Marriage

Blood, The Color of Love

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I reached up and opened a card. It looked promising. I read the inscription which dashed all my sentimental hopes. My only hope these days for meaningful inscriptions is a blank note and my own pen.

Valentine’s Day gets a lot wrong. Romance for romance sake. Elaborate, one-time displays of affection honored more than the constancy of daily warmth in the grind of life. Crude and scoffing cards meant to illicit laughter at the expense of respect.

But, it gets one thing right. The color of love is red.DSC_0039

Red is the color of blood, the color of oxygen infusing a liquid that brings life to the body. Red is the color of the dirt from which God created man in His image. God delighted in man. God loves humans. God loves you. God loves me.

Then, God loved enough to take on a body that pumped blood. After that, He loved enough to be tempted in every single temptation. He knows our pain, our sorrow, our sin. He took on all the hurt, pain, wrong, and disgusting perversion of every person on the planet and bled for it.

The color of love seeped through the pores of His skin and offered us release from death. We, the living dead, can be born from above.

Last year and again this year, I read the uproar about movies and porn and abuse, my heart aches and it was and is appropriate to grieve. Grey is what we get when we forget that love requires the unselfish giving of ourselves to another.

Grey is the color of death and death brings mourning…or it should.

But, red. Red is the color of life.

 

Blood, The Color of Love

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

I reached up and opened a card. It looked promising. I read the inscription which dashed all my sentimental hopes. My only hope these days for meaningful inscriptions is a blank note and my own pen.

Valentine’s Day gets a lot wrong. Romance for romance sake. Elaborate, one-time displays of affection honored more than the constancy of daily warmth in the grind of life. Crude and scoffing cards meant to illicit laughter at the expense of respect.

But, it gets one thing right. The color of love is red.DSC_0039

Red is the color of blood, the color of oxygen infusing a liquid that brings life to the body. Red is the color of the dirt from which God created man in His image. God delighted in man. God loves humans. God loves you. God loves me.

Then, God loved enough to take on a body that pumped blood. After that, He loved enough to be tempted in every single temptation. He knows our pain, our sorrow, our sin. He took on all the hurt, pain, wrong, and disgusting perversion of every person on the planet and bled for it.

The color of love seeped through the pores of His skin and offered us release from death. We, the living dead, can be born from above.

Last year and again this year, I read the uproar about movies and porn and abuse, my heart aches and it was and is appropriate to grieve. Grey is what we get when we forget that love requires the unselfish giving of ourselves to another.

Grey is the color of death and death brings mourning…or it should.

But, red. Red is the color of life.

 

Puzzling Together

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 2 Comments

On a lazy summer night my husband opened up a 1,000 piece puzzle.  We spilled it out on the puzzle mat.  All 1,000 pieces lay there before our eyes and we set to work.

Some pieces went together so easily!  Distinctive marks helped us find matches and edges.  We made progress fast.  Then we approached a large section of turquoise.  We stalled a bit.  One Saturday the kids watched The Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston (kids love that movie…and it’s very long).  We knocked out whole sections in a nigh on compulsive frenzy.

Now, we plod through the last weeks of summer which coincide every year with our marriage anniversary.  14 years now.  I felt like writing about marriage but I wrestled and wrestled finding words for such a mystery.  I forced out a few first lines and they felt…well…forced.  What to say about marriage?

My eyes rested on the 1,000 piece puzzle and all the blue sky that we fiddle with every day.  The blue sky is the hardest part.DSC_0246

14 years ago we married and dumped out all the pieces of ourselves and began putting them together.  Some pieces fit easily.  We believe in the same God.  We pull in the same direction.  We complement each other.  We are punctual.  When we began, though, I honestly thought more parts of the puzzle would fit together easily.

Some took a little time but with a little effort, we figured it out.  My love language, his love language.  Sometimes we worked hard, sometimes we didn’t work so hard.  At times we see how far we’ve come and smile and other times we see how far we have left to go.

Then there’s the expanse of slightly shaded blue sky pieces.  The tough parts of the puzzle that we just have to fiddle with to fit.  Pieces we look long and hard to match and do only to move to the next indiscriminate piece of the puzzle.

The puzzle on our table will finish…someday soon I hope.  Our marriage puzzle will never finish.  Some pieces will just elude us this side of heaven, those silly blue sky pieces!

But this week we celebrate 14 years and enjoy the view of the journey.

I do enjoy the journey.

The Art Journey

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My husband dreams of buying an original piece of art one day so we stray into art galleries on our rare weekends away.  We stroll through discussing what we see.  What we like.  What we don’t.  Picking out that original piece of art gradually changed from a notch on our belt…something to hang on the wall and accomplish, a box to check, into a marriage journey of sorts.

