Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Clinging to the Rock

As I sit staring at this screen, I'm keenly aware that it has already been a week since I last posted...and that I have little desire to write!  How's that for an opening line!  There's a very stiff breeze blowing outside, this first day of December, and I feel like Snoopy wondering if the leaves will ever make it back to the ground, or if they'll be swirling in the air all day.  
  My hesitancy in writing has to do with the very reason for starting this blog.  It has been a difficult couple of weeks.  Where I feel the need for love and understanding, I've been misunderstood and "watched" as though anything I say or do could be used against me.  I know I'm not alone in this sensation...be it a correct or incorrect interpretation of the world I live in.  And so I will write through the feeling, perhaps arriving at an answer...perhaps not.  
   Given:  I am committed to my marriage, to doing all I can to bring both myself and my husband before God's throne on Judgment day, with confidence in the Grace and Mercy of God, and the knowledge that I have lived in the shelter of those gifts as He has given me the ability to do so.  
   Given:  Both my husband and myself are very human, at different places in our respective Spiritual Journeys, and equally gifted at usurping God's place as Judge and Jury in the many trials that come our way as a couple.
   Given:  ...and this is the hard part.  Regardless of how things SHOULD be, I am, and may always be, the partner that emotionally, (and probably spiritually), cares the most about our married relationship.  That puts me in a position of responsibility that I cannot shrug off or angrily shake off as not belonging to me.  I am first and foremost a child of the Living God.  While man may not afford me this dignity...it is still mine.  What God has granted is so.  I am the only person that has the ability to remove myself from the place He has for me.  No one else can do that.  
  So...If I feel shaken, I am the person to cling to the Rock.  If I feel wounded, I am the one that must seek healing.  If I have sinned, I am the one to seek repentance.  HOWEVER...regardless of how those words look on the screen...these movements I make are always with the end goal that WE will be stronger for it...WE will be healed...WE will be forgiven.  It is not personal survival that is the goal...it is Salvation for two who have become one.
   "Likewise you wives, be submissive to your husbands, so that some, though they do not obey the word, may be won without a word by the behavior of their wives..." 1 Peter 3:1  For some of us, submission means simply keeping our mouths shut in the face of difficulty.  ...and therein lies my challenge for today!
       Love is the defining force of my marriage.  I had hoped that it would be our love for each other...romance and happiness.  What I have received and continually seek is something far more...Divine Love and Eternal Joy.  These are guaranteed in the shadow of His wing. What matters is that Love is happening, healing and drawing us.  The pain inflicted in marriage is a gift that sends us running to the Father...and hopefully running back to our spouses with our hearts full of His love and our arms ready to share it. Peace.

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