Broken Glass and Shattered Ideals

As most people are (hopefully) aware, I am getting married in six months. While some might picture this time as that of flowers and daydreams and exciting plans (I'm afraid they've never been engaged),  this is not the total of engagement. Engagement is mostly a whole lot of work, with some of this excitement sprinkled in. Many do not realize until they are in the middle of an engagement just how much work it is. And I'm not even talking about planning the wedding.

That is work too, but the real work begins when you sit down for your first session of marriage counseling. 

Oh yes, getting married (usually) means marriage counseling of some kind. And inevitably, slowly sometimes, you begin to realize how differently the two of you communicate; how your tastes differ on more things than you'd like to admit; how quickly your own sin can sabotage the relationship. 

It didn't take me until marriage counseling to realize that my fiancé and I struggle to communicate. But it did take me until then to realize that these struggles, faults, weaknesses, and failures stop being personal and become shared. 

Let me illustrate with a personal narrative: 

My fiancé recently moved in with a couple of his friends. We'd discussed briefly the "purge" that would have to take place when we smashed both of our households into one (a whole other blog post, that is). He subsequently packed a box of (mostly) breakable things but neglected to secure it properly. It would not have been so catastrophic if he'd informed me of the neglect, but he did not. This box was then transferred to the back seat of my car to be moved into my apartment as soon as I finished my workday. 

Ten hours later, I am sta

ring at a pile of broken glass in the apartment parking lot. He is at work. I cannot call him and ask him to help me clean the mess up; he is not available to do that. I am left with a mess that I am not directly at fault for, yet I am left to clean it up. 

And much of life is, and will be like this, for the both of us. You see, when I promised to marry him I promised that I would share in his weakness and burdens. Sometimes that means accidentally breaking all of his dishes. And sometimes that means cleaning up a mess left behind because of his negligence. Both are sanctifying, and so both are necessary at times. 

It would be nice for me to take the moral high ground in this instance and look at only his faults. But there are two sinful, weak people in this relationship, both sinning daily and both daily striving to be more like Christ. His weaknesses may be different from mine, but mine are no less shared. 

This is the hard work of engagement and the hard work of marriage. It is easy to share in the other person's strengths and joys; it is difficult to share in their weakness and sin. But God calls us to do no less. 

The man I am going to marry isn't perfect; neither am I. But we have a Savior who is infinitely perfect, infinitely wise, infinitely good. As we grow closer to one another we become painfully aware of our own sinfulness as well as that of the other person. Suddenly our sinfulness is not our own; suddenly there is another person who is just as intimately affected by it as we are. Yet such a painful realization drives us, not apart, but closer to each other as we strive to become more like Christ. 

My 3 Goals for 2017

The start of a new year has always been seen as an opportunity to turn over a new leaf, start fresh, try new things, and set higher standards for oneself. In the spirit of this New Year, I am going to attempt to do something I have never done before. I am going to publicly set goals. I’ve done it privately, with some results and some failures. This year I thought I would let others know so that I would have some accountability in the matter. Also, encouragement is a great motivator, and (I hope) there will be some of that as well. 

No… Really, I want you to ask in three months how my goals are coming along. Otherwise, when the end of the year rolls around, I will have started all of them, finished none of them, and come up with justification for my disorganized mess. This is why I need accountability. 

Goal 1: Read 10 books in 2017.

I’ve picked books out before to read throughout the year, but never very intentionally. Usually my reading list involved a stack of books on my bedside table that I systematically worked through throughout the year. The only problem with this method is that I would get distracted by other things that I wanted to read along the way, and these I would add to my “finished” pile (yes, I had a pile to read and a pile that I’d finished - visual motivation is quite effective). At the end of the year my “finished” pile was usually greater than my “to read” pile, but the “to read” pile was seldom completed.

This year I’m going to be more systematic about it. I’ve picked out at least one book from several different genres and eras, each pertaining to my interests and/or needs in some way. Without further ceremony, here is my list:

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (British literature)

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russian literature)

My Antonia by Willa Cather (American literature)

Calvin’s Commentary on 1&2 Corinthians (theology)

Wrinkled but Not Ruined by Jay Adams (counseling)

Unpacking Forgiveness by Chris Brauns (counseling)

Repentance by C. John Miller (theology/counseling)

The Age of Napoleon by Will and Ariel Durant (history - thanks, Tolstoy)

A Mind of Your Own by Kelly Brogan (health and wellness)

On Prayer and the Contemplative Life by Thomas Aquinas (philosophy)

Goal 2: Run at least 2 half-marathons in 2017. My running goals for this year reflect the goals I’ve made and met this past year. 2016 marked my first 10K and my first half-marathon. My goal for 2017 is to run two half-marathons, one in the Spring and one in the Fall. I haven’t yet worked up the courage or stamina to run a full marathon; I am not sure if I ever will. But God was faithful in my training for the half, and I know He will be faithful this year as I continue to run and train. 

Goal 3: Finish my exams and application in 2017. At the beginning of 2016 I started working more intentionally on my certification process through the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. I still have quite a ways before I am even close to finishing. My goal for 2017 is to completely finish the exams they’ve given me. These are open-book, essay-style exams that exhaustively cover biblical theology and it's practical application in counseling. I know it is a tall order, and I don’t know if I will have the time or the stamina to finish in the time I’ve given myself, but again I trust in God’s faithfulness, knowing that He will work as He wills through these goals.

Final thoughts: I’m also planning a wedding in 2017 (EEP!). Part of this process has taught me just how much I need to learn to trust God and to quietly submit to His will and timing. The planning process thus far has not gone completely as I would have liked, and I know it won’t. I’m learning that keeping a gracious and quiet spirit in these instances is really difficult (part of the sanctification process, I know…). Even though I’m quite rubbish at it, my prayer and striving for 2017 is to cultivate that characteristic, trusting that God will work in and through me. Because, as pretty much everyone has told me, I will need both for the even bigger adventure called Marriage that comes after the wedding. 

My greater prayer for 2017 is that God would give me a spirit of mindfulness, both towards others as well as towards myself. It is easier for me to see the needs of others; more difficult for me to act upon seeing those, and even more difficult for me to see and act for my own needs in order to meet the needs of others. My prayer for this year is that I will have (and use!) the time to balance both in such a way that I am able to effectively love others and glorify God all the more.