Me:        (Frantically searching, rushed) Have you seen my keys?

Him:      (Oblivious. Completely.) No.

This probably seems pretty straightforward,no?
A question is asked, a question us answered.

Ahhh, but let me take you layers deeper into the world of marriage.

Here’s the setting:  My coat is on.  My purse is in hand.  I am searching around the house for something vital to my going out the door and getting to my destination.  Plus I’m making a lot of very loud and very obvious noises of exasperation.

I know you’re a smart guy.  I know that you can put two and two together and come to the conclusion that I am looking for my keys.  And I already know that you haven’t seen my keys because if you had, I trust that you would not continue to let me run around the house like a mad woman searching for them.

So clearly I am not just asking if he has seen the keys.  You can see that, can’t you??

What I am actually saying is  “Could you kindly help me find my keys?” “I would appreciate your help in looking for my keys.” “FIND ME MY KEYS!”

Now he innocently* believes that he has helped me enormously by answering my question to the best of his ability- an honest, ‘No.’  Then he continues on his merry way, doing whatever it was he was doing.

*I’m being generous.

Unbelievable.  I am obviously in a state of emergency here.  There’s somewhere I need to be.  I am (always) running late.  And now I know that you know that I am missing my keys.  Because I’ve just asked if you’ve seen them.  Which means I have not seen them. And you truly believe that you have done your part in this situation by giving me a two letter, one word verbal response?

So of course my huffing and puffing increases.  He, now sensing that my irritation has shifted from the missing keys to him, the helpful husband, is suddenly offended, and perhaps slightly confused. Now if you take the amount of time it takes to actually recover the keys and multiple that number by 10 you have the amount of time I will stay angry and he will remain confused.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably asking yourself one of two things:

1. Why wouldn’t she just ask for help finding the keys in the first place?
2. Why wouldn’t he just help her look for the keys?

I don’t ask because I assume I should not have to ask.  He doesn’t offer to help because I have not asked.  It’s a vicious cycle.

And I know full well that if I just said, ‘Hey, could you take a minute and help me look for my keys?’, not only would I find them sooner, but I would avoid the next few hours of intentionally giving him only one word responses. (Yeah, I’m petty, and it’s exhausting.) Am I too proud to ask for help?  Possibly.  Do I expect my husband to act or react in ways he may not be wired to act or react?  Frequently.  Is he sometimes in his own little world and is completely missing my exasperated performances; my huffing and puffing; my tossing cushions around and stomping up and down the stairs? Likely.  I really wanted to end this post with a poll asking you who you think the bigger dummy in this story is.  Then I realized that if the results indicate favourably towards my husband I would probably create one of those situations where I display how petty I can be and he ends up very confused.

I know it’s completely unfair of me to assume my husband knows what I’m saying without me saying it.  Granted, sometimes we’re awesome at that.  There are times I can just look at him and know exactly what he’s thinking and he can do the same with me.  But sometimes he’s just really into a book or a game and he isn’t exactly interested in deciphering my hidden messages and signals.

Obviously the ‘read between the lines’ approach is not working for me.  Maybe I should just be direct and ask for help next time.  We’ll see.

But seriously, have you seen my keys??

PS:  Before I posted this I had Chris read it over and here’s the conversation that followed:

Him:     It’s cute.  I like it.  Where’d you get the idea to write it?

Me:        Uhhh, I got the idea from losing my keys.

Him:     When did you lose your keys?

Me:        Wow.  You are completely oblivious aren’t you?

Also, more importantly, I present to you a guest blogger: My sister!

Hey friends! First of all I want to thank my baby sister for inviting me to be her very first guest blogger (and also for teaching me how to use coloured font!!) For me it really is an honour because for any of you who know us personally while it is me who usually has the most to say, it is mostly my sister who says the things really worth listening to. (please don’t edit that part out Mecca Becca).

Just so you know, I have a blog of my own and I get to write whenever I want about whatever I want. But as a guest blogger I feel if I want to be invited back I need to keep in tune with the ‘theme’ of this blog which originally I thought was relationships which would be perfect because I have always considered myself the much older and wiser sister when it comes to ‘relationships’ but then I checked back to her original blog…

Marriage.

Awesome. As the owner of a divorce certificate I had to wonder what I could bring to the blog table other than my failed marriage. And sadly… there are a lot of churches and ‘religious’ folk who would feel the same way.

