So In Love

“How is married life?”

That’s what people ask when you’ve been married five and a half months.

 

“Absolutely wonderful,” I tell them, which is very, very true.

I don’t want to be that girl who gushes online about my wonderful husband and all the wonderful things he does for me, because I know what it’s like to be single and read those kinds of posts.  I was always happy for my friends, but in my head, I was like, “Yeah, yeah, marriage is the best thing in the world.  I get it.  You can stop telling me.” 

Most days I can’t believe I’m actually married.  On top of that, I can’t believe I’m married to Jeff.  In what I thought was excessive praise, it turns out those gushy posters of the past didn’t do justice to how beautiful marriage can be. There’s a lot I’d like to write about in this new season of life, even at the risk of making some folks roll their eyes like I used to.  But, before I do, I want to share something I wrote a year ago.  I was single, options wide open in life, and had just started going on little dates with God.  I was in love with Him and enjoying exactly who and where I was in life.  It’s the kind of love I would enjoy reading more about in others’ lives too, so I hope someone can resonate with this today.  

Here’s my journal entry from March 8, 2014.

Lately, I’ve just been having these ridiculously sweet times with God.  Our date under the stars in Uganda last month, His gift of a shower in the Entebbe Airport, and our new Lent adventure of finding ways to serve others every day.  Last night, I got my hair cut, which always feels so luxurious.  The view of the water from Ballard enticed me to wind through the neighborhoods for a closer look.  Little did I know, God had a surprise date ready for us.  I realized I was right by Golden Gardens Park.  I parked, put up my sweatshirt hood, and started walking the beach.

I quietly studied how the sand gradually gives way to rocks and then melds with the water.  I turned my head at the distant echo of sea lions barking, which was just in time to see a flicker of a fish surfacing.  Seriously.  It was like a dream.  Popping, snapping fires filling my nose with summer, blue gray snowcapped mountains with a swirled blue gray sunset gently descending on their heights like a blanket to tuck them in for the night.  Birds dancing, people laughing.

I sang a new song because no love song had yet been written for the kind of love that’s come to me.  I’m so full of it, even now as I try to put last night into words.  “Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…. Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…This is our new song, this is our new song, of love for You… of love with You… of love from You…Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…”

I got back to my car and it was nice and warm.  I put my keys in the ignition but didn’t start the car yet.  I just sat there, savoring the view, the moment.  Everything was heightened, like what I’ve experienced in love with a person, but a million times richer.  I said out loud, “I never knew life could be so beautiful.”  My voice cracked on the words and I started to cry from joy and beauty and LOVE!!  Dang.

He showed me something else.  I get to have this life.  Many 33 year old women have kids, a husband, and family things.  They don’t know what it feels like to be 33 and single.  To dig into the loneliness until this geyser of amazing love and contentment explodes in your life.  I get to have this kind of life.  I get to go on Friday night dates with God.  Not in a “crazy-cat-lady-please-pity-me” sort of way, but in a “gorgeous-gift- that-I-wouldn’t-exchange” way.  I really want to be a Mom.  God knows that and I trust Him.  God and I have this brand of life now.  

I don’t want to compare phases of life anymore.  I just want to be in love with God and sink deeply into gratitude for where He’s brought me today.  This morning, I woke up, held my sleeping husband’s hand, and whispered, “Thank You,” to the One who is the same loving, amazing God, yesterday, today, and forever.  Amen!!

A Forgiveness Letter From Jesus

My Dear One,

You die every time you forgive. 

Again and again and again. 

My life in exchange for yours,

Your pride and rights traded for praying blessings on the wounder. 

It hurts for a reason. 

Don’t balk at the hurt of forgiveness,

Choose it. 

You will never die alone. 

I’m beside you, dying through you,

For you, for them. 

Let it hurt. 

Be a masochist for grace. 

Say to those who have wounded you, stolen life, unrepentant;

Say,

“Peace.” 

“There is peace between us.  You are not in debt of any kind.” 

Name the hurt; go as deep as you can. 

Be not afraid to dig or expose. 

Your wounds need not cower in shame or dark. 

Let them out. 

I can pay for that hurt.

“What about this one, Abba?” you say to Me. 

“This one nearly destroyed me.”

“It will not destroy Me, Dear One.  I can bear that one.  That very wound is My specialty.  I will pay for it.  Give it to Me.”

You give your wounds back to the ones who hurt you,

Hoping and waiting for them to pay. 

It’s like asking a child to fix the window they broke. 

I will pay;

Not because sin is okay, but because My love is stronger than sin.

Heaven is a debt-free kind of place. 

Hurt with Me on earth and be released into joy when all becomes new.  

Be careful not to revel in your pain or make yourself a god. 

Just let forgiveness hurt if it must. 

This is a brand of forgiveness you’ve yet to embrace. 

It will become more of who you are.

You may one day take joy at the prospect of forgiving a harsh wound.  

In your pain, praise Me for My choice, for My pain.

Do you know this frees you from perfectionism? 

Go ahead – make a mistake. 

I will pay for it. 

You hurt others, and My grace is enough. 

I know you’re weak. 

You don’t need to prove anything to Me.

Wounder or wounded….I’ve got it all covered. 

I am the atoning sacrifice for sin, and not only yours, but also for the sins of the whole world.  (1 Jn 2:2)

If you confess your sins, I am faithful, I am just.  I will forgive you and purify you from all unrighteousness.  (1 Jn 1:9)

The reason I appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.  No one God created will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.  (1 Jn 3:8&9)

This is how God showed his love among you:  God sent Me, His one and only Son into the world that you might live through Me.  This is love:  not that you loved God, but that He loved you and sent Me as an atoning sacrifice for your sins.  (1 Jn 4:9&10)

Love,

Your Savior