musings on marriage.

So, this past semester I took a Marital and Pre-marital Counseling class for my degree. It's been my favorite class so far, and I've learned so much about interpersonal relationships in general and hopefully a great many things I'll be able to personally put into practice someday if God ever calls me to be someone's wife in addition to helping others to make steps toward healthier marriages. And I'm probably far too interested in marital relationship dynamics than is healthy for an unmarried person, but I'm just super fascinated by aspects of personality, communication styles, conflict resolution, the impact of family of origin, what makes a person tick and what makes people click and all that jazz. 

So anyway, one of our final assignments was to make a list of "Ten Key Truths" that we learned from taking the class. All these things have been incredibly helpful for me to reflect upon, so I thought you might like to meditate on these musings as well. [Also, married friends: PLEASE tell me what you think of these...In your experience, are these accurate? Do these things hold true? What additional key truths would you add to help educate we not-yet-married folk?]

1. God did not design marriage for your personal happiness but primarily for your growth in holiness. This idea is Gary Thomas’s thesis in his book, Sacred Marriage. Love and marriage are not about what your spouse can do for you and how he or she will fulfill you, satisfy you, or make you happy. Instead, God uses the challenges of marriage to chip away your rough edges and conform you more into the image of His Son. The refining fire of living in close relationship with another sinner is ultimately for His glory and your good. [Psalm 66:10-12, Zechariah 13:9, Romans 8:28]

2. The problem is not loving your spouse too much or not enough, but not loving God enough. Both Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage and Paul Tripp’s What Did You Expect? accentuate this idea. When you make an idol of your spouse, you expect your husband or wife to fill a role that only God can fill. You need to reorder your loves to love Him first, foremost, and with your whole heart, for He is a jealous God. In loving God more, you will be able to love and serve your spouse better without trying to make him or her your functional god, and you will not be disappointed and punish your spouse when he or she inevitably lets you down. [Deut. 6:5, Exodus 20:1-6, Habakkuk 2:18-20, Romans 1:25]

3. Love in marriage requires sacrifice and selflessness. Sometimes even the choice to marry someone has little to do with loving that person and more to do with loving yourself and how that person fits into your plans and ideals. According to Paul Tripp in What Did You Expect?, “Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving.” Even when your spouse falls short of your expectations, you are called to serve and die for this person. [Phil. 2:1-10, John 15:12-17, Ephesians 5:1-2 & 25]

4. Commitment is the anchor of marriage. According to Tim Keller in The Meaning of Marriage, "wedding vows are not a declaration of present love but a mutually binding promise of future love" and they "keep you from simply running out too quickly" or giving up when feelings fade. Commitment transforms a promise into reality and puts your words into action. Commitment says, “I choose to actively love you and fight for you, even if my feelings are telling me otherwise.” Commitment perseveres, whatever comes. Without choosing to commit to your spouse, you will find yourself trying to justify any reason to run when trials come. [1 Corinthians 13:7, Numbers 30:2, Ecclesiastes 5:1-7]

5. Healthy marital communication begins with your attitude and is impacted by how you approach the conversation, your differing communications styles, how well you listen to each other, and your level of emotional reactivity. Communication is less a matter of technique and more a matter of your attitude towards and perception of your spouse. Don’t let a negative relationship history or negative affect reciprocity perpetuate pessimism and disputes. Seek to communicate past the superficial levels of cliché, facts, and opinions, and dig deeper into feelings with honesty and vulnerability. Remember that good communication involves listening well, and according to H. Norman Wright, “Listening means that you’re trying to understand the feelings of the other and that you’re doing it for his or her sake.” [Romans 12:9-21, Luke 6:45, Colossians 4:6]

6. There is a level of intimacy that only comes through communicating through difficult issues. Even if and when conflict arises, do not despair or worry that you married the wrong person. Conflict is an opportunity for growth. In healthy couples, conflict can add energy to your marriage and bring you to a deeper level of intimacy than if you never had to work through difficult situations. Like working a muscle, communicating through disagreements and difficult decisions can be a relational strength-building exercise. So, in reality, conflict is evidence of God’s grace; He refuses to leave you in a mediocre, one-dimensional, carefree marriage but instead makes your relationship stronger and deeper through the tension, building character and endurance in each of you individually as well. [James 1:2-4, Colossians 3:12-17, 1 Peter 6-7, Romans 5:1-5]

