March | 2015 | one thing blog

Joining with Seth and Amber Haines to talk about marriage. We write letters to inspire each other to keep on…keepin on. This month the prompt is ‘absence makes the heart’.

Dear Joel,
Tonight I watched the sunset over the Rocky Mountains. You must have seen that too…perhaps over the Pacific Ocean or maybe a little further inland? Somewhere in the American Northwest, that is all I know. You are far from me.

Absense makes the heart…
Every time you go, even after all these years, we experience the Horrible Just Before. It is me. All me. See how I can throw every invisible thing in the room at you? Watch the ways I put everything I can find between us. Watch me leave you first. See that I never needed you in the first place? You can call me almost anything except dependent.

And then the second you leave I am filled with regret. The threat of your absence makes my heart hard.

The weeks have fumbled by without you. The house is still standing but it is hard to see the floor.

Four days ago I left home. We packed the car and headed east. There was a beautiful baby girl to meet and I could wait no longer. If I am honest nothing about this trip has gone quite as planned (save the baby that looks like heaven, smells like love). The rest though, every stop, every activity planned somehow failed me. Turns out the whole of Shuswap through the Rogers pass flys south for winter…boards up the nests. Museums close on the wrong days of the week and hotel pools close early when you forget the time change. I have attempted to steal every page from your play book…have done my best to turn every disappointment into opportunity, every mishap into a sermon illustration (or maybe a blog post). We found ourselves in the belly of a beast, there were 106 stairs.

We shut down the pool tonight then went to the drive thru at 10 PM. You should have seen Em on the water slide. The spiral stair case led to the tower. Out the window we could see the Rocky Mountain tops. Emily would not be stopped, would not be helped in any way. I made jokes about the over parenting parents (but Owen didn’t get it…He made a GREAT DATE the rest of the time though!). I am exhausted. I don’t know how you do that for everyone all the time…turn everything into an opportunity for grace and beauty.

Absence makes the heart remember.
Tomorrow we will meet back at home and you need to know I still don’ t need you. That is not the point. I choose you. I GET you. You are my team…together we are stronger. We make each other better.
I choose you.
Everyday.
Always.

Absence makes the heart…
You were missed.
M

It isn’t often that my eyes light up with a view of heaven. They were flashing wild though, when I looked at you with all flesh cornea and happened to see the kingdom version. You were a thing of reckless beauty.

It sounds crazy and I know it. I might be just one day away from camel shirts and locusts for dinner but I don’t even mind. I wish you could see it for yourself, I wish my wild eyes could act like mirrors so that you could not deny it. There would be no going back. You could be a dangerous thing.

I feel it in these creaking flesh bones, valleys rising. The lioness. I am more than ready to rise up, pounce, catch it all, run wild. There is nothing in me aching for the cages of old. Don’t take me back.

My son, he ran out into the woods, got so far ahead I could not see him. It is not the time of year for small boys to be alone in Canadian forests. The bears are waking with this early thaw. When I finally found him, I said “are you okay?” thinking his heart is already caged up like mine. But no. Instead his wild eyes turned on me and said “oh mom, I feel like my very own real and true self”. This is what is created in us, the Image of God on our hearts. I can’t understand why we submit to being bound and caged by the world we find ourselves. What will it take for you to remember your whole? The sozo of God, His plans for you are total restoration. Don’t settle for just a part.

I don’t want to hear about your yoke no more. Throw it off. I want to hear about the molds you shatter, your irrational hope.

You who lead? Don’t you dare look back. There is no faster way to yoke yourself again. Keep your eyes locked on the good shepherd. Keep the kingdom vision of your flock at forefront. Don’t settle in. Don’t wear failure like a cloak. Throw it off. Just for a moment, embrace the whole and free, the reconciliation meant for you. Only then will you ever be able to be a tiny part shattering yokes for the oppressed among us.