A Harsh Letter's Repsonse

My best friend told me yesterday that this journal makes her angry. She reads it, and sees in it an adulterer and an idolater. Perhaps I have not made myself clear. Perhaps she does not really know me. Perhaps there are strains of rightness in her conclusion.

She sent a letter, out of love, explaining her frustration at my wandering thoughts. At first, I struggled with her harshness – one day, when you’re married, we can talk…. And perhaps you should read ALL my words before casting judgment…

Yet I knew in my heart that my words could easily be misunderstood, and so I returned to her one word. “Thanks”. I suppose she could read that with sarcasm – it depends on how well she really knows the soul within this flesh.

There are a few things that I know. We are all idolaters. We are all Adulterers. We all place people and things above the God we claim to love. I sat, staring at the screen, and asked my Father whether she was right. Then, I called my husband, asked him to read the letter, and calmly requested the truth. “Is she right?” We talked for a long time – and we understand one another.

I am not quite two years into being married. I walked the aisle five days before my 29^th birthday. In my first two decades, I traveled the world, fell in love with God and his heart for the people, and was strongly committed to a life of service to the millions. I have now been called to love just one first and foremost. I cannot say it has not been a transition. But I also cannot say I do not love my husband more than life itself. We are still trying to figure out what it looks like for “you” and “me” to be “us”. We are growing. Everyday, we understand a little more about the circles of love that move in and out of individual and whole.

There are days when it is hard to be in America. It has been something that I have wrestled with for two years. I have never been good at goodbye. Grief has to be allowed in order for one to process through it – only recently have I been able to be honest about the pain, and I am waking up to joy. I am figuring out that I would give it all up again to be with Mark. It does not lessen the feeling that this change has been hard to swallow. I am not perfect. Marriage is not about waking up and knowing what it looks like to submit yourself fully to another person. And I have always been extremely stubborn and strong.

So perhaps she is right. But not in the way she thinks.

I have submitted myself to things other than God and my husband. Right before she wrote the letter, another incredible man in my life noted that there was an absence of my husband in my journals. He said that he understood Mark was not physically there with us, but he also felt that he was not ‘there’ with me. I understood what he was trying to say, because that is EXACTLY what I had been struggling with in London. It was not that I felt single, unmarried. It was that I incredibly aware that, as I led the team, Mark was not a part of that area in my life. It was devastating. Mostly because I could not decide, in that moment, how to extend my love in both places. I am reminded again that there are different shades of love, and I can love both my husband and my people equally yet differently.

I have often chosen to DO for God, and it slowly replaces my BEING with Him. On the other hand, I also love by serving, and in the purest sense of the word, ‘doing’ often expresses an obedience that I cannot speak. The line between the two is fine, and I recognize that I cross it all too often.

I know that I do not really understand what life looks like for women who live in Purdah. I do not presume that my struggle is anything like the nightmare that they live through. It was a metaphor for feelings that I really did not understand, and could not put into words. The dust settles over my heart all too often. I am not great at love, but I am learning. I am not a good friend, but still I try. My life is busier than I would like it, so I am choosing to spend my mornings in quiet.

I am still attempting to figure out what I look like here in this place, now that “I” encompasses two souls intertwined. I fail a lot. But, sometimes, I succeed. And in those moments, I discover that I have a greater thing than I could have ever imagined.

I responded with thanks, because I meant it. A good friend will tell you when they think you're being stupid. One day, though, when she is married and wrestling to find/define herself in her new context, I think she and I will revisit these pages and smile.