Marriage - cruel but beautiful

Have I commented before on my paradoxical feelings about marriage?

I’m not sure.

But when I hear about shootings tearing families apart it breaks my heart. Into pieces. Lots and lots of pieces. For lots of reasons. But the couples who are torn apart is really getting me these days.

I remember a time when I was happy without a husband at my side and a ring on my fourth finger. Where I felt unattached to most everything in this world. Where the thought of losing certain things or even certain people was terribly painful, but always bearable. I felt like if I lost some of my closest relationships, life would stop for a while, there would be a lot of grief, and then eventually I would pick myself back up and learn to walk on.

But marriage has taken that ability away from me. The ability to imagine a world that would be okay if I was in it and my husband was not.  

I really can’t fathom it.

I’ve tried, when confronted with stories of others losing their beloved. But all I see is myself, in bed, with pillows, blankets and piles of Kleenex. And I can’t imagine moving on from that place. He is so much a part of me that the thought of our lives being separated seems cruel. It almost makes marriage seem cruel. Because chances are, please God no time soon, but one day, one of us will leave before the other. And from day one, I’ve told him that it better be me.

There’s a part of me that thinks this is beautiful. That after knowing a man for only 2 years and a few months, I could feel so deeply connected to him. But I’ve known plenty of people for 5 times than length of time and haven’t ever quite felt this connected. I’m pretty sure it’s the marriage thing– it’s the grace of the Sacrament and the act of marriage that creates this bond that just doesn’t exist elsewhere.

If you know me, you know I love my family. And was terribly nervous to leave home and move across the country. But never have I looked back or wished I had passed on this man for someone more ‘local’. The thought just doesn’t exist.

I don’t really have a place I intend to end with these thoughts – but reading about the young, pregnant woman whose husband is in critical condition because of the Batman shooting is painful.

I guess this all reminds me of a couple things

1.   Marriage is so unique – it’s a beautiful, sacred, deep, unifying relationship that takes two lives and welds them into one. My experience of marriage makes me feel increasingly sad about the rising rates of divorce in the world.

2.   Some people say that for women sex is unifying and for men it’s physical. But I think it’s both for both. And the unifying bit is terrifically powerful. And I’m surprised that some people seem to be able to entirely remove this component from an act that so physically screams unity.

3.   God is so smart – His design of the world, of males and females and of the sacrament of marriage is brilliant. And living out this part of His plan for my life reminds me of His brilliant mind.

4.   There is a serious and significant role for single people in the world. The choice to be single seems to be less well accepted in society, but marriage really does change you. And your relationships. And the way you interact with the world. And St. Paul obviously knew this when he talked about being single for God. I wonder if people miss this call because of the pressures of the world…

Anyways – I love being married. I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

It’s not all roses and chocolates. And it’s not right for everyone.

But I think God called me to this place in my life. And I really do love it.

… but still, I better go first.

3 months of marital bliss :)

So we’ve been married for 3 months.
The time has flown by – and I’ve been surprised by a few things along the way

1. I didn’t expect to lose this much blood – moving away from home, cleaning a house and cooking 3 meals a day is not for the weak of heart (or short of blood). The number of opportunities in any given day to cut myself, bang my elbow or stub my toe are infinite, and I like to take advantage of nearly every one of them. Over the last 12 hours I’ve developed a great 1st degree burn on my wrist from the kettle steam and cut my thumb while washing our mandolin. And there’s still a good 3 hours before the sun sets.

2. I didn’t know how unhappy I was – haha, not actually. Before we got married, I was happy. I wanted for little and loved the life I lived. But HOLY TALITO – there’s more. My baseline happiness level (if you will) has shot through the roof. And the clouds. And the stratosphere (while we’re at it). And it’s wonderful.

3. The misunderstandings are good – before we got married, we filled out this questionnaire (one of the – do it yourself first and then compare answers – things). One of the questions asked about expectations for disagreements in marriage. My dear husband selected the rather optimistic – as long as we love each, we will never fight. Though we really do love each other (promise!), misunderstandings and bruised emotions have come. And they’re not fun when they exist. At all. And forcing ourselves to talk about things (which really is a - choose to exert my will over doing what my flesh would rather do because it would rather mope and be angry and pretend I have the higher ground- thing) has been really good. As an opportunity to humble myself. To serve. And to do the hard thing. (Because that’s what I committed to do). And THEN, Jesus is SO nice and rewards this decision by overwhelming me with floods (literally) of love for him (dare I say, more than before we disagreed!). It’s PHENOMENAL. And so, while I wish never to disagree again, if we do, I will forget myself and do everything I can to better love and understand him, with the knowledge that we WILL work things out and find joy in our relationship because of it. Tell me that isn’t amazing! (it is.)

4. Sex is certainly meant exclusively for married couples. That is all.
(until you’re about to get married, then you can ask me to tell you more things, and I will. Wink.)

