Harold and I were talking earlier this evening – well, technically yesterday evening, since it is now after midnight and therefore a new day.  🙂  He’s been out of state all week, with the Boxcars, working on their third album.  This has been a bit of difficult week for both of us.  For him, because he’s been away and didn’t want to be.  He didn’t want to go to the boonies of eastern TN, he didn’t want to play, sing, or record.  He’s been a little stressed out and hasn’t slept well at all while he’s been down there.  What did he want?  He wanted to stay home and keep working on getting the house ready for Baby Nixon’s arrival.  He’d finally really focused on what needed to be done to prepare for Zesty and started getting some stuff done.  He didn’t want his mojo and motivation interrupted.  However, he did want his share of the royalties for this album and knew that he needed to go down and work on this investment with the rest of the band, even though he didn’t want to.  So, his best friend and band mate, Ron, picked him up Tuesday afternoon and they headed southeast.  This week has been difficult for me because I missed Harold – pure and simple.  I don’t sleep well without him.  I really needed him on Wednesday (see my Night of Trash post) for everything and I’m missing him tonight, as I sit in my mother’s living room instead of the home that I share with him, in case I go into labor.  I’d much rather have him on labor watch tonight (nothing against my mother because she does rock).  So, my sleep deprived & stressed out husband and I were talking tonight.  We were talking about if I should stay with my mother tonight & how likely it really was that I’d go into labor tonight (highly UNLIKELY).  We were talking about how things were going with the recording (really well) and what time I should expect to pick him up tomorrow.  We were talking about what all I needed to remember to get done before heading out to pick him up tomorrow and then we started talking about Christmas.  Oh how I wish that was a conversation we didn’t have to have…it’s not finished, yet, either.  I’m thankful that we aren’t fighting – we’ve gotten pretty good at being able to communicate and can usually recognize when a misunderstanding/miscommunication is escalating and a conversation is becoming a fight.  So, we truly weren’t fighting but that doesn’t make the conversation any easier.  The general gist of our conversation is that, in the midst of being in the home stretch to get ready for Baby Nixon’s arrival (stressful enough), we have to figure out what in the world we want to do for Christmas & while we want the same thing, we also want two vastly different things.  We are talking about changing up our routine and developing our own Christmas traditions (very GOOD thing) – which means changing up what we’ve been doing as a couple for nearly 6 years and what I’ve been doing my entire life (at least that I remember).  Change is hard and I don’t always handle it well.  Harold pointed out that we are likely to be embarking on a very difficult and rocky time in our marriage.  He is already crazy stressed out, he doesn’t like having to pretend & put on show for the sake of someone’s feelings (he’d much rather be totally honest and genuine about who he is & if you like him or don’t like him, at least your opinion is based on truth and not speculation/assumptions/misconceptions).  He wants to feel free to be himself (can’t blame him there) without having to constantly be on the defensive…it’s tiring when you have to be “on” all the time for someone.  So, here we go, we are getting ready to jump onto the Hard Way of marriage.