So I left my husband after 7 years of marriage. *gasp* Trust me, there is nothing I have not heard about about this treacherous act that would surprise me. I once heard that you find out who your friends are when it comes to moving day but I beg to differ… you find out who your friends are when you get a divorce. Or, you will find out who is the most holy in the whole church because you know for fact they have never, ever, been divorced.

But I digress (that’s pretty much the theme for my own blog)… During this 7 years of marriage I was head over heels in love. Almost to the point of it being embarrassing really. And sadly, he was just not head over heels in love with me. So long, long story short… The Big D. Remember a few months ago Becca Chase blogged about divorce in her ‘Truth, CAPS LOCK and BP’ blog?

What stands out for me is the first part… Christians aren’t supposed to talk about the ‘d’ word. I know she is being facetious but I totally get the point she is trying to make. Yes, God hates divorce. Hates it! And trust me, as a Christian, it took me a LONG time to get over the fact that I was going to have to live as a ‘Christian divorcee’ almost more than the divorce itself.

Yeah, being divorced sucks. It can be messy and ugly and nobody ever gets out unwounded.

But you know what? Being divorced doesn’t define me. It isn’t who I am.

It’s just one of the things about me.

**From Rebecca: In the midst of my sister’s divorce she managed to become pretty much the best nurse ever.  So yeah. She’s pretty awesome.  Visit her blog to read about her life and her loves.

So I want to tell you about a couple I know, ‘The Boy’ and The Girl’.  They’ve been married for some time now.  They love Jesus.  Love their kids.  Love to laugh.  And recently, they went through a pretty terrible ‘or worse’ kind of time.  As you read this, just keep in mind that these people I’m talking about could easily be you, save for a few differences here and there.

About the boy:

So The Boy’s a bit of a mess on the inside… (but remember, so are you)…and that led him to some bad choices.  Whatever those choices were doesn’t really matter here.  What matters is that we can all relate.  We are human and that means that our hearts are drawn to bad choices and ugly things.  Eventually that boy’s mess on the inside, which he tried so hard to keep on the inside, ended up on the outside.  And instead of trying to hide it and tuck it back inside where it had been for so long, The Boy decided to just let it all tumble out.

Sometimes the most loving thing a person can do is to let it all fall apart.

That way, the Light can come in.

So this is what The Boy did.  He stopped trying to contain the darkness and he allowed the Light to come in. And, as is the nature of Light, it illuminated the darkness. And it wasn’t pretty.  But most things that have only ever been in darkness tend not to be the prettiest.

I hope you can see how easily this story could be about you and your mess, or mine for that matter.

Our hearts are full of messy, ugly things and more often than not, we’d prefer for the significant people in our lives not to know about those things.  But trying to cover up those messy parts is not what God wants.  He wants you to let the Light in.  There is truth and life and redemption in the Light.

About The Girl:

Women are taught not to let men hurt them. But if they do, we’re supposed to smash their cars and burn their clothes and hit ‘em up and so on.  And if you choose to love The Boy after he hurts you, well then, you will be seen as weak. People will be disappointed in you.  Some people will give you ultimatums, “Him or me!”.  Some people might even write you off altogether.

But this girl that I know, she chose to love The Boy. She chose to stick with The Boy even in all his mess and ugliness.  She made vows at an altar some years ago  and I believe she intends to stick to those vows no matter what.  It could have been easier to walk away and let The Boy clean up his mess all by himself.  I’m sure she would have received more support choosing that route.  But she chose the way of selfless, unconditional love.  Not an easy route by any means, but she can take comfort in knowing that Jesus himself walked down the very same road.

I realize that this is not my story to tell.  And as much as I would love to be able to say that I played an invaluable role in this story, as a giver of wise counsel or encouragement, I cannot.  I’m not exactly a rock in difficult times.  I don’t overflow with words of wisdom and comfort.  I personally took more of a ‘Gee, I wonder how God is going to fix this one’ kind of approach. (Kinda makes you wanna be my BFF right?)

But I hope you can see why I wanted to share their story.  They could so easily be you or I.  Every day we are faced with similar choices to hide the mess or let the Light in; to hold on to our hurt and walk away or to forgive and love.  I am so proud of The Boy and The Girl.  I am excited and hopeful for their future.  I am confident in them because I know they are relying on the God of mercy and grace and redemption to see them through.

I am blessed to have this real life example of Christ’s love for me.

Truth is I kind of came to a standstill with this whole blogging thing once I started to think on all things I want to write about. I am realizing that if I’m gonna blog about marriage, and if I’m gonna talk about what I bring to my marriage, then I have to be and want to be honest. And that is frightening.  Because truth is SOMETIMES ugly.  At least my truth is.

