After a long weekend full of work and work and working and doing some more work, Lukey and I had a nice Monday date. We bought a loaf of bread, some gouda and swiss, and opened a bottle of Trader Joe's Malbec for the occasion. It really was a pretty divine evening, as you can tell from the photo above. But not without a near disaster. Bear with me.
I think there is a temptation in blogging - probably the very reason why blogging is so popular - to put your best face forward. To create an image of yourself and your life that is both palatable and desirable by others. The great freedom of blogging is that it can be as brazen or as glossy as you want . My thoughts on this have kind of stemmed from my increasing boredom in looking at blogs that are predictable and formulaic - sweet and light like baby's breath, to dark and strung out like a hipster's hair-do. But, also, and maybe especially, from my own blogging. It's easy to post pretty pictures of the farm, sweet stories about what we're eating and doing, or dates we've had. And, in a way, that's all I want to show you, because that's what I want to remember most.
But, really, there's more. And farming isn't easy. And being a farmer's wife isn't easy. And dealing with sin is amplified when you're too busy or too apathetic or too exhausted to care.
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So, that's our life - there's a lot of beauty in it to be thankful for. And, certainly, my husband is a man above the rest - and I wonder at God's mercy in giving him to me - but there are times when we choose not to love each other well. When a long day at work, or a day's worth of failed expectations, or poor communication mars our beautiful, sun-glowing image of a couple in love - a couple who believes that there is no condemnation for us; a couple who recited at their wedding "I will forgive you as I have been forgiven".
For example, the aforementioned Monday date. We planned the date because it would be our last evening together that week before I left town for the weekend. We planned to skip out on the farm that afternoon and drive to the quarry, have a picnic and good conversation. One errand led to another, one task ran into the next, and before we knew it, two o'clock had become five and five became seven. I was disappointed and inconsolable, Luke was discouraged by his unloving wife. After multiple attempts to challenge me (which turned into urging and then to begging) to choose to be happy about the date we landed on, I finally, reluctantly, came round.
Sometimes there's just something so comfortable about sitting waist-deep in the muck of your sinful choices. I've always loved rebellion - it's my comfort zone, you might say. So it's still a hard thing for me to remember that Christ has made for a different script when it comes to those situations: I don't have to choose this anger anymore, I can and should be gracious with my husband, I don't have to be prideful or angry that I didn't choose it sooner, I am NOT condemned for being an unloving wife, Luke will forgive me when I apologize, we can reconcile and forget and enjoy the last rays of golden sunlight tonight.
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Luke and I on a Sunday date. It's the second Sunday I've had off work since May and the first time we've had the whole day together since then. It was really glorious. And I mean that - with all the highs and lows and in-betweens - we had it all. We want it all.