7. Intimacy is about more than just sex, and plain-and-simple conversational intimacy is foundational and affects all levels of intimacy. There are five types of intimacy (conversational, physical, emotional, sexual, and spiritual), and you can rarely have a healthy sex life without all five. You need to learn to communicate intimacy on all five levels, not just on a sexual level. There are also many barriers to intimacy, such as lack of knowledge or understanding about each other, habitual criticism, resentment, lack of trust, and failure to prioritize your spouse. You need to work to break down these barriers and strive for authentic vulnerability, because you can’t be defensive and vulnerable at the same time! Improving intimacy on all five levels will help your spouse feel safe enough to be vulnerable. [Genesis 2:25, 1 Corinthians 13, 1 John 4:7-21, Ephesians 4:1-3]

8. Perpetual problems rooted in personality differences can’t be “fixed” and don’t need to be “fixed.” We must learn to celebrate our differences. Remember that your way is not the “right” way. You were each created as unique individuals with particular personality traits. These differences can be a blessing if you learn to appreciate them and allow yourself to be stretched by pondering a perspective other than your own. You are better equipped to serve the Lord with your spouse because you can each balance out the other’s strengths and weaknesses. It is a great thing that you didn’t marry your clone, in which case one of you would be unnecessary! Leo Tolstoy summarizes it well in saying, “What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are but how you deal with incompatibility.” [Psalm 139:13-16, 1 Corinthians 12]

9. Many issues in marriage are caused because spouses fail to properly understand and work through family of origin issues. When you and your spouse got married, you each brought a lifetime of family history, holiday traditions, doing things a certain way, and even the pain of unresolved familial issues. You must learn to “leave and cleave,” choosing your spouse and working together to create your own traditions and systems. [Gen. 2:24, Ephesians 5:31-33]

10. Marriage is hard work, but it’s not complicated. It’s not rocket science. But it does take disciplined and intentional effort. You’re never in more danger than when you allow yourself to coast. So, you have to work on your marriage, but you don’t have to constantly dissect it or over-analyze it. God is not a God of chaos or confusion, but He does call us to faithfulness, obedience, and diligence. [1 Corinthians 14:33, Matt. 11:25-30, Colossians 3:23-24]

 

passengers.

You know what one of my biggest struggles is? Fear in uncertain circumstances. Fear of the future. Fear that this pain of __________, this struggle with ___________, this waiting for ___________, will last forever. That __________ won't work out the way I want it to.

It's a control issue.

I think I know what I want and try to masterfully plan my own way, and when my expectations are shattered, I throw a bit of a tantrum and sometimes (in the past, more consistently) crumple into a heap of bitterness and anger and a woe-is-me attitude. 

["The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps." (Proverbs 16:9) ....I am slowly learning to genuinely rest in that.]

Have you seen Passengers? With Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence? I watched it with some friends the other night, and, ya know, didn't exactly expect to come away with a deeper understanding of certain spiritual truths. But. It happened.

[Just to give you fair warning, if you want to see this movie and haven't yet, I'm about to ruin the ending for you. So you might want to skip down a few paragraphs. Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you.]

The movie starts when the spaceship (a luxury-cruise-ship-type thing...kind of exactly like in Wall-E) with 5,000 "hibernating" passengers headed for a new life on another planet gets hit by a meteor, waking up one passenger (Jim) 90 years too soon. He doesn't know how or why; he only knows his hibernation pod malfunctioned (which all the automated systems on the ship tell him is an impossibility) and he is alone. He lives a year this way, with only a bar-tending robot for company. He is on the brink of suicide when he stumbles upon the sleeping Aurora. He then starts learning about her through information and interviews in the ship's records, and (you guessed it) he falls in love with her. He battles against his selfishness for a while, but eventually his desire for companionship wins out and he wakes her up. And of course, he doesn't tell her he did it.

