Wuss

At what point does a man cease being a patient, loving, Christ-follower, and becomes a spineless wuss?

Is it tied to events? If this happens, he does that. If she says such and such he responds by doing this or that?

Is it tied to the heart? He listens to that space where he finds peace and solace from the Holy Spirit and works to build and repair and love and forgive and improve?

Is it a matter of his character? And if so, what character? The parts of himself he recognizes as echoes of the men of his childhood, those who pretended to know what to do when they hadn’t a clue, who yelled when angry, and resolved their conflicts with a volatile mixture of muscle and testosterone? Or the part of his character that felt beauty in all things, the part that responds to sunrises and deep valleys and roaring rivers, the part of himself which walked hundreds of miles of mountain trails and saw the Creator in the universe?

My wife said yesterday that she knew she had to tell this other man that they had to break it off. She said that what makes it so hard is that she loves him.

She said she loves me as well, but not the same way.

“Ouch.”

Or rather... “Shit!”

The obligations she feels for our children, the complex legal mess they are in, tells her she must stay.

The obligations she feels for her mother, a woman with schizophrenia and the lasting effects of a stroke, tells her she must stay.

The obligations she feels for me, who has stuck by her for years, though I have not provided all she yearns for, but is “a good man who I don’t want to hurt,” tells her she must stay.

She feels trapped in a cage.

I don’t want to be one of the bars of her cage. Especially the one that is easiest to walk away from.

If I were a bookie I’d give this marriage four to one odds.

Whoopee. Looks like I might “win.” What I need for her is a spiritual cleansing that will renew her spirit, wash away the filth and hurt that has caused her to obsess and control and... stray.

She should get the counseling that would help her heal, she should get the help that I can offer, but she needs more.

She needs a miracle.

I must find a way to maintain my faith that “all things work for good for those..." who need to find a way out of this thick briar patch that is in the darkest part of this ancient wood.

I need to find a way to toss aside my concerns about who I am, woos or obedient servant, and simply follow what my Lord would have me do.

There is a whisper that comes to my ear several times a day:

“Let her go.”

It is easy to pretend I don’t hear it.

“Let her go. What is the matter with you, you a spineless wuss?”

My heart begins to race, my legs want to move...

“You could find someone new. Someone you could trust.”

I stuff metaphorical fingers into my ears and chant: “Nyah, nyah nyah... I can’t hear you! Nyah, nyah, nyah, the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want, He leads me...”

I guess I don’t care if I’m a woos. I do care that my heart races and that I am jumpy and nervous and having trouble sleeping. But I have been telling Brenda the same thing I have been telling myself:

“Whether you stay, or whether you go, I will do what is right every step of the way. I will deal with this with integrity. I will act with strength but not violence. I will love you and I will do what I know my faith would have me do.”