Maybe we’re getting old…

It is a monumental task to get five kids cared for and arrange for a date night.  I know all the books say that you really need to do it every other week but for us, every other month is doing pretty good!  A few months ago we bought tickets to see our favorite musician.  It wasn’t till a month later that we figured out he was opening for another artist and wasn’t the main attraction.

That was okay with us.  His music came into our life at a critical juncture and will probably forever and always be tied in our minds with the rebuilding of our marriage and renewing of our love for one another.  So, we figured any other music that night would just be a bonus.

Last night was date night, finally.  I spent the drive there worrying about details.  Had I gone over everything, prepared it all well, forgotten any instructions?  We sat down in the theater downtown in the big city and I worried about it being earthquake safe.  I calculated how Phineas would survive without me to feed him.  I smiled nervous smiles and tried to be ‘all there’.

Then there was music.  There were words that expressed my very own heart.  My whole body could feel the sound, my whole heart could hear the words and all the worry vanished for those 45 minutes.  It was clear a large part of the crowd was there for the very young pop artist who was the ‘main event’.  We felt a bit old.  A bit over dressed.  And we were.

It’s fairly likely I was the only was with tears streaming down their face in the crowd of a couple thousand people as he sang these words:

Breathe in, breathe out,
Move on and break down,
If everyone goes away i will stay.

We push and pull,
& I fall down sometimes,
I’m not letting go,
You hold the other line.

Cause there is a light in your eyes, in your eyes.

Hold on hold tight,
From out of your sight,
If everything keeps moving on, moving on,
Hold on hold tight,
Make it through another night,
& everyday there comes a song with the dawn,
We push and pull and I fall down sometimes,
I’m not letting go,
You hold the other line.

 

Somehow (by Grace, really, only Grace) we’ve learned to breathe and how to hold on and how to get up.  How not to let go when one more night seems like a lot to ask.  How to love quiet and strong.  We’ve said it loud with our choices and actions, I’m not letting go.

I rested my head on his shoulder and took a deep breath.  So thankful for something to love and enjoy together.  So incredulous at the power of music and words and God to sew hearts back into one piece.

As Mat Kearney wrapped it up for the night and the next musician stepped up we were caught up in giggles watching him dance and prance and sing about butterflies and flowers and sunshine and snowflakes.  Really, snowflakes while dancing on tiptoes?  Kids around us squealed in absolute glee while we shook our heads.  After almost two songs and a whole lot of laughing, we whispered to eachother that we should go and use our time away wisely.  We found a place to sit and talk and laugh and relish the gift of time we’d been given.

And we’re learning…its the best gift.

Testify

Twelve years ago today we walked down the aisle to these words:

For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love
I’ll be a witness in the silences when words are not enough
With every breath I take I will give thanks to God above
For as long as I shall live
I will testify to love
(Avalon “Testify”)

We didn’t give it much thought, love was easy and simple.  We’d waited 4 years to marry, dated through our last two years of high school, been through lots of ups and downs and at the time our very union was testimony to God’s faithfulness.  It really was.

We were idealistic and hope-filled 21 year olds.  All of life spanned before us and it seemed so very grand.  We made plans, dreamed dreams and forged ahead together.  We paid $427 a month to rent a tiny campus apartment that overlooked a lake while we finished college.  I think I threatened once or twice to go back to my parents.  Oh how young I was.   I made coffee and he made disciples as he led the youth group at our church.  He thrived and I watched his passion explode.  We studied hard and graduated together.

While on a missions trip to El Salvador using pit toilets and doing manual labor every day, a pink line rocked our world and we grinned all week as we kept our little secret.  We bought a tiny pair of brown sandals there and flew home on our own cloud as we pondered the parenthood journey we were about to embark on.

Years passed, more babies entered our world and the thriving, passion-filled man faced a lot of challenges and work became something different.  I filled my heart and my life with a job that I loved.  Church life wasn’t all sunshine and roses.  People weren’t perfect, we weren’t perfect.

We walked out our days and our lives in the best ways we could.  But we hurt each other.  A lot.  At the bottom of a spiral that seemed to last forever, we realized a choice had to be made and we chose each other.

