I know that a lot of the DB'ers here are religious folk -- you can tell that from some of their posts.
Now I am most definitely NOT a religious person, so all you people of faith should take this with several thousand grains of salt, but one of my very close friends is a good and devout Christian man who lives his faith every day.
See -- opposites do attract!
We had lunch the other day, and even though MWD says you shouldn't rally the troops, I did. For me, it helps me confirm my conviction to fight by hearing myself work hard to tell The Story fairly -- to hear that I'm not glossing over my part in it, my responsibility for it.
Then we did the role-reversal and he talked about his struggles with finding a mate -- or, at this stage, even a date -- in a part of the U S of A where "his people" are in fairly short supply.
(My advice: Run away, don't do it! He's a member of an evangelical faith, and I suggested this might be a great time to start a monk-hood. The women'll kill ya!)
And then he said something pretty profound, even to a non-believing heathen like me.
He said that he'd recently changed the way he prayed.
Instead of asking his god for this or that, he now asks his god to "give me what I need." And he puts his faith in that god knowing what he needs, even though my friend himself does not.
So in my case, he said, instead of praying for me "the old way" -- "dear lord, DrHemlock is trying to save his marriage, please help him" -- he was going to pray for me his "new way": "dear lord, DrHemlock is trying to save his marriage; please give him what he needs."
I thought that was pretty good.
Because even though we're fighting for our M's, even though we believe, we know, we KNOW that our M's are RIGHT -- there's always the possibility that, in fact, we're wrong. That WAS is not the one -- that no matter how much we DB, there's always the possibility that we're DB'ing for the wrong person.
Because as stillloveshim (my newest and bestest hero of them all) put it above, we've BOTH changed during the process.
We can know our changes, our 180s, the things we did to GAL.
But when we detach, as we must -- AS I MUST (and I'll get on that any decade now) -- we can't know their changes. Just like my bud might not really know what he needs -- he mistakes his want for his need.
And for me that's one of the great lessons MWD teaches -- that by DB'ing WE become new, even if we don't get our outcome and our M's do not become (re)new(ed).
So if worse comes to worst, we still get what we need -- renewal -- even if we don't get what we want.
He's a member of an evangelical faith, and I suggested this might be a great time to start a monk-hood. The women'll kill ya!)