Aurora is at first frustrated with the fact that her plans to write a story that's never been told (of a pioneer expedition to another planet) have been thwarted. But she eventually succumbs to Jim's shy charm and falls for him. They are whimsically happy for a while, until the aforementioned bar-tending robot spills the beans. 

As you can imagine, she is livid. And that's an understatement....she kicks, screams, and even tries to kill him with a crowbar before presumably vowing to never again acknowledge his existence. 

And so they would have continued if another hibernation pod hadn't malfunctioned. This time, the awakened passenger is a crew member who is able to access other areas of the ship, where they discover that Jim woke up two years earlier because a meteor had blown a hole in the ship and was still doing significant damage. If they didn't do something, all 5,000 passengers would be lost. 

To make a long story short, Jim and Aurora are able to save the day, but Jim could never have done it alone: Expelling the meteor took two people (just watch the movie, it's too complicated to explain). So, even though waking Aurora up was terribly selfish, they would have all died if he hadn't. And if Jim's pod hadn't malfunctioned in the beginning, again, the ship would have been completely destroyed by the meteor decades before it reached its destination. 

In the end, Jim and Aurora are finally able to be content with their circumstances. True, it wasn't at all what they had planned...living out the rest of their days on a spaceship and dying of old age before reaching the place they had planned to build their perspective futures. 

In the final scene, you hear the words Aurora has recorded for posterity, "A friend once said, 'You can't get so hung up on where you'd rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are.' We got lost along the way, but we found each other. And we made a life...a beautiful life. Together."

[As a side note, the fact that Jim was on the verge of killing himself when he felt suffocated by solitude but the couple thrived when they worked together to save the ship, then reconciled and committed to building a life together makes me think of  1. Adam and Eve: "It is not good for man to be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:18) 2. "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10)]

So in the end, they learn to live contently in the fullness of something Aurora had said earlier in the film: “We all have dreams. We plan our futures like we’re the captains of our fate, but we’re passengers. We go where fate takes us. This isn’t the life we planned, but it’s ours."

Of course, I'm being so presumptuous as to replace "fate" with "God," the only one who is actually in control. Control is an illusion. I am not promised my next breath. I cannot control the shockingly devastating crises that inevitably occasionally hit. As much as I'd love to have my future all planned out, I am ultimately not in control of that either. 

I recently heard a message about the story of Ruth called "On Purpose." The speaker lost her husband in a car accident when she was only 22 years old and pregnant with their first child. She shared her story as it relates to Ruth and Naomi's. Her point was that we don't know the whole story; we can't always see what God is doing. Ruth and Naomi thought they would be destitute widows forever. Even when the "happily ever after" rolled around, they still didn't know how their pain-and-suffering-filled story would lead to the birth of King David and, ultimately, Jesus Christ! If famine hadn't driven them out of Bethlehem, Naomi's sons would have never married Moabite women. If their husbands hadn't died, Ruth and Naomi wouldn't have come back to Bethlehem and Ruth wouldn't have been scavenging in Boaz's field. But God chose to redeem Ruth's pain and include her (a gentile/foreigner!) in the lineage of his own Son!

As for my friend (the speaker at this event), her pain was redeemed as well; she remarried a man who is now a pastor, and they have three sons who would not exist were it not for the tragedy of losing her first husband. (Of course, that doesn't mean the pain isn't still profound and the scars aren't deep.)

But don't you see? God is doing something in your pain and uncertainty! (Oh that I had the time and space to tell you what he's been doing in mine....let's get coffee sometime :)) 

My point is we need a perspective shift. We could go on biting our nails about tomorrow and pouting over unrealized possibilities, or we could lay it all down. There is such freedom in submission and surrender (I'm not there yet, but my Good, Good Father continues to break me of my clinched-fisted control issues). 

It's such a pithy saying but...."We don't know what the future holds, but we know Who holds the future."

I once did a painting series of blindfolded dancers called "Not by Sight" during a time in my life when everything seemed uncertain. Even though I could not see the next step, I felt like God was leading me, dancing with me. He's never dropped me yet.

