Two weeks ago my husband came home from work, walked in the garage door and without breaking stride walked me out the back door to the very back of our very long back yard saying he needed to talk to me. This did NOT bode well. What news could be so bad that he needed to tell me in a REMOTE location? He chose well. The news was that we were going to be moving. **insert agonized scream** Stability, roots, are important to me. I don’t WANT to move every few years. I want to grow old in a community and have history with people. While no place is perfect, the girls and I had settled in well here. I love the people, the homeschool group is great, precious friends here, and our parish is like family. All those things make for a happy wife and kids, but don’t make dh’s job environment what he’d like it to be. It was like being kicked in the stomach by a very large draft horse.
So the job search process commenced. We are actively looking, screening communities and job opportunities, and have several interviews lined up for the next month to six weeks. I’ve been running the gamut on emotions here… that whole ‘steps of grieving’ thing. Even though the essentials are all the same, I feel a bit cut loose from my moorings… all the indecision, the not knowing, the work ahead and yet the inability to get started on it, the need to wait… I don’t do that well.
From the very beginning I held on to the knowledge that God knew this was coming, that it had come through His fingers, and that I could trust Him even in this. I have had the comfort that the Mass would be there, where ever He led us. I’ve known that my husband loves me and wants to do what’s best for me and the children. Not once have I ever questioned his devotion or commitment to us. Despite all the upheaval, depression, grief, the truly important things are rock solid. So what was it that broke through the intensity of feeling to remind me of that? Here are a few examples…
This post has been interrupted several times. The children seemed to have gone temporarily absent minded and nearsighted as they forgot to do their kitchen chores… once reminded the attempt was rather disappointing and another try necessary. However, the interaction over this with them was far from unpleasant. It was full of good humor with smiles, laughter, and teasing. Even in their interaction with each other, there was humor and laughter.*
My husband had taken a break from his studies to eat a snack and, though I had come back to my post, was sitting in the kitchen bantering with them. Some amusement had us sharing a glance and as we smiled at each other it hit me again (as it has numerous times over the past week) that this was precious, a constant in my life. The chaos and uncertainty of life may tornado around me but this… this is the eye of the storm that is always with me.
You see, my relationship with my husband is not separate from my faith, or even his… rather, it is a natural extension of it. When we married, we both fully believed it to be sacramental. We vowed not only to each other, but to God, to love one another through sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in good times and in bad. We’ve done the poorer thing, we’ve done the sickness and in health thing, we’ve even had the good and bad times before… but what brought us through them all was the vow to love, our commitment to God to love.
That didn’t mean we’d feel affectionate toward one another, or see one another through rose colored glasses, or even LIKE each other. It meant that we would be patient, kind, not jealous, not bragging, not arrogant. It meant we wouldn’t act unbecomingly, or seek our own. That we would not be provoked or take into account wrongs suffered. It meant that we would not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoice in the truth. We promised to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. We promised that THIS love, REAL love which remains when emotion has long failed us, would never fail. At times we have failed in minor skirmishes, at times the battle has been lost…. but we are winning the war. We are running the race set before us and the scale is weighted with successes in this love.
In the end, I’ve learned that in this faith, this family, this love lies stability and roots… I am not leaving those things behind… but taking them with me and in the process been reminded just how closely joy is intertwined with suffering.
*Don’t think they are some kind of angels. We have plenty of kitchen clean ups that are nasty affairs with bad attitudes and bickering. Just wanted to be sure no one left this entry with delusions of the perfect family… (and no, my real life friends do NOT need to post how hard they are laughing at the very idea.)
