There is something in the fiber of my being that tells me that my wife and I were put together for a reason. That same something tells me that my God never intended for this pairing to be divided. I know that my wife once felt this way too, though clearly she has changed her feelings about that. Not surprising really, since so many of her other feelings have changed as well.
I'm not sure I'm a good one to be writing about standing, because over the last few weeks I've been thinking long and hard about why I'm standing and how long I will be standing. I've considered the possibility that God might know that things with my wife will never change, and maybe He would like me to move on at some point and find what is next for me. I know that at my age I expect to love again and know the oneness of being committed to another again. How I wish it could be my wife once more.
What marriage is great all the time? I think it was Michelle in the DB book who said, if someone had told you on the day you were wed that your marriage would only last X years before you would no longer want to be together, you would have called them nuts. We all began this expecting it to last forever, even more for it to be good forever. Something got lost along the way. But I really doubt that they are lost forever.
By going through this time in our lives, I think each of us has created a picture in our minds of what a good marriage and a good relationship with our spouse should look like. We seem to learn more and more every day as we try to deal with these changes in our lives. These good relationships that we picture don't just happen, they must be nurtured and developed. I'd like to think that most of us stand, even when we know our marriages pre-bomb were not perfect, because we do love our spouses, we do take our commitment seriously, and most of all because we all believe that given a second chance we are all now equipped to make our marriages so much better than they were before.
How long do we stand? Gee, that's kind of personal and unique to each of us and where we are in our own journeys right now, isn't it? A month ago I would have told you that I would be standing for my marriage for the rest of my life, even if my wife remarried one day. Today I don't believe that is true.
Time goes by, we grow and change, we accept what life has brought our way and through it all we find a way to embrace whatever it is that the future holds for us. If you are walking by faith, you continually give the path of your life up to God and ask Him constantly for guidance and direction. But you know what? In the end we each do the best we can to make sense of what we see in front of us. No one can presume to speak for God, and no one can presume to tell us what we SHOULD do. That's a part of our personal journey.
Rick Warren says that life is a test, a trust, and temporary. As a test, every incident in our life is an opportunity to grow, to become better than we were before. As a trust, we realize that we have been given much by our Creator and are called to both protect and nurture what we've been given. And finally we are reminded that life is temporary. There is no reason to spend this precious time caught up in things that don't bring us closer to our ultimate goal.
To stand or not to stand. Hell, that's not really even the question. To live or not to live. That's the REAL question.
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