"For we live by faith, not by sight." (2 Corinthians 5:7)

"Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in ALL circumstances." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering is a book that will make the reader both think deeply about the nature and purpose of pain and feel deeply God’s goodness and sovereignty in suffering. In this thorough consideration of the matter of sorrow, grief, and pain, Tim Keller addresses an anthropology or sociology of suffering by analyzing how different cultures view and handle hardships. He also considers suffering from a philosophical standpoint, digging deeply into the problem of evil. He then lays out a theology of suffering, demonstrating how God works in the midst of misery and how God himself clothed himself in flesh to experience unimaginably profound pain for our sake. Finally, he describes the practical disciplines of walking, weeping, trusting, praying, thinking, thanking, loving, and hoping through the fiery furnace of life’s trials. 

Key Principles

Keller expounds upon several key principles throughout this book. First of all, Keller explains how poorly postmodernism has prepared us for suffering. According to Keller, “it is because the meaning of life in the United States is the pursuit of pleasure and personal freedom that suffering is so traumatic for Americans. All other cultures make the highest purpose of life something besides individual happiness and comfort.”[1] Our individualistic, secular, postmodern culture sees this material life as all there is, and if that is true then there can be no higher purpose to pain; it is merely a pesky interruption to the pursuit of happiness. Keller goes on to explain that Christianity is the worldview that is best equipped to address suffering: “Christianity teaches that, contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us like a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.”[2]

Secondly, Keller emphasizes multiple times throughout the book that God himself suffered. Christ came to bear the curse of sin and shame that we deserved. He endured more intense physical and spiritual pain than we can imagine, and so he is truly able to empathize with us. It is this reality of the “Suffering Sovereign” that enables us to endure hardships with hope and honesty: “Because suffering is both just and unjust, we can cry out and pour out our grief, yet without the toxic additive of bitterness. Because God is both sovereign and suffering, we know our suffering always has meaning even though we cannot see it. We can trust him without understanding it all.”[3]

Another key truth is that suffering has a purpose. In fact, it has many. One way people profit from pain is that “troubled times awaken them out of their haunted sleep of spiritual self-sufficiency into a serious search for the divine.”[4] Keller goes on to quote C. S. Lewis, who aptly and succinctly said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.”[5] When things are going well, it is easy to forget God. When tragedy strikes, we are made inescapably aware of our own fragility and neediness. When we reach the end of ourselves, we are forced to cry out for help to Someone greater than ourselves. That is a very good place to be, and often it is only hardship that can bring us so humbly to our knees and open our eyes to the presence and provision of our Good, Good Father. Keller puts it another way later on by saying, “Almost no one grows into greatness or finds God without suffering, without pain coming into our lives like smelling salts to wake us up to all sorts of facts about life and our own hearts to which we were blind.”[6]

Similarly, Keller says that “suffering poses a responsibility and presents an opportunity. You must not waste your sorrows.”[7] Both H. Norman Wright’s The Complete Guide to Crisis & Trauma Counseling and Kristi Kanel’s A Guide to Crisis Intervention mention that the Chinese symbol for “crisis” is a combination of the words “danger” and “opportunity.” Suffering presents the opportunity to grow in faith, but the danger is that it can also result in a person turning away from God altogether. Keller emphasizes that we have a choice in how we walk through difficult times; we can choose to resentfully run away from God or lean into his loving arms.

Another purpose of suffering is that is forces us to reorder our loves. Keller asserts the idea that the problem is not that we love other things or other people too much; the problem is that we don’t love God enough. Suffering shatters our idols by exposing their insufficiency and powerlessness. To use Keller’s words, “If anything matters more to you than God you are placing yourself and your heart into something external. Only if you make God matter the most—which means only if you glorify him and give him the glory—will you have a safe life.”[8] Suffering separates the fleeting from the eternal. It separates the dross from the gold.

Strengths and Weaknesses

In my opinion, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering has many more strengths than it has weaknesses. One of its strengths is the general depth and richness of its theological truth. As already stated, Keller describes God as both suffering and sovereign. In his suffering, he is able to identify with us. In his sovereignty, we can trust him even when our suffering seems senseless. Keller also demonstrates an acute awareness of how our culture impacts our approach to suffering. Lastly and most helpfully, he offers practical advice on how to handle hardships when they inevitably arise.

