If at First You Don't Succeed

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  So, on this brand new day, with birds singing and the sun tucked behind the clouds, I am going to keep on trying to do the things I need to get  done. 
I am going to try to live my life kindly.  I am going to try to live my life truthfully.  I am going to try to live my life joyously.  I am going to try to live my life.  Not just let it pass by.  It's easy to let it pass by.  Too easy.  Getting caught up in "I just can't wait until this is over."
I have to say that I have been successful in the realm of doing this raising my kids.  I have absolutely been amazed by every stage.  No stage too big.  No stage too small.  Just fabulous.  And these young adults they have become and are quickly becoming make me look forward to the men and woman that I will one day simply be able to have a relationship wiht.  It really is FUN.  Hard work?  Yes.  Painful at times?  Yes.  But unequaled in any other arena.  They have exceeded every dream.  Bounded ahead on every experience I could have hoped to have had as a mom.  To them, I owe the ability to keep going.  Yes, God, I know, of course.  But God gave me these gems to brighten the world.  To teach me about change.  To allow the deepest of love which flows both directions. 
Some people get that out of marriage.  I have not.  I have spent much of my married life trying and trying again.  Wanting to walk away, but getting up and giving it another go.  This which you read isn't about a woman who is frail or who has no stamina.  This is about a woman who has given.  Who continues to try, although it is in a very new and different way.  However, it is also about a woman who had to finally grow up.  Who had to realize that the prince turned into a frog and not the other way around.  Who had to call life what it was in order not to lose her mind.  It's about a woman who is desperately seeking to succeed in pleasing God even if it looks like total failure.  A woman who is exploring all of the options.  Thinking creatively.  I know, right?  Me?  Creative?  I have always looked for ways to make this family work.  I have invested time and energy and infused my very being into helping this man I married not to waste the time with his children or with his wife.  I have begged.  Literally.  I have tried to let him see the beauty of the whole so that he would take his part.  I have let him know that there are things I won't do.  I have heard what he wants.  I have tried to be those things.  Somewhat failing....ok, at this point, epic failing. 
so, when I say try, try again, I know that many of you will think, "she's going to go back to what she was before...".  But, I'm not.
I am getting a little bit stronger every day.  Stronger to stand.  Stronger to absolutely say what I need to happen....and to mean it....to follow through.  I've said it before, but I can't follow through.  He is bigger than me.  Quite possibly smarter than me.  He is more influential than me in our arena.  But I am learning that none of those things mean that I have no say over my life.  Those things don't mean that I am not allowed to choose.  Well, honestly, if I could have chosen, he would have decided a long time ago to BE loving and not just like the idea of loving.  He likes the idea.  He likes the possibility.  He doesn't have that for me though.  Never has. 
Looking at those pictures of that young couple last night reminded me so intensely of the man who refused to give me the massages when I was pregnant....well, except once when it lasted a few minutes before it was sex.  Who refused to be helpful during the births.  Has a mind like a trap, but couldn't be encouraging or helpful for the mama of his children.  I thought it was stress, but really, not so much.  It never really bothered him what I was going through.  He always thought I would simply manage.  He has figured out that I DO manage.  I do live with what comes and figure it out.
However this time the figuring has come up different.  I have to be more willing to stand up.  I have to be willing to let others see me as bad and as unwilling.  even if it is far from true.  I have to try.  It's hard to know that I'm on a road that means that all who see will say, "I just don't understand why she would do that to that good christian man."  And I HAVE to be able to hear it and not fight it.  Not correct it.  Frankly, that is going to be really hard.  Harder than anything I can imagine.  Because I don't have brothers and sisters who will stand with me.  I don't have a mama and daddy who will come to my side.  I don't have that kind of life.  And he has known that.  I told him long ago that if I had had somewhere to go that I would have.  He knows I don't.  It has given him to much freedom.  Freedom to treat me poorly and think that I am trapped.  Sadly, even I have begun to act as if I am trapped in this nightmare. 
I am not.  Though I keep having to try at this new mindset; though it is not set in where it is my default, I get up every day trying again.  Trying to learn what it is to be valuable.  Not to look for being valuable in his eyes.  I AM valuable.  And, I might not have a family to run to, but I have skills and I have a God who has never ever in all of my life failed to provide for me.  My husband's mistake that has finally turned into his failure is his belief that because he holds the purse strings then I will be kept in line.  What he DOESN'T know or acknowledge is that all of our provision comes from the Father.  He can use anyone of anything to provide. 
I am going to live as if I'm free.  Though I feel entangled.  And if I don't succeed today then I'm going to get up tomorrow and try it again.  Because now I'm not trying to please someone else, I am trying to please the One who knows me.  And I am trying to find the woman I really like.  I know she's here.  I can hear her whispering now and then.  I wish I could talk to people.  Wish I could tell them.  But it will have to be good enough to scribble upon these computer pages and let it go.