Category: Marriage & Relationships Ponderings

Asperger’s & Marriage

Eddie Redmayne - Newt Scamander
Newtis­tic Spec­trum Disorder

I’ve been won­der­ing late­ly… a lot, if I’m hon­est, if being diag­nosed ear­li­er might have had some pos­i­tive impact on the dis­po­si­tion of my marriage.

A great many things of course went into the mix, but one of the sig­nif­i­cant­ly harm­ful fac­tors… was me. I did­n’t show love in a way she could under­stand. I could very much be a jerk, even when I want­ed so bad­ly not to be.

When I look back and even look at the now, I am amazed that Raina was will­ing to put up with me for so long. Peo­ple tell me that there is some­one out there for me, but I can’t see how that could be true. The patience and tol­er­ance (and love) of Raina was a very rare commodity.

The author of the book The Jour­nal of Best Prac­tices was very for­tu­nate to be mar­ried to a Psy­chol­o­gist who was able to rec­og­nize what was going on before it pulled their mar­riage apart. When I read or lis­ten, it starts me down this path of pondering.

I think that Asperg­er’s gives me a great abil­i­ty to love “my one”, but also a great abil­i­ty to hurt as well… and to not real­ize that I’ve caused hurt… and then not under­stand when it was point­ed out to me.

So many lit­tle things I did that hurt her that I now know are part of this dis­or­der… and that is not an excuse, but a rea­son. Now that I real­ize what and why, I hope that I’ll be aware and have a strat­e­gy to stop or redi­rect those behaviors.

And so I pon­der. Per­haps use­less­ly. But I can’t help but won­der if things might have been dif­fer­ent. And I can’t help but wish that they had been dif­fer­ent. I need to keep that in check, that yearn­ing. it’s OK to open the Box on a Shelf, but only to peruse through, pon­der and then close it and put it back on the shelf.

But I Guess I Wasn’t Worth What I Would Cost Her

Andrew Peterson: The Coral Castle — Carried Along

I don’t need her love to love her all I can.

  • Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est continuity.
  • Update: Ravi has since passed away and Steve The Friend­ly Ban­jo Athe­ist’s alle­ga­tions turned out to be even more true than he believed over the cou­ple of years of our delib­er­a­tions.  The entire Chris­t­ian world is try­ing to fig­ure out what to do with Rav­i’s lega­cy now that his sin has come to light.  My hero did­n’t just get knocked off his pedestal for me, but most peo­ple want to reduce the pedestal, his lega­cy of works and teach­ings  to pea grav­el.  I agree with Dr. Piper when he makes a com­par­i­son to King David’s lega­cy, both as a sin­ner turned from God and as a man still referred to as A man after God’s own heart.  I was already matur­ing past the pedestal/hero mind­set… I did­n’t need a gob­s­mack­ing rein­force­ment of the les­son.  Oh Ravi.… oh that you had been the man you por­trayed your­self to be.  I sorrow.

I don’t hold with hav­ing heroes or hero wor­ship. That said, there are two liv­ing peo­ple whom I admire so very deeply for var­i­ous rea­sons that I have to be vig­i­lant in not allow­ing admi­ra­tion to become pedestal-build­ing. One such indi­vid­ual is Dr. Ravi Zacharias (recent events trou­ble me, but they. don’t leave me angry or dis­il­lu­sioned. Rather, I am hum­bled by the real­iza­tion that, ”There, but for the grace of God, go I.”, and that even those who gen­uine­ly love and serve God strug­gle with the sin inher­i­tance we all share.), and the oth­er is Andrew Peterson.

I’ve spent the last two years being told by the impor­tant peo­ple in my life that I’m crazy. Of those who love and sup­port me, I’ve felt that no one has real­ly under­stood my heart and thoughts. Then I dis­cov­er this song writ­ten by my favorite singer/songwriter; an amaz­ing artist, book author, and sin­cere and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vant of God… He under­stands. Some­one under­stands. At least one per­son understands.

I don’t need her love to love her all I can.

