Fridays are my sabbath days. This was very hard in the summer but now that the kids are back in school I can get back to a true Sabbath on Fridays. Now I should probably explain that I celebrate a sabbath on Sundays also - but I am working. While I am blessed that my work is about God and for God, it is still work. I know many clergy who take Monday as their Sabbath, some even who intentionally leave town after that last Youth Group sunday night so they can truly disconnect and just focus on God. If you do not fill your lamp with oil, how can your light shine? This is all a topic for another post - I really want to talk about something else...I just wanted to preface why on fridays I do no work and I am getting back to that commitment to myself - no e-mail, no mtgs, no ministry work, no church work.
My sabbath today my focus is God and my husband (today is his RDO - Regular Day Off, so we can Sabbath together). I haven't spent much time introducing you, even on his birthday - I was so engrossed in my kids going to school and the transition of our lives that his birthday was not properly celebrated. I don't know where to start to explain how extraordinary he is. Talk about radical transformation - the 18yr old girl he met is not the woman he is married to 18 years later. I work with many homeless women and many who are on the verge of homelessness. A lot of them are single mothers who are struggling to make ends meet with no extra time to increase their education or earning potential. I always drive home knowing "but by the Grace of God go I." I could have been in their situation so easily; for many of them it was just a wrong-choice guy that were part of their journey. When my husband met me I was a broken child living an adults life. I was on my own and had been before I even graduated high school. None of my teenage years are anything I want my kids to repeat or live through. There are many stories I will probably share at another time. All I need to say here is I never should have met my husband. In fact when I did meet my husband for the first time we were attending a tech school. He sat next to me in class and we got to know each other during breaks - and then we went on dates with other people because we were just friends. He thought I was cute, but way too young and I didn't actually think of him as someone I would date, not my type.
Then one day I was talking to my roommate and I was telling her all about this guy in my class and how one day I wanted to marry a guy just like him. I loved how he spoke about his brothers and his family, I loved how he spent time with his friends, and I loved how he cared about stuff that most guys didn't admit to caring about. And then I went on a date with a wrong-choice guy and I saw him on a date with a wrong-choice girl.
Then it was the last day of class, just a final exam. A majority of our class went out to lunch afterwards and he was sitting next to some girl and I was sitting next to some guy (who was a worse choice then that last date if you can imagine) and it was my birthday, Christmas Eve. Someone produced mistletoe. I have no idea how he got the mistletoe and I will never know why or how he got up and walked across the very large table and came over to my side, leaned down to me and looked at me and then he kissed me. The most chaste quick mistletoe kiss. And I knew I would spend my life with him. That quick kiss lasted mere seconds, but really it lasted forever. I have never, ever felt anything like I felt in that moment. It was this deep knowing, this fantastic joy felt all the way from the tip of my head to the tip of my toes. It was as if I had been drowning in a well and I saw the sunshine up at the top and someone leaned over and grabbed my hand and pulled me out into the light and held me tight and said, 'it's okay, your life really begins today."
And it did. He left that evening for a trip and I didn't talk to him for 10 days. I had a lot of time to think and to act. I purged my life in that 10 days, saying goodbyes, cleaning out closets, journaling a lot, very jittery and on the move and really not knowing why - until I saw him 11 days later. Then I knew I was preparing my heart for it's new home.
So-today I celebrate the man who loves me more than I can know and more than I deserve. I am going to take him out to breakfast and we can do our bible study (we have a great time debating the Word together), then I am going to take him on a hike - he loves to be outside, he loves to be active and I hear this hike is gorgeous and today should be perfect weather. Then we are having lunch with fantastic friends who are mentors and role models for us on how to live a Godly life and how to have a strong Christ-centered marriage in this crazy superficial world that does anything but support loving, committed long-lasting relationships. Then we will get the kids from school together and spend a wonderful evening, probably laughing and talking and maybe even throwing in a game of cards or two. And you know all of this before he does! This blogging stuff is a little strange.
Why all of this today? I woke up singing a song - a song with a double meaning for me - my broken road led me to God, my broken road led me to my husband and of course this is not a coincidence - they were walking the road together when God introduced me to my husband and my husband took my hand and brought me back to God. There is a greater plan than either of us know or can understand, but I thank God with all my heart that my husband and I were given each other to travel this road together.
God Bless the Broken Road - by Rascal Flatts
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