sunshine on the journey...
The husband is bringing me along on this journey that he is on…I am not sure where it is going, I am not sure what the road looks like, I am not sure what the destination is. I would venture to say that he feels the same way. None-the-less, over Chinese on Sunday we talked NT Wright, in my normal way, I tended to question it all and ask the devil advocate questions. I know what I believe, I know why, I am open to this journey, I just take small steps it seems. I get lost in the semantics sometimes of it all, I want him to be patient with me, I know that he will and that he wants me to go with him.
Sometimes we struggle talking about “big” thoughts together – I get defensive, that shuts him down and causes him to retreat. We have had the hardest time in our marriage finding a balance of even being able to do a bible study together, I begin to feel like a student or a congregation member rather than his best friend. However, for about the last four or five months we have been using the Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants that we both we introduced to in college. It has been so good, being able to read pure scripture and a meditative thought for the day. I think that we have been able to find a common ground on this – so our next big adventure is that we are going to read a book together. I am a little hesitant because I want this to work and fear that I will cause it to fail. We are going to start small and easy and read “Gift from the Sea” together. I am not sure what the format will look like, I think we are going to take a chapter a week – I guess we shall see.
I so want to share in all of these things with him and fear that it is my own, strong personality that often gets in the way. We need to do this, I believe, to help bridge over the chasm we have when it comes to sharing our journey(s).
Other than that, just dealing today with why things are allowed to happen, where He is sometimes in the darkness and hurt, in the sorrow and pain, and attempting to hold onto hope that all things work for good, eventually, and in His time, not ours. A friend of mine is undergoing a stressful pregnancy, they found two white spots on their baby (called Echogenic foci), one in the left ventricle of the heart, the other in the bowel. These are considered soft indicators of chromosomal defects, the most common one, of course, Down’s syndrome. She and her husband have to wait 7 to 10 days for test results and have already lost one baby earlier this year. Some days even when the sun shines down from the sky, it does not provide warmth or comfort or give way to the shadows that are in our lives.
Sometimes we struggle talking about “big” thoughts together – I get defensive, that shuts him down and causes him to retreat. We have had the hardest time in our marriage finding a balance of even being able to do a bible study together, I begin to feel like a student or a congregation member rather than his best friend. However, for about the last four or five months we have been using the Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants that we both we introduced to in college. It has been so good, being able to read pure scripture and a meditative thought for the day. I think that we have been able to find a common ground on this – so our next big adventure is that we are going to read a book together. I am a little hesitant because I want this to work and fear that I will cause it to fail. We are going to start small and easy and read “Gift from the Sea” together. I am not sure what the format will look like, I think we are going to take a chapter a week – I guess we shall see.
I so want to share in all of these things with him and fear that it is my own, strong personality that often gets in the way. We need to do this, I believe, to help bridge over the chasm we have when it comes to sharing our journey(s).
Other than that, just dealing today with why things are allowed to happen, where He is sometimes in the darkness and hurt, in the sorrow and pain, and attempting to hold onto hope that all things work for good, eventually, and in His time, not ours. A friend of mine is undergoing a stressful pregnancy, they found two white spots on their baby (called Echogenic foci), one in the left ventricle of the heart, the other in the bowel. These are considered soft indicators of chromosomal defects, the most common one, of course, Down’s syndrome. She and her husband have to wait 7 to 10 days for test results and have already lost one baby earlier this year. Some days even when the sun shines down from the sky, it does not provide warmth or comfort or give way to the shadows that are in our lives.
posted by Anna at
12:25 PM
3 Comments:
I wouldn't have us any other way, darlin. we'll talk about the other stuff later tonight.
By
Casey Tygrett, at 5:54 PM, August 15, 2006
I fear taking on the teacher role, and sometimes I feel like I inhibit myself to the point of not talking about the things that matter to me, and then later on the road, Susan is shocked to hear what I think. I want to find some way to relate and share without it coming out all explanatory-like. We are coming from very different mindsets and values, so the bridges are often crooked and unstable. It is encouraging to see others building bridges in uncertain weather.
By
Anonymous, at 12:46 AM, August 16, 2006
Corbin, I am not sure what the balance is or how to achieve it – I just know that it is so important and foundational to our marriage. Even if I disagreed with everything he was thinking, I would still want to share in that…being able to go through something together (even if they are different journeys) is a crucial element to a solid marriage.
Balancing between being the teacher and fellow journeyman is a delicate balance, sometimes it works for us and sometimes it doesn’t. I am a leader by nature, not a follower, and so my personality often overshadows whatever he is trying to tell/share with me. But, none-the-less, it has to be shared because we have to know each other in order to relate better to each other. Neither one of us is the same person we were six years ago when we first got married and we have watched each other change and grow and have a hand in each other’s shaping and changing.
I think that you just need to have a humility about it, as he said on his blog, acknowledge that you don’t have the answers, acknowledge that this is important and essential of who you are and wanting to become and that it is something you need to be able to share with her to keep her in tune with you so that she doesn’t wake up one day and realize she doesn’t know the person who she married. Invite her along with you and be patient if her presuppositions get in the way sometimes.
By
Anna, at 8:50 AM, August 16, 2006
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