Still Crazy After All These Years

I saw a post on a friend's Facebook page today that was asking about the perfect women who have it all together.  You know the woman.  Her hair always looks good.  She's just been to the gym, but didn't sweat enough to mess up her make-up, just enough to stay in those size two jeans.  She cheerfully totes her kids to every activity: Awanas, Soccer, Music Lessons and has a gourmet, gluten-free meal in the Crock for when they get home to their perfectly clean home.  After supper she writes for her fabulous blog and then she spends the rest of the night making her husband happy he married this amazing woman.  She doesn't exist.

We marry real people.  We are real people.  Ideas like the one above, or the "Christian Version" of her (perfect in ministry, helping the poor on all occasions, never raising her voice at her children, teaching Sunday School, sitting in prayer with friends, her Bible open on her lap every free moment of her life, able to balance her life as a mother, wife, friend and homemaker with her devotional and serving life) just do. not. exist.

We are real.  We are sinners.  We have limitations.  Our spouses are real.  They are sinners with limitations as well.

How Ya' Doin'?

My husband is corny.  He'll admit it to his close friends -- and me -- and our boys.  He is loving, warm, wise ... and sometimes a goofball in the best of ways.  He makes me laugh almost every single night.  Just about every night, I wait.  The boys are in bed, we're out in the living room, and somehow, out of the blue, it comes.  He says something in a way only he can and I have the laugh that makes my day.  Really, not many people can get me laughing like my husband.  And, you know, the best part is, most people don't even know about how funny he really is -- because I married a diamond in the rough and I get to unearth the treasure in him which most people will live their whole lives not knowing.

When we were younger (we were once) and we didn't have children (we didn't once), we were learning this whole "how you do marriage" thing.  And, it didn't come easy.  As a matter of fact, we blew it big.  Our histories were full of brokenness -- the residue of two lives raised in difficult situations with not much to go on as far as what a good marriage looks like.  We had lived lives without Jesus for years, though both of us had come to him outside our family homes at early ages.  We had walked dark roads without God in our lives.  We had left those roads and were seeking Him when we met one another.  So, our early marriage was full of splinters and fragments, not two whole people come together in something holy.  We were figuring this thing out together bit by bit.

What to Count on When You Can't Count on Your Husband

There are some stories that are yours alone.  Others are shared and those remain only partly told because the other part of the story belongs to someone else and it just isn't for you to tell it.  That's how marriage is.  I have friends who have heard those stories -- because my husband knows I need to share them with trusted people and he has opened to that for my sake.  I will share here that my marriage, like most marriages, has  had its hills and valleys.  We have endured trials together and we have regrettably imposed trials upon one another in various seasons.

You see, years ago, people took the idea of a vow seriously.  The committed spoken words of, "I do" meant forever until death and it meant riding out serious highs and lows.  It meant the lows.  It meant sickness, poverty, brokenness, distance, growing pains, bad days, bad moods, PMS, stress, grief, house repairs, car repairs, crises with the children, long work hours and all other sorts of ills which beset marriages everywhere.  God knows what fickle hearts we have and He knows we need a covenant to make us bound together.  We marry and it is one of two covenant relationships in the whole known universe.  The first is the covenant God makes with us.  The second is marriage.  I'm not sure if that knocks the wind out of you as it does me, but it gives me pause to be sure.  In the marriage relationship a spiritually mysterious reality occurs: the two become one.  Have you thought about that lately?  Your husband is one with you.  He's not that guy who is on your nerves or not doing what you want or failing your expectations (though he may be any and all of those too).  He is one with you.

As You Wish

I've been a bit out of sorts since yesterday evening.  I'm not sure what exactly set me off-center, but when I get this way my poor husband can be the brunt of unrealistic expectations and some grumbling.  This morning we bantered our way through a few issues.  For one thing I was frustrated that I ultimately had to step in when the boys were acting poorly.  Sometimes I feel like it boils down to me being strong and taking charge.  I don't really want that role, but I do step into it without invitation when I feel a situation careening into emotional escalation.  At one point my husband was frustrated and told me to stop talking to him about our disagreement.  I flat out said, "no."  He told me again, "Stop talking about this."  I said in a regrettably stubborn tone , "no."  My darling oldest son said, "Someone is going to have to submit here or this will just get worse."

You know how you raise your children to be wise and know God's will and His ways?  This was one of those times when the training sunk in and my eldest was right.  The word -- submit -- hung in the air.  It silenced me.  It brought me back to my senses. 

In years past the very word submit brought about the feeling of fingernails on a chalkboard to my strong-willed nature.  Of course I would submit to God, of course.  But, what about this less-than-perfect (though very lovable) husband of mine?  God wanted me to submit, I know, but I was sure He would understand my need to skirt the issue when my husband fell short of the Bible's mandates to love his wife as Christ loves the church.  I mean, when I know better, why should I submit?  

It wasn't long after I returned to Jesus in 1997 that God brought me in touch with Bunny Wilson who wrote Liberated Through Submission.  Bunny spoke at a women's conference on "Hope, Help, Holy and Free."  Through this talk God brought transformation into my life where formerly there were lies around the subject of submission.  The concept of submission is so misunderstood -- and I was no exception in the way I reacted to this crucial idea in God's plan for relationship. 

One of my favorite movies of all time is The Princess Bride.  In this comedy-adventure a stable boy, Westley, always addresses the  princess Buttercup with the answer "As you wish."  As he says these words, he has a impish gleam in his eye that tells you he is delighting in her very presence and in doing whatever she would wish. 

As I studied submission and made feeble attempts to practice it, I realized something deeper.  When God is asking me to submit, He isn't asking me to submit to my imperfect husband.  He is asking me to submit to HIM.  I don't have to pretend that Christ is standing behind my husband as I submit.  He is present.  His Word tells us wives to "submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."  Submission always boils down to trust.  When I trust that as I let go, God is there, behind the scenes, in the midst, acting on behalf of His beloved, I can submit.  God is inviting me into freedom, not captivity.  The lie is that I must hang onto my will in order to get what will make me happy and safe.  The reality is that when I let go, I leave room for God to move. 

So, after a rocky morning I decided to stop resisting my husband, stop trying to change him, stop focusing on his deficits and start living out what I am called to be: a good and godly wife.  There was a log in my own eye.  I stopped bickering and started serving.  And, sometime in the middle of it all, I said in my heart, "As you wish."  I said it to my husband and simultaneously I said it to God. 

The more I submitted and served, the more I saw what my husband wasn't.  I had been focusing on my twisted view: "He isn't strong where I need him to be;" "He isn't what I want him to be today."  As I served him and practiced "as you wish" submission, I found that I could see what he wasn't in a different way: He isn't mean-spirited; He isn't bossy; He isn't demanding; He isn't an uninvolved father.  Nothing turns a heart around like gratitude. Submission came first and gratitude followed close behind. 

In the Princess Bride there comes a pivotal moment when the Princess becomes aware of Westley's heart behind his words:  The narrator reveals, "And, that day she was amazed to discover that when he was saying, "As you wish,"  what he meant was, "I love you" ... Submission always means, I love you.  The fruit of submission is always inner-freedom.