precious again

Way back in January (this past January feels like ten years ago in some ways as so much as changed since then), I went to a Sarah Groves concert and she played a song called "Precious Again." What I love about music is how songs can speak to different people in such different ways at such different times.  What stirred within me while I listened during this concert was a promise that God will make my love for my husband precious again.  I remember coming home and finding the youtube video and listening to it on repeat for like a month straight- praying, asking, and standing in faith that God would make the love and affection that Chris and I had for each other precious again someday.  Fast-forward to this past Wednesday, the day we found out Chris would be going into jail (I still don't know how to word that.  My husband went to jail.  My husband went into jail.  My husband is at the jail.  My husband is in jail.  My husband is staying at the jail.  When it comes out of my mouth I still can't believe it.)  Because he is going to be in jail during Thanksgiving, his birthday, and Christmas, we decided to smash them all into two days.  So Wednesday we celebrated with our favorite tradition, just the two of us.  It is really the only tradition we have together, and it has always been precious to us.  We wrap our Christmas gifts, watch the Grinch, and make Christmas cookies.  So there we were, November 15th, wrapping gifts and listening to Christmas music and celebrating Christmas together as much as we could with the time that we had.  But what surprised me the most was how emotional I was even in the midst of our celebrations.  Now of course it is normal and very very healthy to grieve when your husband will be going into the jail, but I was like EMOTIONAL emotional.  The pain I was feeling was something completely new, something fresh, and something deep.  I don't think I have felt pain that deeply throughout this entire past year.  And I was curious.  So in my grief I was wondering, where is this coming from?  What is the source of this pain?

Finally, I figured it out.  Last year when I found out what had happened and the shock was overbearing, a wall immediately erected itself within me against Chris as a means of protection while we rebuilt.  I have learned and processed in counseling that this is a very healthy and essential part of rebuilding trust.  But for the past year the lingering question in the back of my mind has been- will that wall ever come back down?  And my prayer always was that in God's time, He would help me take down the wall when appropriate.  So what had happened was that over the past year, day by day, one or two bricks would be removed.  And very recently, I would say in the last few weeks, I discovered that the wall was completely down.  During the month prior to the sentencing, we had some of the best times together we have ever had, ever.  We took an entire weekend to date each other, and each took a day to plan surprises.  Chris took me to Al's Breakfast in Dinky Town, the Institute of Arts in Minneapolis, and a nice restaurant in White Bear Lake.  I took him to the Mall of America on the LightRail to bowl, play mini-golf, shop, eat, and have a day of adventure.  We just started the tradition of drinking tea together before bed.  We also just started doing yoga in our living room, half into it and half laughing as the instructor would tell us to "let your back flow like a blade of grass in the wind."  God had finally brought us to the point in our healing in which our love for each other was precious again.  Our affection for each other was deep.  

And it is the perfect timing for this separation.  

If he would have gone into jail any sooner there would have been too much anger on my end to work through and any later and we would be simply waiting.  But this timing is perfect, because the precious and tender love of a new relationship is fresh.  It is raw.  It is vulnerable, and in this place we have separation which I believe will cause that love to grow even more deeply that it could if we were together every day.  Once I figured out the source of my pain, I was excited that God had done it.  To me, He had done the impossible.  Even though from the moment I was told what had happened, it was not hard to decide that I wanted to stay in relationship with Chris, I again had this secret fear that the precious part of our love would never return.   Or that if it did it would be way off in the distance, sometime decades from now.  I wish I would have remembered the truth that God is a Healer and a Restorer, and when He restores something it is ALWAYS more than what was lost.  The love we have for each other is so much deeper, so much stronger, so much more tender and precious than it was before the Rescuing.  And it has only been a year.  I believe it will continue growing more and more.  

