I've been a fake...

I was driving home last nite listening to Matthew & Taylor tell me about their day @ school. I always have the radio on and last nite it was turned down kinda low, could barely hear it. But I'm drivin along, half listening to the kids, half lost in my own thoughts and I realized I was singin along to this song but didn't really recognize what I was singing. So I started payin' attention to the words that I somehow KNEW, but didn't know, if that makes any sense. By the second line in the chorus I was just nearly broken, and it was fixin' to run out my eyes but I didn't want to freak the teenagers smooth out. I listened to the rest of the song trying to keep my face hidden with my hair (my signature sign that I don't want to talk about it!).

It's funny how words alone just never seem to do justice to what I'm feeling inside, yet, set to music, those same words will cause me to stare in awe at my stereo thinkin, "How could they have known what's trapped in here?". I think it gives me an avenue for expressing what I don't really know how to get out of me. Dunno if that makes sense to anyone else, but it's absolutely crystal clear to me.

For every season of my life, every trial, every troubled time, it seems that eventually, I happen upon a song that speaks deeply to me. It's been this way thru out my life for as far back as I can remember. That was this song for the season Josh and I have been in.

I used to think that my marriage had to be "perfect", at least on the outside. I worked hard to make sure that no one saw how much we struggled just to hold it together, how hard it was, most days, for us to even be nice to each other. I hid things from myself,even, refusing to look at the huge mess my relationship with Josh was. "I'm rejecting this reality and substituting my own" became my life status. Denial is only good until you can no longer buy it. Neither of us was happy and we were sick to death of fakin' it for everyone else. So began the marital revolution... The big 'D' word was thrown back and forth with many obscenities to decorate it. We both threatened to file and dared the other to do it first. Yet, at the end of the day, when all was quiet, and our tempers had left us exhausted, neither one of us wanted to be apart. More than any ounce of dignity & justice we feel we're entitled to, we made a promise we want to honor and we truly do love each other. So, we made an agreement to try harder then we'd ever before and there is where the uphill climb really began.

I'm not gonna' lie, it's been hell. There were too many times when we both knew it would be so much easier to throw in the towel and move on. It's so tempting at times to resort to the old patterns and start the mud slingin' fest all over again. I just keep tellin' myself that all that mud and hate hasn't fixed anything in almost 14 years, why not try something new? It's been the toughest battle I've ever fought. I think Josh would agree and we both know it's not over yet.

In these times that are so often dismal from the inside looking out, I appreciate a glimmer of hope when one comes my way. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick..." (Prov. 13:12a) My heart has been feelin' a little under the weather lately and it did my mind and heart some good to hear this song. Lets me know that we aren't the only ones who feel like we could fill an ocean with all the heartache we've been thru' and that there really is light at the end of this tunnel.


"If love is an ocean wide, we'll swim in the tears we've cried. They'll see us thru to the other side. We're gonna make it!"

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life."