Redeemed (the diary of marriage)

We bonded one day at lunch over our broken hearts.

And a month later we decided that two immature kids with deep wounds

and a bent for foolishness should just go buy rings and get married.

Everything about that spelled disaster.

And then we buried our first-born a year later and grew apart in our grief.

We never learned how to do the "blended-family" thing well either.

Hubby had a daughter from a previous relationship and

together we succeeded in making our time with her worse.

We were like 2 sticks of dynamite.

Nothing we touched survived.

So with our differences glaring and pressures mounting

we began our journey into

the CRYING YEARS;

we bought marriage books looking for answers.

But books don't tell you about the spirits of Oppression and Chaos

that come into a marriage with wounds and broken hearts.

So we sailed high speed into the ANGRY YEARS;

and bought a few more marriage books.

But books don't tell you about

the spirit of Stubborness that comes in

when you're angry and oppressed, and broken and chaotic.

So we crashed headlong into the BITTER YEARS;

the years where you literally throw the marriage books into the trash,

angry that they don't work.

Because books don't tell you about the spirit of Criticism

that comes in with bitterness

and compounds the chains that are keeping you

oppressed, broken, stubborn, and angry.

And you don't know why you never taste victory.

You don't know that you can't build on chains.

So there is no holding back the HOPELESS YEARS;

when you can't get up off your knees to face the day.

And if you do,

you feel like you can't breathe.

Because know one tells you about the spirit of Despair

that comes in with hopelessness.

No one can tell you the way through the maze that you're locked in

where there is no light. No oxygen.

It's not in a book.

They can only tell you,"Christians can't get divorced."

So somewhere in the journey "we" died.

And we don't even remember attending the funeral of "us".

We didn't bring flowers.

We were probably too numb to mourn.

We just whispered a half-hearted,

"it would take a miracle", and walked away.

But so began the RESURRECTION YEARS.

It is possible for God to speak life into nothingness.

I have seen Him do it.

I have seen little green shoots of life break through

hard cracked desert hearts.

And we just stand there shocked.

Like two strangers who just met

and have been given a sprout to care for.

The Spirit teaches what no man knows;

and the layers of chaos that were draining us had a name.

They could be revealed and removed.

Sometimes God lets things die

and asks you to wait for His

ressurrection power to come.

And then He speaks life into nothingness.

This year will be 27 years of crazy together.

No one else will ever understand the miracle that is "us".

We still ask God to bring us to "life" on a regular basis.

But I am less afraid of the dying process.

We fix our eyes on heaven,

looking forward to the REDEEMED YEARS.

In Heaven, He will restore to us the years the locusts have eaten.

These two clumsy mutts will

dance on streets of gold

and we will kiss Him for all the chains that were broken

that have enabled us to pour into our children

the truth...

that when they realize they are a mess,

there is hope.

For them, for their marriages, and their children.

To Him who is able to keep us from falling,

be glory and honor and praise.