I enjoyed the layout of the book, from cultural analysis to theological study to practical application. Initially, it was helpful to better grasp why we, culturally, struggle so much with suffering. Keller thoroughly addresses why we so often ask, “Why would a good God allow such terrible things to happen?” I found it fascinating to dig deeper into why our postmodern culture asks that question (from a position of doubting either God’s goodness or God’s existence) to begin with and how even asking the question produces a “boomerang effect”: “The very basis for disbelief in God—a certainty about evil and the moral obligation not to commit it—dissolves if there truly is no God.”[9] We sense that some things are bad and just should not be, but in doing so we are assuming there is a moral absolute that determines right and wrong. Additionally, we are ill equipped to handle hardship because of our deeply engrained individualism. I had never really given much thought to the reality that pain is expected and perhaps even desirable and productive in other cultures, while we balk at difficulties and run from adversity. I had never seriously considered that my tendency towards fear or indignation in suffering was largely a result of my culture’s messages to “find what feels good” and “do whatever makes you happy.”

I also appreciated his theological examination of suffering and how it is central to the gospel. God is not a distant divine being who looks aloofly upon our affliction. Instead, he felt all the sensations of physical anguish as well as the spiritual turmoil of literally being godforsaken. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Incredibly, God used the ultimate act of evil and pain, the bloody execution of his own son, to bring about our healing and restoration. As Keller puts it, “God allows evil just enough space so it will defeat itself.”[10] Even evil, pain, and suffering are subservient to him.

Lastly, the book is heavily laden with practical application and life-altering truths. Keller offers many insights that have been enlightening and useful for me personally but will also be helpful as I seek to minister to hurting hearts. I appreciated the way he describes suffering as something through which you must walk alongside God. As Keller puts it, “Walking with God through suffering means treating God as God and as there, as present. Walking is something nondramatic, rhythmic—it consists of steady, repeated actions you can keep up in a sustained way for a long time.”[11] It’s a process. It’s a journey. We don’t have to be or do anything extraordinary; he just calls us to be faithful—to put one foot in front of the other. Additionally, Keller compares hardship to a gymnasium (it exposes weaknesses and helps build strength) and a furnace (it burns away impurities and refines).

I would only point out two weaknesses in the book. First of all, although I enjoyed it in its entirety, I thought it was repetitive at times and could have been condensed into a more concise work. Additionally, some of the philosophical sections felt like drudgery to trudge through, so I think it would have been better if Keller had focused less on the somewhat cold philosophical and sociological elements and more quickly gotten into how to help a suffering person confront their circumstances and lean into the Lord. I think there is a very real possibility someone in the midst of grief would either skip directly to Part Three or give up on the book altogether as an overly objective and excessively intellectual work.  

Personal Application

Keller provides a plethora of potential personal applications. I felt like I drew nearer to the heart of God through reading this book, and I think the Lord used it to dig up and dig out much of the residual ache from my recent and past suffering. I learned a lot about God’s character and feel with much more certainty that I can trust in his goodness and sovereignty, which is something I’ve really struggled with after a difficult few years. I appreciate Keller quoting John Newton in saying, “Everything is needful that he sends; nothing can be needful that he withholds.” Similarly, in relating the story of Joseph, Keller says, “The Joseph story tells us that very often God does not give us exactly what we ask for. Instead he gives us what we would have asked for if we had known everything he knows. We must never assume that we know enough to mistrust God’s ways or be bitter against what he has allowed.”[12] That was very convicting for me, as I so often pout or even rail against him when I don’t get “my way.” It was a good reminder that his ways and his thoughts are exceedingly higher and better than my own (Isaiah 55:9).

Another essential personal takeaway is how Keller explains how God uses suffering. As stated above, one of Keller’s key points was that suffering is not meaningless; it has a purpose. It humbles us and shows us our fragility; it reveals the good things in our lives that we have allowed to become our gods; it strengthens our relationship with God by teaching us to genuinely love and rely upon him and not just enjoy him for his gifts; it drives us to God in prayer; finally, suffering helps to mature us and grow us in wisdom, making us better fit to minister to others in their pain.[13] I will cling to these truths and remind myself of these blessings that are the result of suffering as I walk through difficult times in the future.