Hard work.  So much of it.  So many words and tears.  We found little things to love together.  Like music.  And somehow these words came to be true…

And I don’t care if everyone knows what we’re going through
‘Cause all the roads lead back to you

On and on and on we pray, we can break into a brighter day
Nothing worth anything ever goes down easy
On and on and on we go, I don’t understand this windy road
Nothing worth anything ever goes down easy

And we’ll keep on, keep on climbing on down this narrow line
So we can see the other side, the other side
(Mat Kearney “On and On”)

Weeks, months passed and the ‘other side’ ever so slowly found its way onto the horizon.  We vowed without words really, that what we had was worth it.  And we walked the hard road of healing.

Now we testify to something different.  Not just to an ideal we call love.  Not just to a dreamy something that is nice to sing about.  To the ultimate, radical power of God to change lives and the most stubborn, broken hearts into something beautiful.  To the unchanging, unceasing grace that He gives when we can’t even muster up the ability to ask for it.  To the reality of restoration and the gift of forgiveness.

We testify to love.  But not to our own imperfect, never-enough kind of love.  To the Love Giver Himself and the way He makes all things new.

Mat Kearney and my marriage

MatK

Life is a constant set of blessings and blows.  The final score is undecided and when things get out of balance and the blessings seem to be blooming everywhere but in your own home, so many people today choose to walk away and try again elsewhere.

There was a time when I didn’t understand this.  I was young, married my high school sweetheart, the love of my life.  Life truly seemed dreamy except for a few newlywed scuffles that always worked themselves out quickly.

But around year 7 or so of marriage, dreamy wasn’t the word I would use to sum life up.  Babies came, jobs shifted, we both hunkered down and opted for survival mode.

Survival mode is good for surviving, but not for living.  Not for long term.  And eventually it wasn’t working to well anymore.  Things that had always seemed strange to me, made sense.  The one I loved more than any other was the one who could cause pain and I did the same for him.  Dreamy it was not.  The promise we had made “till death do us part” seemed a more than lofty goal.

We made a choice.  In a time where life pulled us all different directions, when we were just trying to keep our heads above water, we chose eachother.  It was (for me at least) the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

We just passed the 10 year mark and I am completely in awe of the restoration and repair that God has brought to our marriage.  He was more than able to work it all for good.  He just asked us to choose Him and to choose eachother.  Sounds simple I know, but it wasn’t.  Life never is.  But choose we did and it has been good (not easy, just good).

What does Mat Kearny have to do with any of it?

Common ground.

Six months ago Christopher’s boss gave him a CD that he brought home and we both fell in love with the music.  With him not working at church, his ‘work world’ is now totally separate from mine.  He leaves and spends the day driving and talking.  I spend the day here.  We attend a church where he isn’t pastoring.  The lack of overlap is good in ways but the past year has accentuated the lack of shared loves.

Of course we share parenting and a bed and weekends.   But it’s easy to feel like we have very little in common.

Enter Mat’s music.  The simple thing of us both enjoying a musician together has bound our hearts together just a little more and in the sweetest way.  I know it sounds cheesy and that’s okay.

When we found out Mat Kearney was coming to Seattle we both scrambled to buy tickets and surprise the other.  He beat me to it and had to tell me before I bought another set of tickets!   We had the best time last week and tears rolled down my cheeks as the words of this song rang through the theater…

We’re on the run I can see it in your eyes
If nothing is safe then I don’t understand
You call me your boy but I’m trying to be the man
One more day and it’s all slipping with the sand
You touch my lips and grab the back of my hand
The back of my hand
Guess we both know we’re in over our heads
We got nowhere to go and no home that’s left
The water is rising on a river turning red
It all might be ok or we might be dead
If everything we’ve got is slipping away
I meant what I said when I said until my dying day
I’m holding on to you, holding onto me
Maybe it’s all gone black but you’re all I see
You’re all I see…

And if all we’ve got is what no one can break
I know I love you
If that’s all we can take
The tears are coming down
They’re mixing with the rain
I know I love you, if that’s all we can take