That said, those telling me that I’m crazy or a fool were quite cor­rect. I wouldn’t lis­ten. I dis­count­ed their feed­back, not so much because I doubt­ed them, but because of the, nec­es­sary at the time, and awful and so very painful now, stealth nature of pro­ceed­ings. They weren’t “In the know.” Well, OK, yes, and because I doubt­ed them and thought their hearts informed by the taint of this sin­ful world; a world so infect­ed that healthy and God-hon­or­ing appear alien and for­eign. See what I did there? I claimed to be on the side of the angels and con­signed every­one else, even (espe­cial­ly) those poor mis­guid­ed fools who dis­agreed with me, to be unknow­ing­ly agents of The Zeit­geist, the Spir­it of the Age. Down that path lies, if not mad­ness, then cer­tain­ly noth­ing but unful­fill­ment, com­pound­ing sor­rows, and repet­i­tive painful lessons.

Things still do not, for me, process cor­rect­ly and com­plete­ly, and so leave me ever ill at ease. Imag­ine striv­ing and expend­ing all ones’ resources to reach a des­ti­na­tion only to have some kind-heart­ed per­son make the obser­va­tion, far far down the road, that you’ve been hold­ing the map upside down from the out­set. I bounce between cer­tain­ty and self-doubt. Admit­ting error means not only acknowl­edg­ing being in the wrong, but also accept­ing that the ter­ri­ble ter­ri­ble loss will for­ev­er and unchang­ing­ly be so. I still can’t entire­ly let go of this belief which I held. Cow­ardice? Sor­row? I fear that I am the one who mis­ap­pre­hends real­i­ty and I ques­tion my own fac­ul­ties. How much more or less than a few vow­els and con­so­nants sep­a­rate lover from lunatic?

So much pride in what I thought my abil­i­ty to appre­hend and per­ceive the heart of oth­ers. How is it that I, so very emo­tion­al­ly stunt­ed and dam­aged; trained by a sociopath to emu­late a sociopath; hav­ing made a decades delayed start at com­pas­sion and empa­thy; delude myself so unreservedly?

Per­haps the song speaks of a mad­man. If so, then I am that madman.

I don’t need her love to love her all I can.

Per­haps in this sit­u­a­tion, ‘lov­ing all one can’ means accep­tance of fail­ure, of fool­ish­ness, of error, and vol­un­tar­i­ly incar­cer­a­tion of an organ harm­ful to oth­ers. “If lov­ing is wrong, then I don’t to be right.” becomes the mean­ing­less mag­pie cry iden­ti­fy­ing a self­ish and unkind heart.

When Love Doesn’t Matter and Never Shall

(*Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est con­ti­nu­ity.)

This shall be a work in progress for a while. I’ve not band­width and shan’t for a while. How­ev­er, I wish to get the thoughts out before I lose them.

I’m com­ing to re-rec­og­nize the obvious.

Wak­ing dream of fail­ing to dis­suade Rain from her hor­ri­ble purpose.

Ravi or Ray Com­fort, HAVE “nobody has ever been argued into the king­dom”. Nobody has every been argued back into love once they’ve estab­lished a fic­tion­al per­spec­tive of the past.

I can do nothing.

I have no choice but to accept.

I’m no stranger to hav­ing the past, espe­cial­ly the parts that mat­ter most to joy and the heart, torn and man­gled and made poi­son. Bit­ter awful poi­son. And no choice giv­en, no chance of appeal. Like Socrates, I am made to drink.

I noticed some­thing over the last few days. My heart is grow­ing cold to rela­tion­ships almost across the spec­trum of my life. A part of me knows that this is just hideous­ly awful but the rest of me is just glad of the respite and does­n’t want God, or scrip­ture, or church fam­i­ly to inter­fere. That part just wants to dou­ble-down on nurs­ing and turn my back on the remainder.

Reconnecting a Disconnect?

(*Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est continuity.)

A ques­tion has been on my mind a great deal late­ly, and for all my pon­der­ing, I am no clos­er to an answer. Tru­ly, I sort of took a jab at it and real­ized a very short time lat­er how absolute­ly fool­ish the rea­son­ing behind that jab was… it made good log­ic sense, as long as I set aside my aware­ness of the emo­tion­al side of things. In oth­er words, no sense at all. 

The ques­tion is, how do you make the obser­va­tion to some­one of, “I get what you’re say­ing in the here-and-now, but it is com­plete­ly at odds with what you did and said in the before-now.” 

I’m begin­ning to believe that the answer is, “You don’t.” If some­one has care­ful­ly con­struct­ed an alter­nate reality/belief, or has pick-and-choose-en which infor­ma­tion to retain, to give focus to, and to empha­sis, and which to treat as incon­se­quen­tial, dis­count­able, per­haps even for­get­table, they’ve done it to relieve emotional/mental discomfort. 

