We need to listen attentively to every conversation, read discerningly every book, if we hope ever to discern the truth and implications of the love word.–Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, 311
Nineteen Years
For nearly nineteen years of my life I have gone to bed with the same woman every night. The darkness comes upon earth, the doors of the house are locked, the children are tucked into their beds and then I climb into bed and roll onto my side. Then I gently scootch as close as humanly possible next to my wife, my bride, my girl; my girl of nearly nineteen years. She is usually asleep because, for the better part of those nineteen years, I have been a preacher or a student who does his best work at night after the darkness has fallen upon earth, the doors have been locked, and the children tucked into their beds.
She does not mind; too much. Most of the time she awakens from her slumber and scootches back against me and I feel our warmth mingle and dance like the flames from two candles mingling and becoming one. I hold her close for several minutes until my hyperactivity disorder kicks in and I am forced to roll on to my other side. Of course she follows; without fail. We do this a few times before we settle into a comfortable deep sleep.
What is amazing to me is that she lets me. And, no matter how much we have argued or complained at each other during the hours of sunlight, when we get under the covers—we always sleep under the covers—there is only room for one of us in the bed. So we sleep next to one another. In the early days of our marriage (and again during our senior year at Bible college) we slept in a twin bed. It was only sometime within the last three years we graduated to a queen size bed.
Nearly nineteen years.
Nearly nineteen years of room for one.
Nearly nineteen years of shared warmth.
It’s like all those hurtful things we have said and done to each other vanish once the covers cover, the pillows absorb, and the flesh melds. I’m not talking about sex. I’m just talking about the closeness, the oneness, the friendship of a lover who is closer than a friend; closer than God.
And if you don’t think I’m telling the truth about that ‘closer than God’ remark, then look back to Genesis where we are told about God making man and woman, husband and wife. There you will see, as I saw one day, what God saw: “God saw that man was lonely, and this was not good.” So what did God do? Send his Holy Spirit? Infuse man with a dose of religion? No. Instead, he made the man a bride, a woman, a lover, and a friend. She was flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone. It was the first and only time in the history of the world that a man gave birth.
The rest, as we say, is history; or future.
So in a sense, the woman has a power that even God does not have. Man was alone, lonely, when it was just him and God. That loneliness went away after God made the woman. I’m not saying God created the woman to ‘cure’ the man’s problems, but rather the man’s problem was cured when God gave him the woman. Eve satisfied a place in Adam’s life that God did not and, presumably, could not.
That’s a powerful way to see Eve. It’s a powerful way to see my wife.
8 Months
I have worked my way through a tremendous amount of suffering over the last several months. I have fleshed it out here quite a lot. It has not been a happy time for the most part. Constant worry about how I would pay my bills. Deep depression at the fact that I was no longer fulfilling my vocation on this earth. Anger that I was (am) working at a job that is frustrating and purposeless. Distress that I have essentially been forced out of my denomination of ordination. Embarrassment before my peers and friends who have not been kicked out of their pulpits—jealous that I am no longer a part of the ‘club.’ Sinful because I was no longer under the constraints of maintaining the ‘pulpit demeanor.’ Fear that my children might judge the church, or Christ, because of the actions of one congregation.And worse. All of this haunts me day in and day out.
Prayerless because I have been terribly angry with God for allowing evil and greed to prevail in my former congregation—because he did not answer my prayers but remained silent. Incredulous that none of the elders, deacons, preachers, or members of the other congregations in my denomination (in my part of the world) have reached out to me, my wife, or my sons—those who were my friends, those with whom I worked, served, and prayed, those who had formerly listened to me teach and preach the Gospel, those who formerly counted on me to lead, visit, conduct funerals or weddings or prayer retreats. Stupefied that I was hung out to dry after nearly ten years of service to the same congregation whom I loved and cared for deeply. Disappointed that I rarely see my sons or my wife because of the work and school schedules we have to maintain. Frustrated because it seems God has taken away all that I thought I was supposed to be and replaced it with things I never imagined myself to be.
I have no other words to describe it, although I’d like to. This is what Renee has had to deal with for…well, forever. And yet, she’s still with me; we are still one.
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