The truth is that SOMETIMES marriage is hard, and SOMETIMES I really suck at being a spouse.  And SOMETIMES it has nothing to do with what is actually going on between Chris and I that makes it hard, but the many relationships I’ve had with a hundred other people* which have somehow, in some way, big or small, impacted my marriage in a SOMETIMES negative way.

*To clarify, I am not necessarily talking about those kinds of relationships, although boy-I-was-dating-without-realizing-it and boy-who-I-was-mean-to-even-though-he-loved-me and boy-I-loved-but-never-told probably all have their places in my marriage schema- oh, schema is a fancy new psychology word I learned.  Look it up.

So these relationships, they’re like a hundred small tributaries that flow into one river.  Marriage.  All relationships up to this point in your life meet here.  SOMETIMES the waters of those tributaries are polluted, dirty, even poisoned.  SOMETIMES they are healthy and vibrant and full of life.  And what’s more is that SOMETIMES it’s not even a relationship you’ve had with a person that leaves the lasting effect.  Maybe it was just one experience.  A conversation.  A instance.  And that instance or conversation or relationship makes a mark on your heart and mind so that,  inevitably, your marriage gets marked too.  You see what I’m saying? The tributaries? The river?

Oh, if you don’t enjoy metaphors, and callbacks to metaphors, and also quotation marks and unnecessary capitalization, then you may not enjoy my blog.

Anyhow, what I’m realizing lately is that to talk about my view of marriage means talking about those people and instances that have left their mark, good or bad, on my marriage.  And that’s the part I worry about.  Because that’s where it gets kinda ugly.

Ok. I’m just going to say it: my parents are divorced. I was 18. It was painful. It SOMETIMES still is. I love them both very much. I even love my stepmother. (Even though the very nature of the word ‘stepmother’ is supposed to instill terror, doom and a general sense of evil -thanks Disney.) I guess I am afraid of hurting them all over again by talking about the effects of their divorce on me. Do they really need a reminder of how much it sucked? Do I really want to address this now more than 10 years later? Do I really want them to read about my feelings and issues on the world wide web? Did I really just say world wide web? Remember in 1994 when that’s what we called it?

Christians aren’t supposed to talk about the ‘d’ word. But for me, divorce is very real, very present, looming, always near. Like Santa.  I have no reason to be thinking about it in the context of my own marriage, but *metaphor callback* it seems like the debris from the ‘divorce tributary’ is CONSTANTLY polluting my waters.

I totally know how the gulf of Mexico feels.  Too soon?

I can totally relate to the man in the apartment below. I can picture him lying there wide-eyed, not wanting to let himself go back to sleep knowing that when he does he will just be startled awake a second time.

I’m tired of waiting for the other shoe to drop. When people close to you are getting divorced or separated- parents, family, friends, good people who serve god, pastors even! – it’s hard not to think that you could be next. I’ve always kind of let this thought take up residency in the back of my mind: I really could be next. I look around me and think, there’s a pattern here and sooner or later I’m gonna conform. A few weeks ago I blogged about ‘expecting the bad’ in our marriages. There is a difference between a healthy expectancy of the ‘bad’ stuff (sickness, job loss, money troubles, etc.) and an unhealthy expectancy that your marriage could collapse any day, just because it fits the pattern or because it’s what you’re familiar with.

I know some of you are playing similar waiting games. For some, what you have known in your homes and what you are familiar with is alcoholism, or abuse, or adultery. You’ve seen the pattern, you know what it looks like, and now you’re just waiting. Waiting for the anger to surface, or for the depression to set in, or for that addiction to take over. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

This morning I read Hebrews 11, and you know how this chapter begins? By telling us that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of the unseen! This whole sense of impending doom that I’ve got going on? That’s the opposite of faith. That’s the result of what I’ve seen with my eyes and what statistics and logic have told me. So yes, if I look around me, I could compile a long list of names that one day Chris and Rebecca Chase could be added to. The list of failed marriages. But I keep reading Hebrews chapter 11 and think I would much rather have our names added to this list. The heroes of the faith. “By faith Rebecca and Chris were united in a strong, godly, loving marriage until they went to be with Jesus.” Okay, so maybe in light of eternity having a lasting marriage isn’t quite as impressive as building an ark or child-bearing at 100 or leading the Israelites out of captivity, but it still counts… After all, couldn’t my marriage be used to glorify God and point people to Jesus? I definitely hope so.