As bad­ly as I want, for myself (and I tell myself for them as well), doing so is self­ish and unlov­ing. I think that pret­ty well changes the ques­tion of “How To?” to a res­o­lu­tion of telling myself, “You Can­not, regard­less of the effect upon you!” 

It doesn’t mat­ter how con­vict­ed I am. It doesn’t mat­ter how much it hurts. It doesn’t mat­ter if it feels ‘unfair’ or like a wrong which needs right­ing, or like the real­i­ty of the uni­verse has gone all off-kil­ter and spun into the nuclear coro­na of a gas giant. If I claim to love, then I must also act in love. 

And. I must pray for strength and resolve to over­come self­ish­ness and weak­ness when the hurt and temp­ta­tion begin to bet­ter my weak-man. 

What it Means to Fall in Love

With­in this Chris­t­ian vision of mar­riage, here’s what it means to fall in love. It is to look at anoth­er per­son and get a glimpse of what God is cre­at­ing, and to say, “I see who God is mak­ing you, and it excites me! I want to be part of that. I want to part­ner with you and God in the jour­ney you are tak­ing to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your mag­nif­i­cence and say, ‘I always knew you could be like this. I got glimpses of it on earth, but now look at you!” 

— Tim­o­thy Keller, The Mean­ing of Mar­riage, Ch 4, pg 121

Bound to Fulfillment

With­out being for­giv­en, released from the con­se­quences of what we have done, our capac­i­ty to act would, as it were, be con­fined to one sin­gle deed from which we could nev­er recov­er; we would remain the vic­tims of its con­se­quences for­ev­er, not unlike the sorcerer’s appren­tice who lacked the mag­ic for­mu­la to break the spell. With­out being bound to the ful­fill­ment of promis­es, we would nev­er be able to keep our iden­ti­ties; we would be con­demned to wan­der help­less­ly and with­out direc­tion in the dark­ness of each man’s lone­ly heart, caught in its con­tra­dic­tions and equiv­o­cal­i­ties, a dark­ness which only the light shed over the pub­lic realm through the pres­ence of oth­ers, who con­firm the iden­ti­ty between the one who promis­es and the one who ful­fills, can dis­pel. Both fac­ul­ties, there­fore, depend on plu­ral­i­ty, on the pres­ence and act­ing of oth­ers, for no one can for­give him­self and no one can feel bound by a promise made only to him­self; for­giv­ing and promis­ing enact­ed in soli­tude or iso­la­tion remain with­out real­i­ty and can sig­ni­fy no more than a role played before one’s self. [empha­sis mine]

— Han­nah Arendt, The Human Con­di­tion, 2nd ed., pg 237

The Wounds We Carry

(*Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est continuity.)

Many peo­ple come to mar­riage hav­ing been seri­ous­ly hurt by par­ents, lovers, or for­mer spous­es. I am not talk­ing about par­ents who phys­i­cal­ly or sex­u­al­ly abuse their chil­dren. I’m talk­ing of the more wide­spread expe­ri­ences of cold and indif­fer­ent par­ents or of ver­bal­ly abu­sive par­ents who know how to pun­ish chil­dren emo­tion­al­ly. Then there are the dat­ing rela­tion­ships or for­mer mar­riages in with the oth­er par­ty wrong and betrayed you. All of these expe­ri­ences can make it extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to trust the oth­er sex, while at the same time fill­ing you with deep doubts about your judg­ment and char­ac­ter. “Wound­ed­ness” is com­pound­ed self-doubt and guilt, resent­ment and disillusionment. 

— Tim­o­thy Keller, The Mean­ing of Mar­riage, Ch 3, pgs 60–61

I let myself be crip­pled by this for about sev­en years… my own voice com­pound­ed with the schiz­o­phrenic lies and dis­tor­tions of she who sought, with great suc­cess for a time, to under­mine every decent thing I’ve ever been or done. 

…extreme­ly dif­fi­cult to trust the oth­er sex, while at the same time fill­ing you with deep doubts about your judg­ment and character…self-doubt and guilt, resent­ment and disillusionment.
Even know­ing the voice was one of psy­chosis and hatred, did­n’t stop it from wound­ing me more deeply than I could have imag­ined, wound­ing ever deep­er time and time again. I would be filled with those deep doubts about my judg­ment and char­ac­ter. I would despair of ever hav­ing a future, and I would allow axes of utter non­sense to fell my tree-of-self-awareness. 