I have learned that the commitment and call to marriage runs a lot deeper than this love and affection, and despite the excitement of this recent tenderness, what has kept us together has nothing to do with feelings.  If I had lived by my feelings, it would have been a simple choice to walk away from Chris and start something new.  Of course I felt pain and offense and anger and bitterness.  But my feelings were not guiding my choices.  I believe the commitment of marriage provides such an opportunity to show Christ and His love to the world.  Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died and gave His life for us."  I believe marriage provides opportunities for spouses to extend this same grace and love, not when everything is going well and their spouse is meeting all of their needs, but when there are setbacks, mistakes are made, and pain is present.  And the reason I decided to stay with Chris more than anything else is because I was so thrilled to have an opportunity to be a glimpse of God's restoration in the world.  

What happened a year ago caused a complete breech of trust in our marriage.  I like to use the analogy that if building a marriage can be paralleled to building a tower of legos, then the tower we had built during the first sixteen months of our marriage, prior to the Rescuing, became dismantled.  It isn't as if the tower tipped over and all we had to do was muster up the strength to stand it back up, it is literally that every single lego came disconnected from each other and we were completely starting over at ground zero.  Now part of that sounds overwhelming and was at the time, but in hindsight I can see how much of a gift it was.  It was a gift that in our young, newly married state, we were given the chance to start over.  I believe our first lego tower was tall and thin.  We were building straight up, as tall as we could.  Our marriage was easily swayed by the wind and there was not a solid foundation anchoring the base.  But this time, once each lego was in our hands to rebuild again, we had learned a few things along the way.  This time we created a solid base.  We laid our blueprints and thought through plans.  We took the time to take care of our selves, and therefore strengthened each piece before we connected it to the base.  We were blessed to have so many supporting us and walking with along the way. We each reconnected ourselves with Jesus, the true Cornerstone and Anchor, who keeps us.  We now have this solid foundation of a marriage AND this precious love and affection for one another.  This is truly more than I could have ever asked for or imagined or thought a year ago.  

So here I am, in a place of pain, but not hopelessness.  Rather than being so sad about missing my husband, I will allow the missing to cause me to fall more in love with him while we are separated, believing it is a timely step in our healing.  This pain, rather than causing me to feel in despair, has brought me to a place of deep hope and celebration in our Healer and all that He can do.  

God is our Healer, and He is the only explanation for such healing.  

I cry out to the Lord and He heals me. -Psalm 30:2

He sends His Word and heals me and rescues me from the pit of destruction. -Psalm 107:20

He heals my broken heart and binds up my wounds. -Psalm 147:3

I will listen closely to God's words.  I will not let them out of my sight- I will keep them within my heart; for they are life to all who find them and health for the whole body.  -Proverbs 4:20-22

My light shall break forth like the morning and my healing (my restoration and the power of new life) shall spring forth speedily. -Isaiah 58:8

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed.  Save me, and I shall be saved, for you are my praise.  -Jeremiah 17:14

The Lord has declared that He will restore me to health and heal my wounds. -Jeremiah 30:17

I pray that I may enjoy good heath and that all may go well with me, even as my soul is getting along well.  -3 John 2

What about your story? 

Is there a relationship in your life that are believing God can make precious again?  Is there a pain within you that you desire to be healed?  It doesn't have to be a marriage or dating relationship, it could be a friendship.  A relationship with a parent or child.  A family member who has been removed from your life for years?  It could be deep and grueling pain or a thin scrape that has never healed and been eating away at you.  It could be a recent pain or pain that has been buried for so many years it would be much easier to keep it down there under the dirt.

So before posting this I just watched this video for the first time in awhile and have new thoughts.  This desire for preciousness doesn't even have to be for a relationship- you could be asking God for a new preciousness when you look at your children or spouse.  Maybe you have changed one too many diapers in the last week or made one too many PB and J sandwiches.  Maybe you are so exhausted of the ins and outs of a mundane season of life and you need God to restore to you the wonder of life.  The miracles we see each day in the sunrise and laughter of children.  We all need to be brought back to a state of wonder.  A state of awe.  A state of healing.

I believe God wants to restore ALL people back to Himself and each other.  He is a God of reconciliation.  My prayer for you is that you would open yourself to allow God to bring that preciousness and healing to your life.  And I continue to ask Him to do the same in mine.