Response to Gratitude

I am exhausted (and possibly feverish?) and low on words this evening, but I feel the need for even just a quick, public response to Chris’ vulnerable and endearing post last week. I haven’t written at length about the process we have been on as a couple, and I’ve tried to seldom speak for him about the changes he is making. I welcome his need to journal at mamaneedjava.com from time to time and hope that his writings are useful to whoever reads them. To me, the Chris who writes like that, who rubs my feet each night, who goo goo’s over his children and expresses his dreams and regrets– is a different man from the one I was married to over a long 5.5 year process before the covenant-breaking choices he had been making were confessed and he began the hard work of repentance.

This year hasn’t been an easy one for me, but it’s been a slow light at the end of a dark tunnel of mistrust and fear. I see progress, not perfection — and a man who at last appears to see what he has right in front of him. I am grateful for his desire and actions to allow God access to his heart and secrets, in order to change him from the inside out. I am grateful to God for bringing me to my knees as well, and showing me where I have contributed to the system of our relationship- which was dysfunctional and dead. I pray we never return to that state again. I’m grateful to God for holding me tightly and safely, even when I hated him for what seemed like His betrayal sometimes.

I am grateful to those who stood by me in my decision to stay married – the elders, friends, coworkers, strangers, counselors, family. Our marriage staying together, one day at a time, truly “took a village”. And continues to. From childcare to meals to financial assistance to prayer to counsel to a simple but profound thing — a listening ear; I will never forget the kindness shown to me (to us, even) when things truly hit the fan.

I’ll close with some quotes to Chris from one of my favorite writers…

A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility, thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.
–C. S. Lewis

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
–C. S. Lewis

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.
–C. S. Lewis