I am so very grate­ful, not just for the heal­ing God has giv­en me, but espe­cial­ly for the pro­tec­tion and reas­sur­ance against such attacks. I had thought to nev­er again be sub­ject­ed to such attacks until a let­ter arrived a cou­ple of months ago. This new pack­et of hatred sought to go back to the utter begin­ning of our love affair, well before mat­ri­mo­ny, and paint over great beau­ty with foul and rot­ted pig­ments of self­ish­ness and wicked­ness. Instead of felling me for a time, it became one more rein­forc­ing arti­fact to add to a pile of cor­re­spon­dence which my spir­i­tu­al and psy­cho­log­i­cal advis­ers agree show a descent into madness. 

It pro­duced deep sor­row, but sor­row is not at all the same bun­ny of which Tim speaks. You can­not des­per­ate­ly and deeply love some­one, what­ev­er the cir­cum­stances, and not ache for them and the pain, unhap­pi­ness, and poi­son of hatred they con­tin­ue to imbibe. 

I won’t say that I’ve grown com­plete­ly immune, and to be hon­est I do not want to become so. Satan does find those very occa­sion­al low­est points to charge one of his tempters with whis­per­ing into my ears tired old lies and doubts. I am glad I am not entire­ly immune sim­ply because the hubris of immu­ni­ty would be an utter lack of hum­ble­ness and fail­ure to see myself rela­tion­al­ly as fall­en man in need of Christ. If I became that, I might tru­ly begin to be the mon­ster she describes. I think Spur­geon said it best when he said, “Broth­er, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be.” All the more rea­son to sur­round myself with friends and spir­i­tu­al lead­ers who know me well and hold me ever account­able. Instead, I think it leaves me clear to see those issues with my char­ac­ter and judg­ment that still mer­it large allo­ca­tions of prayer and effort. 

God brings joy in the morning.

Psalm 30, HCSB 1 I will exalt You, Lord, because You have lift­ed me up and have not allowed my ene­mies to tri­umph over me. 2 Lord my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. 3 Lord, You brought me up from She­ol; You spared me from among those going down to the Pit. 4 Sing to the Lord, you His faith­ful ones, and praise His holy name. 5 For His anger lasts only a moment, but His favor, a life­time. Weep­ing may spend the night, but there is joy in the morn­ing. 6 When I was secure, I said, “I will nev­er be shak­en.” 7 Lord, when You showed Your favor, You made me stand like a strong moun­tain; when You hid Your face, I was ter­ri­fied. 8 Lord, I called to You; I sought favor from my Lord: 9 “What gain is there in my death, in my descend­ing to the Pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it pro­claim Your truth? 10 Lord, lis­ten and be gra­cious to me; Lord, be my helper.” 11 You turned my lament into danc­ing; You removed my sack­cloth and clothed me with glad­ness, 12 so that I can sing to You and not be silent. Lord my God, I will praise You for­ev­er.

I’ve explored only of the wound­ing caused by adult rela­tion­ships. So long since has God healed me from the first type of wound­ing Tim dis­cuss­es, that I near­ly for­got to touch on the sub­ject. Learn­ing some cru­cial truths resolved my fear of being mar­ried and of being a father to chil­dren such that they no longer seem jus­ti­fi­able con­cerns. I remain vig­i­lant but no longer paralyzed. 

I have learned to tru­ly love, to affirm, to serve, to sac­ri­fice, to place the pre­rog­a­tive of anoth­er above my own and to take joy in doing so. I am not my father. I will nev­er vis­it upon a beloved wife or child the ter­rors vis­it­ed upon me; the fear of which kept me from believ­ing I had any right to love and be loved. I will have my own unique blind­ness­es and short­com­ings, but nev­er those and nev­er lack­ing the love and humil­i­ty that keeps me from real­iz­ing (yes, after prompt­ing and time per­haps) that these blind­ness­es and short­com­ings exist. 

I like­wise real­ized is that even were there some ‘demon’ hold­ing license to lurk with­in me, a fear I once very much held [knowl­edge of which was used by anoth­er as impo­tent firey dart which fail to wound], I do not exist in a vac­u­um. I will nev­er be sep­a­rat­ed from peo­ple who know me and who have been giv­en leave to look deeply into my life and sift and seek and confront. 

