Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

I remember hearing that seminary is hard on marriages and that I could expect to see divorces before I came to Candler. I didn't think much of it. But now only weeks before entering my third year, I have watched two of my friends' new and fragile marriages fall apart.

One of them is only now officially over, after a year and half long saga of one spouse simply opting out, leaving the country and refusing reconciliation. The other saga has just begun--and will hopefully end in healing rather than separation, but only time will tell.

It makes me sad. There's no more complex way to explain it. We make these incredible promises to each other joyfully, and with great hope only to break them over and over again, sometimes so grievously it seems irreparable.

If anything, these broken relationships are a wake up call for Wes and I. We have done extraordinarily well balancing our promises to each other with the other demands on our time and attention. But with rather separate and independent lives for the time being, it's easy to become roommates instead of lovers. It's easy for resentment to brood, and for tired minds and bodies to yield to conflict.

My friend finds herself surprised that her marriage has come to this. Discord is one thing, but sitting on the brink of separation is quite another. And that is almost the scariest thing of all--the way separation can creep in before we even realize the direness of the situation.

Last year, when friend's marriage #1 fell apart, I succumbed to great fear about my own marriage. If it can happen to them?!.... But now, I feel confidant and peaceful about Wes and I. We have proven resilient to difficulties that arise again and again, aware and honest of times when those time of some dissatisfaction arise leaving us more open to creeping separation, and constantly working toward making 'us' better and choosing to love despite our circumstances or frustrations. If anything, our shortcomings--though leaving the other unfulfilled at times--hopefully continually point us to the One who has no shortcomings, and who fulfills completely and perfectly.

" But in the books again, great joy through love seemed always to go hand in hand with frightful pain. still, he thought, looking out across the meadow, still, the joy would be worth the pain--if, indedd they went together. If there were a choice between, on the one hand, the heights and the depths and, on the other hand, some sort of safe, cautious middle way, he, for one, here and now chose the heights and the depths." ~ A Severe Mercy