A few years passed before I took my husband seriously.  Buying this original piece is a life dream of his.  I like art and I like original art but I tend to be, how shall I say it?  Cheap.  My husband is frugal and between the two lies a great chasm.  The cost stared me down for years, a barrier to enjoying our art gallery browsing.DSC_0069

At one time, my husband liked the “painter of light” and I most definitely did not.  The ensuing years fleshed out how I felt and forced him to define why he liked what he liked.  Too perfect, too defined, too cliché to me.  Safe, complete, harmonious, calm to him.  I looked at Kincaid in the mall and understood the peace he craves in contrast to the chaos of his upbringing.  I still don’t like Kincaid or art in the mall but I understood why he liked Kincaid.  He began to understand me too.  He began to appreciate the messiness in art that describes so much of life.  The play of colors slashed across a canvas whispered to him and then he understood me just a little more.  Life is messy.

Eventually I embraced our quest for original low-end art.  I accepted my husband’s dream and took it on as my own.  Now I dream the dream as well.  We finally realized with a spark of shock after 14 years of marriage that the pilgrimage to our piece of art is more about our marriage than the art.  Through art we discover each other.  As my love for a style I don’t even know how to name clashes with my husbands mild distaste for same said style, we meet, my husband and I.  We discover each other.  We grow and change and put words to the changes through the media of brush strokes and colors on a canvas.

I feel we never will find our piece of art.  Our search spans like a railroad track that veers closer and closer but never quite meets this side of heaven.  In fact, I almost oppose actually purchasing a piece because I enjoy the journey so much.  Wandering the streets of the world and popping in shops…talking about us through art.

The blank wall remains open filling up with more than the permanence of a painting.

What place does art take in your life?

Faith and Footballs

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The doorbell rang.  A package!  A big package arrived at our doorstep.  An unexpected package!  I called my husband at work, “Come home! We got a package!”  The kids and I mused about the contents.  Something amazing for sure!

We waited in anticipation as the box opened revealing…a full-sized football complete with a stand.  We love football but we sighed and laughed at ourselves in disappointment.  It wasn’t as cool as our imagination imagined it to be.  You see, it is a full-sized football with a stand but it is a wooden full-sized football with a stand.

The thought of a hail Mary thrown by a 6-year-old inside our living room sent the wooden football to my husband’s desk at his office.  It sits on his desk bringing smiles to the Americans that come through from time to time.   Something pretty to look at but completely useless…laughable.

My “faith” is not unsimilar at times, a pretty wooden football for looking at but completely hurtful when I try to use it, as though faith can be used.  Strong, solid, and hard.  Unforgiving.

Real faith is made of my skin ready to be shed for others as He shed it for me.  Am I putting my skin into relationships?  It’s painful but I’m trusting it’s the pain that leads to life.

Descending to Realism

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Idealistic.  13 years ago I puzzled over what our premarital counselor revealed to us.  We idealized marriage and each other.  I vaguely connected that idealism and marriage didn’t mix.  That idealism would be some kind of obstacle to be hurdled in our marriage.  Idealism sounded good though.  The way our counselor approached it started 13 years of occasional yet persistent head scratching.

Pessimistic.  The opposite of idealistic?  Who would get married?  Why would anyone get married if they sincerely had such low hope of success?  I’ve never seriously thought our marriage would end in divorce even on the lowest days.  Is that pride?  To think we’ll escape?  Or is it idealism?

Realistic.  Living in what is.  Recognizing what is true–the true state of myself and my husband.  It’s quite the comedown from idealism but not nearly so depressing as pessimism.  Realism is the path I’m on now.  Who am I…really?  Who is he…really?  Who is God in all of this reality?

Releasing idealism feels like a denial of what God desired in marriage.  But, even that seems to be imprisoned in idealism.  What did God really say about marriage?  Not nearly as much as I’d like Him to say, that’s for sure!  Respect, love, sacrifice, honor, submit, multiply, cherish, nurture, unify.

My most recent ponderings on marriage come from a 30-something single guy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  Marriage is a “yes” to God’s earth.  A “yes” to living in the present world God created and the present world that is fallen.  In marriage we worship God in His humanity and His deity.  In marriage we need not hide anything from God.  We steal nothing from “behind His back”.  He is spiritual and physical.

There’s much I’d like to cover.  There’s much my husband would like to cover.  The path for us is choosing to trust God by laying everything before Him together.  It doesn’t always happen.  Reality.