Wary

“Explain to me again why God loves us?”

I’ve written on this before, yet I ask the question.

I’ve written of the smoothness of eternity, of the quiet reflective beauty of beings created for time without end, and how our headlong scramble over the rubble and scree of mortality scrapes our spiritual shins and knees. Unlike the angels, we enter eternity battered, bruised, and bleeding.

We tend to think of ourselves as important creatures. In reality we are more self-important than we merit.

That’s the main reason we sin... we believe that what we want and when we want it is more important than nearly anything else.

This blog has been filled with the angst of personal melodrama, a sordid little morality tale. For now, my life seems to be in a weird lull of its rising action.

Brenda has been nice to me lately.

Nothing extraordinary, just a little kinder, a little more considerate.

In the middle of the night, when I am only slightly aware I have moaned a little in my sleep and rolled away from her, she has reached out and touched my shoulder, moved a foot under the covers and touched mine, small gestures of reassurance.

Which makes my doubts seem unfair.

A week and a half ago she packed her things, swore she was leaving for good, while I told her I loved her, wished her the best, wished her good luck.

I meant it.

After the drama and trauma of the past year I am ready to quit on this marriage.

But... I cannot. Not now. Not yet.

She asked to stay. She has agreed to demands I have made, and I stand as firmly as I can on the shifting sand of this unsteady marriage.

I am hyper vigilant. Perhaps unfairly. I feel guilty being suspicious, being wary.

When I had given up on this marriage a reader of this blog took me to task for coming to that decision. It stung a little.

Since then, since I have forgiven once again, I haven’t heard from that reader.

That is OK. Though the criticism stung at the time I also knew I was justified, scripturally, in casting her aside.

I had thought the reader would have written something to me that was encouraging, reassuring, when I accepted her back, forgave her. But I really don’t need it.

I am satisfied I have stood steady, been true, and I do not need the reassurances of those who do not know my life regarding the decisions I make.

When she was packing to leave, when she got in her car and drove away, I was ready. I was willing to let her go. I meant my words of forgiveness and love and good wishes, but I was ready to let her go, let it end.

I’m a sentimental guy. I feel for those who suffer, I pray for those who haven’t the freedoms I have, the faith I have, the health and wealth I have. I ache over the hurts of my life, the hurts of those I know, the hurts of those I do not know.

My father, the one living the strange, hedonistic life in Thailand, would see such feelings as weakness. I don’t.

I think Jesus was sentimental.

I think He dealt with those He met with understanding, with kindness, with forgiveness.

Still, I have reached the edge of this mesa of forgiveness, and I am unwilling to trot off the rim of this place. I am willing to love her while I tell her goodbye.

And that is the tricky part.

I do love her.

But I don’t trust her.

It doesn’t seem right to have a marriage in such a precarious place.

It doesn’t seem right to wonder about her actions when she is out of sight, when she isn’t doing anything that tells me she is seeking me harm.

Such thoughts make me feel I am selfish.

I feel like I am being unworthy, unkind, self-centered, when I do not embrace her, her thoughts, actions, intentions.

I’m not writing these words to seek the approval of anyone. I don’t need the reassurances of others over what I do. I have walked this path, with my Lord, and I believe I have stood where I might have fallen, climbed higher where I could have slipped further into anger and self pity and jealousy and thoughts of vengeance. I am OK with my choices.

My uneasiness with my suspicions is also understandable.

I want to do what is right. I want to be noble, to please God.

Suspicion does not feel like an emotion that comes from God, and that is why I feel a little guilty over watching her out of the corner of my eye.

I am keenly aware of feelings which feel as they are not of God.

I am aware I am a self-centered, pretentious, self-important being who is extremely small in time and in space.

I am aware I am loved and forgiven by God, and though I am small, though I am flawed, He loves me enough to care, to help me as I shove my burdens ahead of me, up this steep incline of life. Like Sisyphus I haven’t any choice but to keep pushing this boulder in a direction that isn’t all that easy.

But, I am strong. This exercise may seem futile, it may even be futile, but it strengthens these spiritual muscles.

So, I will do my best to control my thoughts, set aside my wariness, and accept where I am, seek to provide a place where she can heal from the hurts she has, the wounds she carries.

I will seek God’s balm for myself and for her, and do my best to accept that, though I am flawed, He still loves me.

It doesn’t have to make sense.

I don’t need to explain why God loves me.

It is enough to know He does.