This book also did a thorough, if not somewhat painful, job of exposing some of the idols of my heart. I do struggle with letting God’s good gifts become my gods. I have taken some relatively recent losses so hard because I had grown to love that thing or that person more than God. And God is a jealous God; he won’t relent until he has my whole heart. I was very convicted by this statement: “If you live for and love anything more than God then your life is always going to be like a tossing sea. You will be restless, without peace. If you love anything more than God, you are always going to be in anxiety about it.”[14] But, with him in his rightful place on the throne of my heart, I don’t have to be restless or anxious, because “[he] keep[s] in perfect peace whose mind is stayed upon [him]” (Isaiah 26:3).

Ministry Application

As Keller emphasizes, one of the purposes of pain is to prepare us for ministry. He puts it perfectly by saying, “There is no way to know who you really are until you are tested. There is no way to really empathize and sympathize with other suffering people unless you have suffered yourself. There is no way to really learn how to trust God until you are drowning.”[15] In a very real sense, we need suffering in order to become mature ministers of the gospel.

A main ministry application I will take from this book is Keller’s explanation of the different aspects of the experience of affliction. Understanding these aspects will help me better understand what sufferers are thinking, feeling, and experiencing. First, he says that suffering is isolating: “Severe suffering turns you into a different person and some of the people that you once felt affinity for no longer look the same to you” and no longer understand you.[16] There is also an element of implosion; pain can turn us inward and tend to make us self-absorbed. Next, there is a sense of guilt and hopelessness. Then there is anger. Finally, there is the temptation to allow the pain to become a part of our identity for which we are proud and do not want to let go; we are tempted to pet our pain and stroke our sorrow and self-pity instead of doing the hard work of working through it.

Overall, I found Walking with God through Pain and Suffering to be profoundly impactful for my life and ministry. I hope to allow these truths to sink in more and more and truly transform my outlook on suffering. I would highly recommend this book to anyone walking through a difficult season and will definitely keep it as a reference as I seek to speak the truth in love to those who are hurting.

the vow.

Do you ever feel fragile?

I do.

The stomach bug. The broken bone. The car crash. The spouse that gives up and walks out. The cancer diagnosis. The broken relationship. The lost job. The missed opportunity. The unfulfilled expectation. The unexpected disaster.

The list goes on.

For me, it's feeling like I've been in a constant state of transition for several years. It's getting attached to people and having to say goodbye (or never getting to do so). It's not knowing what the future holds (or even really what this year will hold). It's the reality that, in opening yourself up in interpersonal relationships, you run the very real risk of getting hurt. It's doing a headstand (snarky comments to yourself, please) and immediately feeling a disk slip in my neck, and many visits to the chiropractor later, I can still fill this pinched nerve. 

As Ingrid Michealson says,

"We are so fragile,
And our cracking bones make noise,
And we are just,
Breakable, breakable, breakable, girls and boys."

Do you remember The Vow? That movie that came out several years ago with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams? Did you know that it's based on a true story?

I think I bought the book for my Mom years ago and saw it on the bookshelf at my parents' house while I was home for Christmas. I soon found that, not surprisingly, the book was vastly different from the movie. There were minor differences (such as the fact that the film was set in Chicago but the actual couple is from New Mexico), but there were several major differences as well. For one thing, the actual accident was much more traumatic, involving the car flipping and the husband getting half his face scraped off through the shattered sunroof and the wife having to be cut out of the car and airlifted to a hospital when no one believed she could possibly survive a head injury that severe. 

There is one more essential detail the filmmakers left out: The Carpenters (the couple on whom the film is based) are Christians. 

Of course, no one would really expect Hollywood to make that the focus of the film the way the couple keeps the gospel central as they retell their story of healing and restoration. However, eliminating the faith element makes the story a bit unbelievable, which perhaps is why I wasn't a huge fan of the movie when I first saw it. In a culture in which divorce is such a commonly chosen way out even in much less dire circumstances, why on earth would the husband stay when his wife doesn't remember her love for him and why would the wife stay with someone who feels like a stranger to her? Actually, I think in the movie they do file for divorce, and it is only ambiguously insinuated that they will make steps to be reunited in the end.