Most impor­tant of all con­sid­er­a­tions is that my deal-break­er-if-lack­ing cri­te­ria for a future beloved is a deep, abid­ing love of Jesus Christ com­bined with a sharp intel­lect, a heart of love and wis­dom, and the courage to be bold. A mar­riage is not one per­son per­form­ing solo, but two per­sons act­ing in sweet and sacred con­cert with one another. 

2 Timothy 1:7 NLT
For God has not giv­en us a spir­it of fear and timid­i­ty, but of pow­er, love, and self-discipline.
If one mem­ber begins to play off-piste and ignores the direc­tion of the Con­duc­tor Almighty, the music quick­ly sours and the part­ner in error must cor­rect if sweet­ness is to again be achieved. 

I am no longer slave to a heart of fear on this, or this, or this account. 

The only way to overcome the unpredictability of your future is the power of promising

When we make a promise we take it on our fee­ble wills to keep a future ren­dezvous with some­one in cir­cum­stances we can­not pos­si­bly pre­dict. We take it on our­selves to cre­ate our future with some­one else no mat­ter what fate or des­tiny may have in store. This is almost ulti­mate freedom.

When I make a promise, I bear wit­ness that my future with you is not locked into a bion­ic beam by which I was stuck with the fate­ful com­bi­na­tions of X’s and Y’s in the hand I was dealt out of my par­ents’ genet­ic deck.

When I make a promise, I tes­ti­fy that I was not rout­ed along some unal­ter­able itin­er­ary by the psy­chic con­di­tion­ing vis­it­ed on me by my slight­ly wacky parents.

When I make a promise I declare that my future with peo­ple who depend on me is not pre­de­ter­mined by the mixed-up cul­ture of my ten­der years.

I am not fat­ed, I am not deter­mined, I am not a lump of human dough whipped into shape by the con­tin­gent rein­force­ment and aver­sive con­di­tion­ing of my past. I know as well as the next per­son that I can­not cre­ate my life de novo; I am well aware that much of what I am and what I do is a gift or a curse from my past. But when I make a promise to any­one I rise above all the con­di­tion­ing that lim­its me. 

— Lewis Bene­dic­tus Smedes (1921 — 2002)
“Con­trol­ling the Unpre­dictable – The Pow­er of Promis­ing“
Chris­tian­i­ty Today Jan. 1983

Book Review: The Meaning of Marriage

(*Update: This post had been unpub­lished while I worked to gain some per­spec­tive. I have done so. I am in a dif­fer­ent place. I am repub­lish­ing for pur­pos­es of hon­est continuity.)

Work in progress as I read the book.

I’m not cer­tain what brought this book to my atten­tion but mar­riage is at the fore­most of my per­son­al inter­ests, most espe­cial­ly God­ly mar­riage, and many years have giv­en me a deep respect for the teach­ings of Tim Keller.

I’m 2⁄3rds of the way in and I’m rethink­ing how I need to write this review. There is sim­ply too much out­stand­ing con­tent in each chap­ter to cite even a por­tion it all.

I’m absolute­ly lov­ing this book as one of the best I have read in a long long while. I often think peo­ple find my views and ideas on mar­riage to be a lit­tle archa­ic if not strange. It’s very affirm­ing to read a man such as Tim Kel­lar not only shar­ing many of those ideas but expound­ing upon them in a much more eru­dite man­ner. The man fre­quent­ly, I mean very fre­quent­ly, cites the wis­dom of C. S. Lewis and pref­aces it with an expla­na­tion of ‘why’ that far out­strips the one I’ve been giv­ing my pas­tors and arm­chair the­olo­gians for decades. Same rea­sons, far bet­ter spoken.

Introduction

Soci­ety’s idea of a Soul­mate: A per­fect­ly com­pat­able match

…we quick­ly came to see that we shared the secret thread that C.S. Lewis says is the thing that turns peo­ple into close friends, or more…

You may have noticed that the books you real­ly love are bound togeth­er a secret thread. You know very well what is the com­mon qual­i­ty that makes you love them; but you can­not put it into words. Are not all life­long friend­ships born at the moment when at last you meet anoth­er human being who has some inkling of that some­thing which you were born desir­ing? — C. S. Lewis

