I subscribe to a number of blogs, though I do not read all of them every day. There is one that I frankly find annoying. It is chock full of trendy date ideas and descriptions of their oh so romantic life.
But yesterday it caught my attention just before I deleted it. Her husband lost his job. Now I was interested. How was their hunky dory routine gonna weather this little storm? Today's installment was still a bit too lopsided on the optimism, but hey it has only been one day.
I have a couple that I fantasize about. Their life is perfect. The house they live in is gorgeous, their 2.4 kids are straight A students, their health is vibrant, and their marriage looks sterling. I feel like a schmuck just being on the same planet. The other day I drove by their house to see a little dog barking protectively.
"I bet their pets don't even poop in the yard."
I realize that the people I feel most connected to are the ones who have chinks in their veneer. Which makes marriage so fortuitous. And provocative. I have a microscopic view of another person's flaws, and embarrassingly, so does he. But what would it be like to be linked to someone who absolutely never messed up?
Early in our relationship I remember confessing a dark secret to John. Instead of stomping out of the room as I expected, his mouth betrayed the shadow of a smile. I was confused, but I think he felt relieved. It made him less lonely in his own failings. Last month John lost his cool with Benjamin, an infraction that I have him beat by at a ratio of 100 to one. He was deeply chagrined to have gotten angry. I was thrilled. Well, not thrilled in that he screamed at our autistic kid but
relieved that the standard for excellence was no longer twenty stories up.
One of the most painful periods of my life was when we were living at the poverty line in Albuquerque. No insurance, no job, no future. Yet one of the doors that opened to me then was the awareness that God hurts too. The feelings that were thrashing me around like a rag doll in the washing machine were part of His world too.
Rejection. Despair. Isolation.
That year was found the impetus to write the song Can a Woman Forget Her Nursing Child? In a way that has endured these thirty years, I felt a ribbon of connection. Me and God. We are in this together.
Can a woman forget her nursing child? And not have compassion on the son of her womb? Surely they may forget, but I won't forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands.
He was despised, rejected of men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs. Surely He has born our griefs, and carried our sorrows. For our sins He was wounded, by His stripes we are healed.
Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it never been told you from the beginning of time? The Creator of earth neither faints nor is weary. Those who wait on the Lord shall mount like eagles with wings. - Isaiah 49
