many good memories attached to it. The first time I heard it was when I came back to Minneapolis for the Rock Retreat the first year after I moved to Ohio. The song struck a huge cord in me and I went back to Ohio, bought the CD and played it for Amy and Erica. We played it over and over and it became an anthem for ministry in the bottoms. Then we went on a mission trip to the Philippines and the worship band played it there. It just confirmed how no matter where we are in life we are all united in our vision and love of God.

I have been thinking a lot about that lately.

I went home last weekend for the first time in almost a year.

It was so good to see my family, to see old friends, to be surrounded by people who love me and care about me. Just to spend time in the arms of people I love, and see their face light up, and be able to hold my new nephew was such a blessing to me.

It was also very very hard to be in a place where memories are still so strong and fear is so real and in so many ways danger is still literally just around the corner.

The first night I slept in my old house with my sister I couldn’t sleep, so I went down to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

And as I stood in the room that was once so familiar memories came flooding back. Happy memories of times with friends and my sister baking and laughing and entertain. And then the horrible memories of Matt and what he did in the room.

And I sat on the floor by myself in the dark and cried. Angry sad tears for what I had and what I lost and surprisingly, grateful happy tears for what I am regaining.

There is more to tell about the weekend, and about Matt, but I don’t have the time or emotional energy to get into it all right now.

But I have so many thoughts rolling around in my head that I needed to sit down and write some of them out, and make them black and white.

What amazed me most about my trip home why the kids. To see the faces of the kids I invested so much time and energy in when I did ministry with youth for Christ gave me such great joy and broke my heart all at the same time.

I miss the passion I had. I miss the joy that comes with giving your life and time so fully. My sister, Amy, and I had moved to the bottoms to be a light. To be a safe place for the kids and the women that were lost and broken and hurting. And it was so hard and it was complicated and at the end of the day so completely worth it.

I wrote so many “horror” stories on my blog about the kids and life in bottoms, but I loved it.

Because it mattered. It made a difference.

And I miss that. I know I needed to take time off ministry to heal, and to grow, and to be more real so I can be better used… but in so many ways I have grown complacent and selfish. I stopped looking at the world around me and the brokenness and the need and started to only look inward and even upward, but almost never outward.

And I know that God comforts us so we can comfort other people. I know calls us to lay down our lives and serve him. And I am so much happier when I am being used. Being home reminded of that.

So how do I find the balance? How do I take the time I know I need to heal and to grow and still serve, still love, still make a difference?

Any ideas?