Not the ‘I’m lost in your eyes’ kind of lost.  That’s ugly.  I mean the John Locke running through the jungle kind of lost**.

**If you don’t get this reference, then you probably don’t watch Lost and we can’t be friends.  Sorry.  But please continue reading nonetheless.

When we were first married, I have to admit, I was a bit lost.  I knew that Chris and I were all of a sudden supposed to be this ‘one flesh’, sharing a life, but I had no idea what that meant exactly.  I think I overdid it just a bit.  I wanted to go everywhere with him, do everything with him, like what he liked, dislike what he disliked, you get it.  Spending time alone with God was even hard for me.  I remember thinking, why am I sitting here, alone, in my bedroom when I could just go into the next room and talk about God with my husband.  Eeeeek, I think I just admitted to being terribly codependent.  You have no idea.  That’s a whole other blog…

For those of you that know my husband, you know that he is an extremely like-able person.  He’s very friendly.  He’s always positive.  He’s intelligent.  He’s not a complainer.  He knows how to make people feel comfortable. He’s very funny.  I am shy and introverted.  I am uncomfortable in new situations and around new people.  I hate big groups.  I do not like attention.  I have always been that person that you would introduce yourself to a dozen times, because you just don’t remember meeting me.  I’m a pretty low-key, under-the-radar kind of personality.  So you can see how easy it might be for the person I am to get lost in the person he is.

Now, please don’t think that I have low self-esteem, or that I am fishing for some encouraging words on my glowing personality.  I know I’m a cool person.  Why else would I have started a blog?

It’s just that at the beginning of our marriage, I really liked my husband a lot.  That came out wrong.  I’m not going to edit it.  What I mean is I had been me for the previous 24 years, and all of a sudden I found myself sharing a life with this incredibly cool person who was everything that I wasn’t.  I guess I was deliberately allowing myself to get lost in him.  (Deliberately lost? Ooooh, I am John Locke!)

Four plus years of marriage have gone by, and I can proudly tell you that I’m no longer lost.  Am I still terribly needy, wanting to go everywhere with Chris and do everything with him? Yes… But he loves 24, and I hate it.  He loves U2. Me, not so much. Did I want to go see Avatar with him a second time? No, definitely not.

God didn’t give Chris to me so that I could lose myself in him.  I know that God didn’t accidentally make me an introvert.  I know that I wasn’t just getting by with my weak personality until my husband came along.  I know who I am and I love who God has made me.  But I also see how God has made me better by uniting me with Chris, and likewise, he’s better because he’s with me.  (I tell him that often.)  We make sense.  We work well together.  We’re a unit.  If we were in a large social setting which made me uncomfortable, and someone said something to which I had a funny or witty comment, I would whisper my comment to my husband who would then repeat that comment out loud, getting the laugh for both of us.  Now that’s what marriage is all about people.  Beautiful, isn’t it?

For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, in plenty and in want, in good times and bad, in happiness and sorrow…. Are there any other extremes that are traditionally (or non traditionally) said in marriage vows?

Our car broke down the other day. Definitely an instance to file under the ‘or worse’ category. Of course, it’s not at the top of the list because it’s just a car, but I wouldn’t place it under ‘better’, so worse it is. In the past, I would have thrown a big fit and asked God why He couldn’t just heal our car and save us the burden of having to spend our money on repairs. Now that I’m older and wiser, I throw only a small fit. Yes, it’s just a car. I could have let the stress of those few car-less days eat away at my marriage, but there was no need. Some great friends lent us a vehicle. Chris rarely lets this kind of thing get to him. I love that about him.

I have to laugh at myself when I look back and remember times when I’ve reacted badly to things like this. I immediately go into ‘why-God’ mode. For some reason, even though I stood at an altar years ago and pledged to my husband that I would love him and stand by him in the ‘worse’, I still allow myself to be thrown off when the worse hits.

Ever find yourself there? ‘Lord, I know I said all of those things to my wife/husband when we were married ____ years ago, but I really didn’t expect that they would get sick… I didn’t expect we could actually get any poorer… I didn’t know that there would be this much sorrow…’

Marriage is a holy union blessed by God. But it’s not supernatural. It is the union of a very human man and a very human woman living in a very broken world. So expect the bad. Expect the poorer. Expect the sickness. ‘Rebecca, you’re being all dark and Twilight-y again, where is your faith?’ I have lots of faith! I am confident that when Chris and I find ourselves on the not so pleasant side of the vows we made, we will get through knowing that our foundation is built on a Rock that is stronger than the worsest ‘or worse’!

