Warmth

The chill of fall is in the air.  I feel it when I awake.  It kind of hovers around, kicked up by the breeze every now and then.  But, at this time of year, there is this wonderful experience.  It can be quite chilly outside, but the warmth inside the car from the sun is quite toasty.  It is one of my favorite feelings.  To jump in the car and soak up that warmth after being outside in the brisk, fall weather.  It's welcoming and soothing.  It permeates right to the bones.  It's luxurious.  It's such a simple thing and so pleasurable.
It's is like a picture of what relationships can be....a place to go in from the cold and be completely surrounded by warmth.  It's what I want to picture being.  It's what I wish I would have found in my marriage.
My story is that I got married.  And very shortly later realized that something was wrong.  Being me, I spent the next 20 years trying to make it alright.  Trying to make others warm.  Trying to keep up with being the woman I constantly felt that I was failing to be.  I never achieved it.  It was a mistake.  A twenty year mistake.  Not the marriage.  The trying to keep the peace, trying to be someone I wasn't.  Because our homes and particularly our marriages need to be the "warm" places.  And my story is that you can't create in someone else what you long to feel.  No more than I can cause that car to feel warm to me.  It just does.  I had good motives.  Good guidance even.  But, the problem is that you can't make someone feel warm towards you.  Some people take from others and think that it's a relationship.  That you being kind or liking them is the whole deal.  And it has taken me over twenty years to confess that it's not enough.  While relationships are not back and forth equally, there has to be both people meeting needs in the other person.
My story is of learning that life and loving is about more than being the right person for someone.  It's about being who I am and who I'm supposed to become.  Because trying to give love while trying to be someone I'm not doesn't work.  I  hate myself as I fail over and over again.  And it  causes internal anger and anguish.  And, denying thatanger simply turns it into depression.  My story is that no matter how hard it is to be true to who you were created to be, it's ten times more difficult to create a new person.
My story is that I am strong.  And gentle.  That I have a lot of heart and gifts to offer.  And that I forgot that in my effort to be some woman that I'm not.  I exchanged a beautiful truth for a common lie.  A lie that permeates christendom:  that a woman should do whatever it takes to make her marriage work.  I don't say that lightly.  I believe in promises.  I believe in commitment. 
And now, in this painful time of things tumbling as I refuse to rush around and pick up the pieces, I am learning that there is peace in the midst of it all.  I thought that being obedient and being a good wife and making it all work was being the kind of woman God wanted.  I didn't realize that He made me the woman He wanted and that He will bring peace in the midst of difficulties as I rest in Him as the woman He created. 
I am not a victim.  Bad things have happened.  But the bottom line in all of it is that I make choices every day.  I have chosen to try to be "that" woman.  For a good reason?  Yes.  Is it right?  No.  I have walked this path to get where I am and if I expect anything to change, then I have to change.  Me.  I am not responsible for what other adults do or decide.  But, I am totally responsible for what I do and what I decide.
My story is that sometimes trying to be the good thing isn't the right thing to do.  And that is very hard for me to understand.  Maybe because the "good thing" is simply a myth or folklore and not what God truly desires?
I desire warmth in my life.  I'm not talking about sexual intimacy.  I'm talking about living my life in a way where there's always a warm car to get in when the weather gets nippy and I'm getting cold.  Not always needy, but always knowing that there are those who warm me by their love.  The kind of love that permeates all of the way in.  It's not the kind that allows you to be a jerk.  It's not the kind that dismisses wrong doing.  But, it's the kind that is true and strong and holds on.  And, it doesn't just go one way.  To work, each has to know that they can be warmed by the other.  A safe haven.
In my marriage, I have found coldness.  Always trying to figure out how to try to deserve "warming".  I finally get it..I will never deserve it.  Ever.  In my whole life.  It's just something that is given or not.  Blessedly for me, God has put people in my life who do this.  Who love me that way.  And I them.  They hear me when I mess of the words and don't throw them back at me.  They wrap me in their arms when I am fighting and pulling away.  They whisper to me in so many ways how valuable I am.  They feed my body and my soul.
My marriage is falling apart.  Has fallen apart.  Maybe was never even together.  That's my story.  But, it's not who I am.  Who I am is a woman who loves deeply and hopes greatly.  I am a woman who is the beloved of a King and has lots of sisters and brothers to help her on the journey.  Oh, and a few to kick her when she's down...because siblings seem to do that sometimes.  I'm just me.  And just me is going to be just fine.
Here I sit in my sweater.  But, what I know is that there are warm places for me to go.  I am not alone.  The weather is nippy, but I am safe.
grace to you.