I was thinking about this and Harold’s warning after our conversation, wondering what I could do to help lessen the challenge.   How could I ease the load that Harold would be carrying?  Why did it seemed destined to be so hard?  I realized a few things.  It would be hard because it seems part of our fallen nature to seek out the hard way.  We seem to be addicted to making things more difficult than they need to be.  Case in point?  I will disagree with my husband and fight with him, just so I can say that I was right.  Really?  How screwed up is that?  I just want to be right, so I’ll disagree with him and go out of my way to try to prove him wrong, just so I can what…feel superior?  Yup.  Some wife I am.  🙁  I fall to pride and falling to pride leads me to fall to all kinds of other sinfulness.  I KNOW that Harold will never do anything to put me or our family in any kind of physical or spiritual jeopardy.  He will die before purposefully causing us harm in any way.  So, if I know that my husband, who I believe is the head of our home – the priest of our domestic church, has nothing but our absolute best interest at heart (i.e. he wants us all to get to Heaven), then why would I ever feel the need to fight him?  Why do I feel the need to try to one up him or be “better”?  I know that I don’t handle change well and that, sometimes, I’m fighting out of some basic need to feel like I have some control over change.  If I make plans, it can be a real challenge for me to let them go without a fight.  If I’m really honest, it’s not the change I find so scary – it’s the loss of control.  If I continue to be brutally honest, the I’ll admit that the only reason I’m afraid of losing control is because I don’t totally trust anybody else.  Isn’t that sad?  If I’m going to trust anyone, wouldn’t I trust my husband?!?  I mean, I am married to an extremely honest & faithful man.  A man who wants nothing more than to help his family get to Heaven and to get there himself.  A man who loves me beyond words.  I would argue that our capacity for true love is limited by our understanding of and belief in God.  If we don’t believe in Him, if we don’t know Him; then we don’t know love – true love.  We only know what we think is love – a very limited & shallow love-like emotion.  Emotion because without knowing God, then we can’t really understand that true love has nothing to do with emotion at all.  It is always, and simply, a choice.  I am married to a man with an understanding of true love.  He will never leave or abandon me.  He will always choose Heaven for me and our family over any and everything else.  Is he perfect?  No.  None of us are.  But he is good, and he wants to be holy, and he tries so hard, and he loves greatly.  He challenges me to trust God, first and always.  I am married to an amazing and passionate man, who has loved me totally, and who God has used to draw me closer to Him.  I am a blessed woman.  If this is the man that God has blessed me with, then why don’t I totally trust him?  I know that being married means death.  Death to myself & what I want & my selfish desires.  It is only in dying to ourselves that we are free to live for others.  As Harold’s wife, my vocation includes living for him.  I am not supposed to worry about myself – no need to watch my own back, if you will.  Why?  Because I’m supposed to have Harold’s back & by me totally having his back – he is freed to have mine completely (and vise versa).  What a simple and beautiful circle that is.  Ah…my head hurts.  It seems like it should be simple.  It seems like it should be easy.  It should be but it isn’t.  Why is it so hard??  I blame Adam & Eve.  (Thanks mom & dad!)

Poor Adam & Eve, always taking the wrap for our broken & fallen nature.  Now, I’m blaming them for making the easy things hard!  Well, they did.  Before the fall, life was good and it was easy.  It was absolutely natural to us to KNOW God, to love Him, and to love each other.  Gardening, dominion over the land & animals, co-ed relationships…ALL EASY.  No sin – no pride, no lust, no sloth or gluttony or wrath.  Ah, Eden. ♥  Adam and Eve fell by grasping at things that were not for them.  They grasped at equality with God by eating of the one tree they weren’t supposed to eat of.  So, they essentially gave up their (and our) stewardship of the Earth to Lucifer.  What was supposed to come easily now comes with hardship and suffering.  Essentially, sin is forgetfulness.  Adam and Eve forgot their place.  Not only did they both grasp at equality with God, but Eve grasped at the dominion that Adam was given as the first man & Adam allowed her to take what wasn’t his to give.  Eve was told that she would suffer pains in childbirth.  Childbirth was supposed to be EASY!  (A little mind boggling to me at the current season of my life – especially as I am beginning to feel more regular pressure & pain, day by day.)  Our bodies are created for this holy and unique purpose, but, we are disordered.  We are fallen.  So, it is no longer easy.  What occurred to me is this…it is not just the birth process itself that is labor.  That is not the only easy thing that is now painful.  The entire process from conception to a successful birth is HARD.  Think of how many people you know who have so much trouble even conceiving new life in their wombs.  Then think of how common miscarriages are…so common that most doctors won’t bother looking for medical causes of miscarriage (hormone imbalances, other diseases, etc) until a woman has experienced at least 2, if not 3, losses.  So, relationships should be easy – we should be able to love each other without the stain of lust, envy, anger, etc.  We should be able to totally and completely trust each other, without fears of lying & cheating.  We should be able to survive – to have plenty to eat and drink, without devastating & destroying our planet.  We shouldn’t have war, famine, disease, & death raging all over the world…but we do.  Why?  Because our first parents forgot what they were made for, they forgot who they were and they gave up their (and our) birthright to Satan.  When life was easy, in Eden, Adam and Eve were in total communion with God.  They were united with Him.  Satan doesn’t like that.  Why?  Perhaps because he is an a fallen angel.  Not just any angel, either.  He was one of, if not the best of all angels.

Angels are created spiritual beings with no physical bodies.  They live with God in Heaven and the purpose of their creation is to worship God, giving Him glory, and doing His will.  They love God beyond anything we could ever imagine.  Angels are superior to us in so many ways.  They KNOW God, easily.  We don’t.  They are far more intelligent than we are & they understand things that we could never wrap our minds around.  So, we are the infierior creations to Angels.  Inferior but still the most favored and loved of all of God’s creations.  We are His only creations that He chooses to adopt as His children.  Lucifer loves God so fiercely that he can not fathom why God would create something so lowly and limited as a human, give us a gift like free will, and love us so much that He is willing to forgive all, if we just ask.  Satan got angry & jealous & rebelled.  We know how that ends.  He and all the angels who sided with him, along with all the lukewarm ones who tried to play neutral, were cast out of Heaven – FOREVER.  He loves God so fiercely but will never be able to be with Him again.  Satan is eternally removed from God.  Misery loves company & how better than to hurt the one you love the most than by denying them of who they love the most.  Satan can’t have God, so he is going to do everything he can to prevent us from having God, too.  So, when Adam & Eve forgot who they were, when they fell for deception & grasped at equality with God – they gave up their claim, their stewardship, to Satan & he will do everything he can to make our journey to God & Heaven as difficult as possible.  We sin, we suffer, we are forgetful, and we lack the capacity to understand so much.

So, marriage, family, and relationships are REALLY hard and they can really hurt.  Harold and I are about to enter into a more difficult season of our marriage.  Why?  Because we are broken, fallen, and forgetful.  So, how can I try to love my husband and make lighten his load during this difficult season?  I can do this by remembering.  I must remember how much he loves me & our family.  I must remember that he always has my back & will never choose anything that will harm me in anyway.  I must remember that I agreed and chose Harold as my husband.  He is the head of our home & I am the heart.  I must remember my place as the heart & fight to not grasp at the dominion of the head.  I must remember that without me, doing my part as the heart & pumping blood (i.e. life) through the veins of our family, then the head will not be able to function at all.  The head and brain can not function without the heart pumping blood.  Our society recognizes this in a kind of backwards way.  We’ve all heard “Happy wife, happy life.”  Harold tells me all the time that his life depends on me & all he wants is for me to have eternal happiness.  Harold desperately needs me to remember who I am and to fight against my broken and fallen nature of grasping at things that aren’t mine to take.  He needs me to love him and trust him and submit to him.  That doesn’t mean that I am losing anything.  I am not losing control and I have nothing to fear.  In fact, by remembering who I am, by embracing my place as the heart of our home, I gain freedom.  Freedom from fear.  Freedom from forgetfulness.  Freedom to love absolutely and unconditionally.

I am asking for your prayers for my family and all families.  We will all have seasons in our lives that are more difficult that others.  Seasons that make it easier to forget who we are, seasons that tempt us to sin.  May we not only know who we are but may we also be inspired to remember who we are, especially when we are in the middle of the hard way.

{Thanks for stopping by and reading!  Please, if you feel so called, leave a comment or two.  As this is my blog, I reserve the right to refuse to publish any comments that are rude, vulgar, or distasteful (regardless of if I agree with you or not).  Trolling & nasty don’t look good on anyone.}