I’ve purposed to be a storyteller here, but you will be missing the essence of my life being apart from my real life village, and that’s okay. But come if you can – there’s room at our table. I’d love to share more!
***
I’m looking in a wooden drawer, mostly empty. I reach in, feeling the pain of putting in yet another sock, near the back left. It’s rolled up and tucked into itself to create a tight ball. I smoosh it up snuggly to the one next to it so they’ll take as little space as possible. How much room is left? As it continues to fill, starting the next row, I wonder what will happen when it’s full…
It’s a vivid image in my head every time we bicker. I try to push away and replace with speaking truth to myself instead. I didn’t realize how much it affected me until recently, this imagery, until I voiced it. I told Scott about my drawer. I told him the underlying assumption that our/my ‘bad moments’ are cumulative. Is this why people sometimes ‘snap’ and leave after 30 years of marriage…? Their drawer is too full. There is no more room.
***
I’m keenly aware of a neat phenomenon that I regularly experience. My peripheral thoughts see vivid images and colors, sometimes close up, always uniquely detailed. Sometimes with a vague story behind the tight details. It’s all the time. When I’m working hard. When I’m playing. When I’m nothing’ing. Particularly memorable in intense moments, good and bad.
I used to think this wasn’t normal. I didn’t tell anyone. Funny… this lie of me not being ‘normal’ has been a thorn I recently discarded. Hidden shame. Tricky, deceptive teaching I sat with for too long. Psht!
In the last couple of years, though, I’ve had some beautiful conversations about it with others – others like me. In a counseling session, the facilitator not only referred to it, but encouraged it. I realized then and there that they are a gift, these insights. These sights!
Yeah, yeah… That might sound a little silly. I know. I would think so, too. But I know they often are expressions of feelings. Sometimes warnings. Sometimes, back before I realized I should stop and consider them, they’d lead me astray – often without me even knowing it. Like that dag-gum sock drawer.
***
Once I voiced that sock drawer, it spoke my insecurities. It offered my husband opportunity to take care of me in that and know the perspective I had when he [reasonably] didn’t think twice about the implications of a seemingly tame tiff. He didn’t carry the same deceptive, tricky teachings I unintentionally soaked up in days gone by (much to say here, another time). Sharing it changed the way we dealt, the way I viewed rare disagreements, and the way I viewed myself and us.
The Gospel settled in to that drawer. The Good Word of perpetual forgiveness and infinite Love. Not the kind that lingers or holds on to things, but it speaks to the relational God who is able to take that sock – and make it disappear, truly. He opens the drawer and points. See? It will never fill. It’s empty. Every day is new, and my husband’s heart loves me anew. He knows Jesus like this. He shows Jesus like this. I’ve always known it. Did I believe it fully before, or just know it in part?
On our recent overnight trip to Morton, in an otherwise not dramatic moment, Scott casually said to me: I’m always surprised but think it always… You’re more beautiful than the day I met you.
I saw two white geese. They both had dirty undersides as they waddled around. Both had several random tufts of down feathers sticking through, messy. They were beautiful. And they were together.
Something about him saying that in that moment (he says things like this often)… about the no-longer-secret sock drawer that was no longer filling… the pair of gooses that were [no doubt, unconditionally] lifetime partners… Something changed and I believed. Faith entered my marriage. Not the blind “I hope he doesn’t <fill-in-the-blank>” faith. Faith to believe my husband uniquely knows Jesus like I know that he does. Faith that marriage isn’t a picture of Christ in the church to attempt to achieve or convey, but it simply is if He is the [perpetual, chosen, submitted to] author of it.
We are not the paintbrush or painter, but simply the paint, already on the canvas. His story.
I’ve heard all of these words before. I knew them deeply. But I didn’t hear them the way I now understand them. This is the living Word, the Holy Spirit, at work. He continually changes me. Highlights areas. Teaches. Renews me. Quiets me. Stills me. Peace. Joy. Fruits of His Spirit.
It reminds me that transparency is so important, I can testify. Sharing the bits and pieces – even the worst or stupidest or darkest – brings freedom, healing and hope. It breaks chains. Condemnation and shame doesn’t accumulate; it’s gone! This is a story of the work of Jesus in me. No doubt I will fail. We’ll ruffle feathers. We’ll get roughed up and make mistakes. But I can trust that He will renew us day by day.
How strange that after 25 years together, it took me these things to believe him fully when he says forever.
Every moment with him is sweeter. Sweeter than the day before. Just like Jesus to the church. Let that sink in, Summer.
Happy 24th anniversary, forever husband of mine that I adore more than any other.
Preserving the Harvest 
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