Marriage
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Pattern of :: a Weathered Life

Fussy, teething, desperate-to-nap babies don’t do so well at church. While she rests and restores with morning slumber, I rest and restore in quiet reflection. 

As I read the scriptures, snuggled up in my blue painted couch, I’m reminded of the storm that blew through our fields yesterday… And the correlation to the storms that have blown through our life in the past four years…

Manly and I will celebrate four hard-earned years this October. By our third anniversary we’d been separated for a total of ten months, conceived two daughters, burying one a healthy child and watching the other hang by a thread in the hospital. We hardly knew each other though we’d lived a thousand lifetimes together. 

We had a choice: to either weather the storms together or run to our own shelters. There have been times when we’ve done one instead of the other. There are periods when the storm is too intense for an individual soul and it’s, therefore, best to retreat alone. But we’ve always had a heart -even in the worst of moments- to stand united, unwavering in the heavy winds and pelting rain. 

Our desire is to leave a legacy. As I read the apostle Paul’s struggle with pain in his letter to the Corinthians, I see myself and my husband in our struggle with God: “Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me.” We’ve asked the Lord over and over, “Why did we have to lose Heidi the way that we did? Why must we suffer as parents, as Christians in this way?”

The answer is always the same -thousands of years ago and in the 21st century- ” ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ ”

When I reflect on his grace these past years of storm, I see it like the evening sun shining above the horizon as the dark clouds break and the heavy winds subside. 

He has been there. He is here. He will always be. 

In the hands of the potter,

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