So that’s 3 months of marriage. Done. Check. Finito. 1000000 months to go. HURRAH.

I’m shockingly happy out in Alberta, even though I’m far away from nearly everyone I know and love. But I still love you. And pray for you. And look forward to the next time I see you. Embrace you. And share a smile.

Marriage.

So I’m married.
In fact, we’re married.

My husband (ah) often by habit will talk about ‘his wedding’ or ‘his (future) children’ and I’ll naggingly suggest to him that those things are in fact ours. So let me not fall fault to this trap – we are married.

Wow.

Everyone asks what it’s like, what’s different, what’s so great, how does it feel. These are hard questions to answer. But here are the answers: Marriage is wonderful. Everything’s different. It’s all great. And it feels amazing. And beautiful. And blessed. And challenging. And sanctifying. And more.

I normally sit down to blog with purpose. I actually do have something quite unrelated that I’d like to write about. But I feel strange blogging as per usual without somehow addressing this huge and wonderful change.

The cursor blinking endlessly on this nearly blank screen; however, suggests this is all the addressing I have to do for now. I think this new union will be the source of much that is to come – lessons to be learned, adventures to be undertaken, pain to share, joys to delight in… but for now it’s just bliss. Post-wedding euphoria. And I’m delighted to enjoy it (:

Although, before I forget – here are some wise words for any betrothed, and words I would like to be reminded of myself, if I should ever forget them…

The week before we got married, I went to confession with a wonderful priest… it was one of those confession line-ups you stand in forever where the people before you disappear up to confession for 30+ minutes and then you’re torn between jumping to a line that’s moving faster and staying where you are because that Priest has got to be full of wisdom if he’s talking to her for so long. This time I chose the latter – and this was my reward:

We got talking about getting married and things and he told me this – you are being called to marry this man. This marriage is from God. He is giving you the best. Now, it will bring great joy, and it will bring pain. You will laugh, and there will be tears –don’t be upset when the tears come… this is all part of it. And then he told me - strive to be the better lover. When you are upset with each other, don’t sit around and wait to be apologized to. No, it is a race. Race to apologize first. You do this with everything. God is giving you the best. Now, it is up to you if it will stay the best or not.

I like that.
And am committed to doing my best to protect this best marriage I have been gifted with.

The language of a child

I have a friend who’s becoming a speech language pathologist. She really enjoys the pediatric population and spends a lot of her time working with kids. We had dinner the other day and she was telling me about how sometimes parents bring their kids for their first visit when they’re 4 or 5, at which time their language development should be well on their way. These kids she sees; however, have a lot of trouble with language. Specifically she told me about one girl who couldn’t make most of the consonant noises we need to make in order to speak intelligibly. And this child first came to see them at age 5, when ideally, she should have been in at age 2 or 3.

Now, the reason it had taken so long for her to come in was because her parents didn’t recognize that she had a problem. There’s this really neat phenomenon whereby parents are often able to understand their children’s communication that the rest of us would be fully unable to decipher. And this had been the case with this young girl, leading to a delayed recognition of this problem until she finally went to school.

So, I think that’s how God is. I think when we pray, our words are often wrong and we don’t know what to ask for or how to pray. We want what is good, we want our friends’ troubles to be eased and our families to be reunited. But I certainly don’t always feel like I know how to ask for that. There’s this funky balance of asking for what I want and think is right and then also just asking God for His will to be done.

As I heard this young girl’s story, I thought it was a beautiful illustration of how our Father hears us when we come to Him in prayer. We may not always be eloquent, we may not ask for the right things or use the rights words – but I think we can certainly be assured that just as a parent understands their child, so, too, does God our Father. He hears our cries, knows our intent and is always faithful to respond.

With this assurance, I think we ought to throw ourselves recklessly into prayer. I think it’s our job to get on our knees and trust that the spirit of God will guide as we pray. I think we need to beg for mercy for ourselves, our families, our friends and our country. And I think we will never be disappointed if we trust that God will do with our prayers what is good and right.

Be warned. but not afraid.

Nobody tells you that growing up is hard.

But it is.

We sort of wander through life when we’re younger – we grow. We develop. We change.

We make friends and we lose friends. And that kind of hurts. But good things seem to follow the bad and we have a path to follow so we keep breathing, keep walking and keep trodding, one foot in front of the other.

Elementary school ends and high school begins. A new set of changes. New situations, circumstances and pressures. New stereotypes to grapple with and relationships to navigate. Things change, but they’re changing in everyone our age, so we walk forward. Perhaps with some trepidation, but we do it knowing that it’s the next step in our life and we walk it with our peers.

When I finished high school, going to university was as easy a decision as going to high school. It wasn’t something that required intense discernment. I certainly thought about the program I would enter and the career it would lead me to, but the actual going to university was easy. So it was for 98% of my graduating class. Faced again by so many unknowns, but assured that we would all face them, there was comfort in the collective unknown.

But when university ends – so do all the givens.