Where God and Love and Grace Abound

Update: 5, Feb­ru­ary, 2021. Hid­den for a cou­ple of years until Face­book “Mem­o­ried” some stan­zas. Unveiled once again. One of my favorite com­po­si­tions, it now lacks an object, but then, one was nev­er required. There are a few small details spe­cif­ic to feel­ings for, and per­son of, one who left my life in 2017, but minus those fine dis­tinc­tions, this is my heart for any­one who has a place in my heart. She was spe­cial, yes, but I regard this much like God’s covenant with Abram. He put Abram into a sleep and com­plet­ed the covenant on His own to sig­ni­fy that His fideli­ty did not depend on the fideli­ty of the oth­er. My heart has a warm embrace wait­ing… not a void wait­ing to be filled, but a hug ready to happen.

There was a time I felt it nec­es­sary to hide this arti­cle behind pass­word pro­tec­tion as it con­tains things which some might assume to be of a per­son­al nature. As of March, no longer do those rea­sons apply. This is one of my favorite com­po­si­tions. I’ve been told by some who have read it that por­tions were help­ful to them. For these rea­sons I wish it hid­den no longer.

We stop and ask our­selves those crit­i­cal ques­tions which we believe we must have answered in the affir­ma­tive before we will go Danc­ing in the Mine­fields. The answers, if entire­ly hon­est, will always be insuf­fi­cient. We will nev­er start the music; nev­er take hand with a dance partner.

Our ideals exceed the graces of human­i­ty. We men wait on the Proverbs 31 woman. She does not exist. Many women wait for the sec­ond com­ing of Christ. His heart is already spo­ken for. When He returns it will be to car­ry home God’s daugh­ter-in-law. And so we wait, rather than begin the great adven­ture. We stand at the edge of the mine­field, star­ing out across it, alone, yet yearn­ing to dance; for a com­pan­ion with whom to dance.

We are pris­on­ers there­fore, in our very hearts, held cap­tive by fears, clutch­ing tight­ly to stan­dards of per­fec­tion rather than stan­dards of hon­est, yet often stum­bling pur­suit of excellence.

“Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laugh­ter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beau­ty of flesh and the liv­ing col­ors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?” ― Eugene O’Neill, The Great God Brown and Oth­er Plays

The ques­tion then… the sec­ond ques­tion, bespeaks a more real­is­tic ide­al, prompt­ed when we defin­i­tive­ly have God. If we have God and His exam­ple of Love and Grace to always stand with us, then the sec­ond ques­tion becomes the one that matters.

The third ques­tion becomes then, mere for­mal­i­ty. It was answered when we invit­ed God to a place of pri­ma­cy with­in our mar­riage and our hearts.

God will join our hands. God will start the music. Our eyes on Him we will dance with joy­ous aban­don and our feet will find only safe firm ground†, ’til we come to the oth­er side and meet with Him, our Father, face to face.