The real couple's relationship during the recovery process was actually, surprisingly, much more dramatic and volatile. As is apparently common with brain injuries, it was not only her memory that was affected; she also underwent huge personality changes as well in which she reverted to childlike tendencies and had trouble controlling her temper. She was often positively vicious and borderline violent with her husband, who was making so many sacrifices to walk this long road of recovery with her. But he never gave up on her. Why? In the face of such a daily, thankless struggle, would you have stayed?

I've learned a lot this past year. About grief. About forgiveness. About the idols of my own heart. But two sentences that struck me and have impacted me profoundly are two definitions of love I have heard this year:

"Love is a selfless and enduring commitment of the will to care about and benefit another person by righteous, truthful, and compassionate thoughts, words, and actions."

and

"Love is the extent to which you are serving and dying for another person."

That's quite a different idea of love than the one books, movies and social media rub in our faces. But what if these two definitions are more accurate than the one we've been led to believe?

What if our love and even our identity was based on the strength of our commitments and not on the shifting sand of fleeting feelings? 

I'm taking a marital/pre-marital counseling class as part of my degree this year, and I just finished The Meaning of Marriage by Tim Keller (which I would 100% recommend to singles as well as engaged or married couples). In his chapter entitled "The Essence of Marriage," Keller digs into the idea that "wedding vows are not a declaration of present love [which should be rather obvious] but a mutually binding promise of future love" and that they "keep you from simply running out too quickly" or giving up when feelings fade. 

Keller also argues for the idea that "we are largely who we become by making wise promises and keeping them." Our promises become a significant pillar of our identity. We choose to make a commitment, and keeping it is a character-defining exercise of willpower. Heck, even Dumbledore agrees: "It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." 

Love, then, requires promise as much as or even more so than it involves passion. Love involves a feeling, but it is even more so a decision. To that end, I've found C.S. Lewis' explanation to be very helpful:

"Though natural likings should normally be encouraged, it would be quite wrong to think that the way to become charitable is to sit trying to manufacture affectionate feelings...The rule for all of us is perfectly simple. Do not waste time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him."

A daunting challenge to us all. 

Do you ever feel fragile? Unsteady? Unstable?

Commitments (or better, covenants) are the one thing we can (or should be able to) count on. And whereas we, as fragile, flawed humans, often fail to keep our promises, Jesus is the only one who is steadfast. Who is sure. Who never changes (even when everything in my life, personally, seems inconstant). He is the only one who won't walk out.

Even on the cross, having been beaten and spit on and mocked by those he came to save...He stayed. He could have come down. He could have saved himself and let us take the fall for our sin (which would have been no less than we deserved). But he didn't walk away. He stayed. 

And He is the very Author and Perfecter of the idea of "covenant/commitment/vow."

For your Maker is your husband,
    the Lord of hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
    the God of the whole earth he is called. (Isaiah 54:5)

...and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,
    so shall your God rejoice over you. (Isaiah 62:5)

even to your old age I am he,
    and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save. (Isaiah 46:4)

In this world of uncertainty and "shifting shadows" (James 1:17), I am held fast by this hope that is the anchor of my wandering heart (Hebrews 6:19):

My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

• On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
  All other ground is sinking sand,
  All other ground is sinking sand.

I pray you can "rest in His unchanging grace" today and that you would also have the courage and the humility and the confidence to extend that grace to others. You won't regret it. You won't regret committing your life to Him. 

I promise. 

dashboard confessional.

"Cari, con le lacrime nel cuore vi comunico che, in seguito ad un grave incidente di auto, la sorella Kyra è andata col Signore. Reid e le bimbe, benché leggermente feriti, sono sopravvissuti."

Moments of impact.

I still vividly remember the morning these two sentences changed my life. The news that came in a brief email from my Italian pastor hit my heart with the force of the tractor-trailer that caused the accident.

"Dear ones, with tears in my heart I tell you that, following a serious car accident, our sister Kyra has gone to be with the Lord. Reid and the girls, although they have minor injuries, have survived."