So here’s my prayer for all of you: that when the bad times come you find yourselves surprised. Not surprised that the bad times have come, but surprised at how deeply rooted in Christ you and your spouse have become. Surprised at the amount of love you have for your spouse even in light of the pain/sorrow/lack of money/broken down car/ etc. Surprised at how much you really meant it when you said, ‘for better or for worse’.

You just became a little worried about me, didn’t you? Don’t worry, just because I may have seen Twilight once or twice and have now [accidentally] died my hair black, it doesn’t mean I’ve turned into a sulky, depressed pessimist.  I can explain…

When I was in Bible College, I had to read a book on marriage for a Church Leadership course.  I cannot remember the name of the book, and I have no idea where it is.  It was by a guy named Mike Mason, and I did not enjoy it.  I remember it being a little too ‘fluffy’ for me.  I think it was the analogy of marriage being like two eagles floating in the sky that turned me off.  But there was one particular view of Mason’s that has always stuck with me.  He basically said that unless our relationships are built on Christ, when we stand at an altar reciting vows to our spouse-to-be, we are making empty promises.  No one could ever love another person as fully and as extravagantly as we claim to in our marital vows.  Yes, we may have all those intentions of self-less, extravagant love, but the reality is that it’s impossible.

I always think of it like the Old Testament Law.  Like Paul says in Galatians, the purpose of the Law was to lead us to Christ.  If we try to attain righteousness solely by obeying Law, then we are under the law’s curse when we come up short.  The Law reveals to us the fact that we are failures, it also illuminates the path to Christ, our Fullness of Salvation.  This is one of my favourite elements of Israel’s history and our own salvation story.  God says to Israel, “I want you to try to live up to this standard I have given you, so that when you fail, and you will fail, you will see how much you need my Son.”  It was all a big set up for the New Covenant.  Love that.

The vows I made to Chris sort of act like the Law in our marriage.  They serve to show me how desperate I am, or should be, for Christ in our marriage.  I come up short time and time again in how I love my husband.  I’m not going to write out a list of all my flaws as a wife.  Just trust me, they exist.  Likewise, I’m sure that flaws exist in all of your marriages.  Please don’t be offended by my assumption, I just happen to know that most of you are human.  Here are some of the things I vowed to Chris:

…to stay by your side as your devoted wife in sickness* and in health, in joy and sorrow, through the good times and bad… to love you without reservation, honor and respect you…. encourage you to achieve your goals… laugh with you, cry with you, and cherish you both now and forever.

(*Was this supposed to mean when’s he’s sick or when I am sick?  Because, to tell you the truth, when I am sick I do a lot less loving and lot more whining…)

As good as my intentions are to love my husband that extravagantly and perfectly, it’s only Christ in me who loves Chris the way I promised to.

So think about your vows today! And think about how much more powerful and true they are because Christ is in your life and your marriage! And if He’s not, then give Him some consideration.  On the other hand, if you believe that you are doing just fine carrying out your vows all on your own, remember that in the New Testament there were some people who believed they were doing just fine following the Law on their own.

Yep, maybe I’m taking that analogy a little far…

And I’m going to blog about marriage.  Not necessarily my marriage, just marriage in general.  Here are my reasons:
1. I read in once of Chris’ ‘Collide’ magazines that if you want to start a blog, it’s a good idea to pick a theme to talk about.
2. I think marriage is one of the greatest gifts God has given us.
3. I want my marriage and my friends’ marriages to be as strong as God would have them be, and, if in any tiny way, what I am writing about can be beneficial then I’ll do my best to keep at it.

And here are some of the challenges I am most likely going to face while writing this blog:
1. Trying not to sound like I have it all figured out, because I certainly don’t.  My marriage is not perfect, but I love it and I love my husband!
2. I don’t want anyone who reads this to assume that just because I am talking about an issue, I have experienced it in my own marriage.  Sure, me and Chris have been though some things, but a lot of insight I have gained is from observing other people’s marriages.
3. If you’re my friend, and you just read that, please don’t think that I am coming to your house to observe your marriage for the purpose of commenting on it in my blog…

My blog is called ‘So We Build’ taken from a song by Nichole Nordeman.  It’s a real and honest song about her struggles in her own marriage and her commitment to rebuild.  Have a listen: