Ever noticed that the further into something you get, the harder it is to remember where you started?
I think about a walk in the forest. If you are really into it, you are looking at the pine trees and enjoying the butterflies, breathing in the fresh pine air and just well, taking it all in. After an hour or two you begin to forget how you got there in the first place, especially if you are riding a mountain bike and going a distance, which I love to do. Life is like that, and marriage too. I had a painful epiphany this last week, painful but productive. I realized that I am starting to forget my roots. Where we started as a couple, the Me I was when I first met Wade and the US we were.
It all started as I began to unpack our belongings that were in storage while we were in China for two years. It has taken us this long to really get all our things back into the same house again. Resettling after being out of the country for several years takes so much longer than you think it will, like so many other transitions we go through in life.
So I started unpacking and caught myself smiling from ear to ear when I realized how much of ‘my stuff’ I forgot about. I was especially moved by my artsy stuff and my planting stuff, the things that show my creative side. It made me smile but it also made me a little sad. When is the last time I sat down and just created something out of pure enjoyment, no assignment or lesson involved? It had been a while.
God always confirms it several different ways when he is trying to change something in us. So my husband and I were talking and he said, “Baby, I just want to see you so happy, like when we first met.” The only time he saw that girl is the times when we first found out we were pregnant. Then those four times we lost our baby to miscarriage he saw it leave again. He was trying to express to me how much he wanted to see me glow from the inside like I did when he first met me out of pure joy of life and love.
I realized that I have started to lose that person a little at a time. She became so focused on figuring out how to get the dream here, that she lost ME. WE became disjointed, the goal oriented one and the happy carefree one. Wade missed our roots, and I did too but I didn’t even realize it till the reminder happened. I was so focused on the goal… the destination that I had lost my enjoyment in the moments of the journey. That is not the real me, and Wade missed me.
Sure we will change over time, we will grow and transition, but we need desperately to hold on to that person God created us to be and the one our husbands fell in love with in the first place.
For me the change started with the loss of my pregnancies and the dream unfulfilled. For you it may be the opposite, it may be having kids and focusing on them has made you forget to be the carefree kid he met.
Maybe it is the stress of your job or just the disillusionment you have faced in marriage or aging.
Whatever it is, we don’t have to lose ourselves. We don’t have to lose the reason he saw us and was captured by us in the first place. He most likely won’t express that to you in words but he may be missing you. You may be missing you too!
So how do we recapture “that” us? Well, by going back and giving ourselves the time we used to, to just enjoy life. I made a promise to myself this week to belly laugh whenever I get the chance. To use my pastels this week, to plant something in my pretty pots and, to just breath life in. I don’t have to wait until my mountain has been moved to enjoy the view.
“I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go throw yourself into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” Mk 11:23
That is good and it is true but while we’re believing that God will do that miracle for us, we can’t lose ourselves.
While we wait for our destination, we can’t let ourselves miss the journey. Or lose ourselves to the waiting.
My wonderful mother in law gave me this placard when we went to China it said “the journey IS the Destination!” I have to remind myself of that truth every day, this life is passing us by so quickly and we have to enjoy every moment of our marriage. Enjoy him, and BE you. That is what God has for us if we let Him. Sometimes I am the real Mountain that needs to be moved. Get out of God’s way and let him bless you now, instead of losing yourself to waiting.
Also who better to remind us of the US we were created to be than the one who knows us best. “O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my every thought when far away. You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest. Every moment you know where I am. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, LORD.” (Psalm 139:1-4 NLT) I have also promised myself to allow God to remind me weekly who I am. To spend time just smiling and enjoying the story that He is writing in my life, to look forward to JER 29:11, the plans he has for me, without missing out on today! Join me in my journey of recapturing myself and just see if it won’t bless him and spice up your marriage this week.
Love Celeste