Am I worthy?
Hard­ly.
Am I worthwhile?
With great certainty.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Will I always imme­di­ate­ly put you first?
I real­ly real­ly wish I could say, “Yes.”
The times that I don’t, will I get there before too long?
You may count on it.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I flawless?
Hard­ly.
Does my beau­ty out­shine my flaws?
I am per­fect in my imperfection.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I wise?
Hard­ly.
I peti­tion God for wis­dom, does He give?
Always, gen­er­ous­ly, and with­out reproach. a
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I com­plete­ly honest?
Com­plete­ly? No, nev­er completely.
How then am I to be trusted?
My rare laps­es in efforts to be entire­ly hon­est are moti­vat­ed by imma­tu­ri­ty and fear. God con­tin­ues to mature me and expel my spir­it of fear, prompt­ing me to ‘fess up to mis­truths and strive for dis­ci­pline. b
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I always understanding?
Hard­ly.
Do I strive to make a habit of lis­ten­ing diligently?
Very near­ly always, and until I do understand.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I thoughtful?
Hard­ly.
Will my thoughts always return to you?
They can nev­er stray far.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Do I come with a guarantee?
What fun would that be?
So what if things break down and stop working?
I will not rest until we’re repaired and what’s bro­ken mended.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I trustworthy?
Hard­ly.
When trust is bro­ken, will I rest?
I shall not. Your trust is the very strength in my body.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I unselfish?
Not hard­ly.
How then can I love and serve?
God has shown me the joy of putting you first.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Do I stew­ard well my time and money?
What was the ques­tion again?
How then will I care for wife and family?
I have learned against my nature. To whom God gives much… c
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I above reproach?
I’d be lying if I said I was.
But is that not a stan­dard to which a man must work?
Yes, and I do, and that is why I can­not answer untruthfully.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I courageous?
Not espe­cial­ly. Much more so now than in the past.
Why is that? May I be count­ed on then?
God has shown me what is most impor­tant; much more than youth­ful fears.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I righteous?
None are right­eous, no, not one. d
Do I seek after right­eous­ness and to hon­or God?
Very near­ly always I do.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I always faith­ful in all things?
I try, but I some­times fail.
Can my fail­ure edure?
My heart will nev­er allow.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I always kind?
There was a time, when I hard­ly under­stood kindness.
And now?
I am still learn­ing the more sub­tle aspects, but the new man I am under­stands and cher­ish­es kind­ness. My heart has been soft­ened to the point where kind­ness is very near­ly always my first response to oth­ers. I wish God to refine me, as impu­ri­ties are burned and then drawn away from pre­cious met­al in a cru­cible, to have no oth­er response.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I will­ing to change?
In myself? Far too reluctantly.
What if God puts it on my heart for you?
Watch how quick­ly the old man dies!
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I gorgeous?
You betcha!
Lev­i­ty? Humor? Here? In this seri­ous discourse?
I val­ue so very high­ly the absolute beau­ty in your gen­uine smile; a smile which touch­es every fea­ture of your face, head, and shoul­ders; eyes that reveal a com­fort and hap­pi­ness; a smile which briefly melts away the ten­sion which seems con­stant com­pan­ion. I will always yearn and strive to engen­der those feel­ings in you until the ten­sion, per­haps, becomes stranger to us both.
Is that sufficient?
You betcha! My love and grace abound, for you, my love.
Am I humble?
For too long have I gripped, white-knuck­led, to unmer­it­ed pride.
So, I have rec­og­nized and acknowl­edge the lack of merit?
I do. I have been hum­bled so much and so often that return­ing pride appears an inter­lop­er in these environs.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Am I teachable?
With this thick skull?
Have the years taught me hard lessons?
The hard­est of all my des­per­ate need to learn.
Is that sufficient?
It is, where love and grace abound.
Do I, in turn, expect perfection?
No, no I do not. More­over I want it not.
What then, do I want?
I want only You; You as you are. No ide­al­ized ren­der­ing could approach the beau­ty and love­li­ness of who you are.
Is that sufficient?
I can­not answer for you. My love and grace abound.
Will I love?
I will love deeply.
I will love sacrificially.
I will love you as Christ loved the church.
I will give myself up for you. e
My love and grace for you and our fam­i­ly will ever abound.

a James 1:5
b 2 Tim­o­thy 1:7
c Luke 12:48
d Isa­iah 53:6, Romans 3:10
e Eph­esians 5:25

† There is a dif­fi­cult dis­tinc­tion to make here. I’ve bor­rowed the metaphor of danc­ing through mine­fields from Andrew Peter­son­’s auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal song, “Danc­ing in the Mine­fields.” Mar­riage is always a dance through mine­fields and always fraught with dan­ger.* We live on a fall­en earth of fall­en peo­ple under the influ­ence of the Bent Oyarsa. We will encounter mines; in those sea­sons when our eyes waver from God, or when the fal­l­en­ness of this world (sin by those out­side our mar­riage and sick­ness being a major con­se­quences of fal­l­en­ness) asserts. With God in our mar­riage how­ev­er, our dance will be more grace­ful, more beau­ti­ful, and less apt to put a foot wrong in clum­sy stum­ble. More­over, when we do encounter mines, our devo­tion to God will equip us to bet­ter deal with what­ev­er the Bent Oyarsa (Satan) throws at us. Our devo­tion will mean that ‑we- react dif­fer­ent­ly, and choose to weath­er storms with one anoth­er, storms that shred mar­riages based only on things earth­ly. Andrew says it beau­ti­ful­ly: “And we’re danc­ing in the mine­fields. We’re sail­ing in the storm. This is hard­er than we dreamed, but I believe that’s what the promise is for.” These storms are best illus­trat­ed (quite lit­er­al­ly) here: Fam­i­ly Man — Andrew Peter­son

* “Life is pain, high­ness. Any­one who says dif­fer­ent­ly is sell­ing some­thing.” ― William Gold­man, William Gold­man: Four Screen­plays with Essays