One year ago today was my friend's last day on this earth. I can't believe it's been that long. So much has happened since then. So much has changed. 

I've changed.

There's no getting around the fact that losing someone you love is sad. It is. No amount of well-meant words of condolence are really much consolation. Over the past year, I've often wondered what I could say or do to help those who call her "wife," "mother," "daughter" and "sister"...to ease the pain or make it better somehow. But I can't. I can't fix it. For them or for myself. Sometimes (most of the time) all you really can do is "weep with those who weep" (Romans 12:15). And I do grieve alongside those who lost their own flesh and blood, because she was like a sister to me. And because surviving life overseas bonds people together in a way that little else can.

If I could have it my way, I'd have my friend back. I would be able to talk to her again, especially over what have been a rough few months. Maybe I would have visited this summer. I wish Reid could have his wife back and the girls had their mother (and y'all, she was such a wonderful wife and mom) and that all the pain her family has felt this year could be erased. But it isn't that way. It's different. All of our lives changed. We're all different for having loved and lost her.

Moments of impact.

I miss her laugh, but I'm starting to forget what is sounded like.

I miss her calling me "Lizzy."

I miss her listening face.

This year has been hard. The hardest of my life, in fact. There has been a lot of hurt and a lot of healing....some more hurt and hopefully eventually those wounds will heal as well. Since the shock of losing Kyra so unexpectedly and the pain of losing such a dear friend so permanently, I just...feel things more deeply. I've felt more intense heartache over the brokenness of this world in the past twelve months than I ever have in my life, but I've also felt a richer joy...a deeper attachment to the people I love and a greater appreciation for the beauty of this life.

It's hard to explain.

It sounds strange, but it's almost as though her death brought me life....brought me a fuller understanding of what's truly important....has made me live with eyes wide open to God's work in the world in a way I didn't before....instilled in me all the things I learned from her while she was alive and would have taken for granted but are now absolutely invaluable. 

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." -John 12:24

I used to really struggle with anxiety and trying (and failing, and beating myself up for failing) to be perfect. While she was alive, Kyra always had a peace about her and taught me that it just didn't help to get so worked up about what was out of my control. When she died, she put things into perspective even more, showing me how little the things I would freak out about actually mattered. Her death shattered my anxious fears, because one of my greatest fears (losing someone I love) actually happened and it didn't entirely destroy me. [I do, however, tend to think that if I haven't heard from someone that I should have heard from, they've died in a car crash. Which isn't healthy. But instead of panicking about it, I start to think about how I'm going to deal with life without them. It's weird, I know.]

Moments of impact. 

I saw Inside Out for the first time on the plane ride back to America after a truly transformational two years in Italy. You know how, after having dealt with deep sadness and allowing herself to really feel it, Riley gets a whole new emotional control panel? I feel like that. A year ago today, I got a new dashboard of emotional depth that actually, strangely, has made me more steady and less melodramatic (well, I think...I hope!) than I was before. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we run from suffering as though being touched by it will kill us, but it can (if you allow it to do its work) be productive. 

"For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison." -2 Corinthians 4:17

"For you, O God, have tested us;

you have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net;

you laid a crushing burden on our backs;

you let men ride over our heads;

we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance." 

-Psalm 66:10-12

I don't know if I'm quite seeing the "abundance" yet, but I see how God has been at work in my life this year especially. I know I couldn't have survived this trauma and loss and goodbyes and reverse culture shock and hurt without my hope being anchored in Him.

Oh God, I am furrowed like the field
Torn open like the dirt
And I know that to be healed
That I must be broken first
I am aching for the yield
That You will harvest from this hurt

Abide in me
Let these branches bear You fruit
Abide in me, Lord
As I abide in You. 

[The Sower's Song by Andrew Peterson]

Oh and by the way, her family is still serving the Lord in Italy and her husband has such an incredible testimony. And the Kyra Karr Foundation helped to fund the purchase of a building for our church in Rome. So the Lord is still using her to build His kingdom there, even if she's no long there physically.

I love you, Kyra. I miss you. Save me a place at the table.