The path is no longer straight and the road is no longer marked.

Everyone born in 1987 has ceased to go where I am going and where they are going, I am not.
Here marks the end of the easy and the beginning of the hard. Here we find the necessity to grow up and to grow apart. Faced again with a myriad of unknowns, the collective unknown is no more. This is now my unknown. It is my choice. It is mine to discover, to face and to embrace. If it’s hard, it’s no longer hard for my entire birth year – it’s just me, and the hard.

And it is hard.

My temptation is to steer clear of this individual growing, choosing and changing. My temptation is to cling to what I know and to find others who will do the same. Because what lies ahead could be anything. And if it doesn’t work for me, it’s now just me who’s made a mistake. And if it’s challenging, I may be the only one challenged. And if I feel alone or scared or unsure, I am no longer certain that I am in good company.

But if I give in to this temptation, if I refuse to move forward and continue to move sideways, I fail.

I fail to become the one I am created to be.

So I choose to walk forward. And I feel a sense of ‘my own’ as I walk this solitary path. For it is on this path that I will discover the plans that have been laid out for me. It is on this journey of mine that I will hope and seek to discover the why behind who I am.

But I will not be deterred by the hard.
I just warn you that is.

Preserved for a purpose.

My fiance and I were in a pretty serious car accident about a month ago. The police man at the sight said that when he saw the car rolled on its side, windows smashed to pieces, he expected to find two dead bodies. Yet, we walked away with nothing but a couple bumps and bruises to show for our near brush with death.

I suppose this is the type of incident that often leaves one with a newfound sense of purpose and passion and enthusiasm for life. And as I reflected on this sort of expectation, and tried to decipher whether or not I was experiencing it, someone remarked to me that my life must have been preserved for a purpose. That there was yet work for me to accomplish before I left this Earth. That God didn’t just protect us for fun, but for a reason. And I thought that was pretty exciting.

But then as I thought about it some more, I realized we all come pretty close to death on a regular basis.

If you’re a teenager or young adult in the Western world, every time you get in a car, you come about as close to death as you can be for those years of your life. With car accidents being the number one cause of death in young people, you’re cutting it pretty close every time you choose to buckle up.

At one time after our accident, I remember feeling kind of jipped – knowing that I could have been closer to heaven if the cops had found what they had expected. It was a fleeting thought – but I don’t think it’s without basis. Though this Earth has much goodness and joy to offer, I firmly believe it doesn’t hold a candle to what Heaven will be like. And I don’t believe God desires to keep us from the joys of Heaven. It’s not as though we’re just killing time until we grow old and fat and have heart attack. Nope, I think our days are quite intentional.

So every time you get in a car and arrive somewhere safely, I daresay you ought to count your blessings. But more than that, perhaps we ought to realize that we made it to our destination safely for a reason. That our presence on this Earth still matters. There are people to know, smiles to share and lives to affect. Just as I was preserved, so too, were you.

The plans of our God are not loosely thrown together.
You’re alive, when you could be dead. Your life has been preserved, where others have not been.
There is yet work for /you/ to do

… so get to it.

Much has got to be expected

I’m doing my psychiatry rotation right now, and I’ve most recently spent some time working in child psych. And every day, without fail, I hear horrific tales of broken and desperate and completely dysfunctional, unacceptable childhoods.

[ That’s the case more often than not – though occasionally we have patients who were raised in supportive, functional families ]

Anyways – the more I see this, the more I find myself (1) thanking God for all that He has given me and (2) asking Him why He did.

I know a few things:

I know He doesn’t love me more that the people who walk in to our clinic. I don’t think for a second that He doles out blessing, or circumstances for that matter, based on how much He loves His children. Nope – we’re definitely all loved equally.

I know that having a mental illness means a lot of hard work in order to get well. Between medical and psychotherapy options available today, it’s a commitment – and regardless of how you go about it, it’s a long and challenging road. And it’s one that impacts many of those who surround you.

I know Luke 12:48, where Jesus straight up says: From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.

And I know that I’ve been given much.
And I feel like – I haven’t taken this responsibility seriously enough in the past.

My path has been made straight. I’ve been given everything (and more) that I needed to succeed.
I’ve wanted for nothing. And that just isn’t the reality of the majority of the world.

So I don’t believe that I’m meant to sort of float through the world wearing nice clothes and buying nice cars. I believe I’ve been given so much in order to do much. I believe that God uses us, because human hands and human feet are His best tools on this Earth. And I believe my job is to surrender fully to whatever plans He has – and to expect that they will be hard and they will require sacrifice, and to not expect that is just plain insanity.

If not us who have been given everything – then whom? Those who are born in to poverty? Those who are struck with chronic illness? Those who are struggling to pay their bills?

Get me not wrong – every single person has a significant role to fill in God’s great plans; but if we find ourselves expecting things of others with less fortunate circumstances, then we best be willing to step up and drop everything for anything that God calls us to.

MUCH IS REQUIRED.