For Better, for worse

           We all know the traditional marriage vows: "I, ___, take thee, ___, to be my wedded husband/wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part."  For better or for worse, if you really think about it this is an all encompassing thing to say. For better or worse circumstances; for you becoming better or worse. If you become a better person or if you become a worse person, I vow to love you and cherish you. Will you love them if they lose their faith or walk into sin. Will you love them if they are spiritually worse or weak? Will you still have them, hold them and cherish them?




                I now pronounce you Man and Wife; I now proclaim you two flawed, sinful people committed to each other. In a world like ours it is hard to understand the true definition of the word commitment. Google defines commitment as an obligation that restricts freedom. When Jesus speaks about the commitment of marriage in Mathew, He says that two people become one, they are no longer two but one flesh. When you choose your husband/wife you are choosing who you want to become. Who you want to fuse your will and desires with. Your life is no longer your own, and their life is no longer their own. In a health marriage two people lay down their wills and take up the will of God for their lives.  I have to lay down my will and my husband has to lay down their will. I can't make him give up his desires; desires for good things or sinful desires. The bible tell us that we all have sin 1 John 1:8 "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." And if we tell ourselves that our spouse has no sin we deceive ourselves. So I ask again, will you have him and hold him when sin gets the best of him; when he doesn't lay down his will for your will. Will your commitment stand when your spouse falls. 

When my husband and I took our vows we were not perfect people, we were two sinful, shamed youths committing to each other. It was a happy day and it was a hard day. We both grew up in church and very religious homes. We both felt the pressure to make it to the alter as virgins, as if that is a seal of purity. I now understand that God can purify the clean and unclean, there is no seal or proof of purity, for purity is in the heart. On that day I did not have this understanding so my husband and I went into that important day with shame and secrecy. I promised to keep him, cherish him. I had no guarantees for the future. All I had was him and all he had was me. That shame and secrecy that loomed over our wedding day, was their when we came home from our honeymoon; it was their when we attended church or tried to pray together. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But if you hide sin and allow shame, your sin and shame will only grow larger. To hide from shame my husband turned to alcohol, something he was shown at a young age. I turned to striving, I wanted to look as if I had it all together, no matter if I actually did or not just as long as it looked like I did. I hid the shame yet tried to still seek God and his will. My husband is unable to fake anything, he is an all or nothing kind of person. He wanted nothing to do with a fake Christianity so he rebelled. Don't get me wrong he wasn't like an angry teenager, he was like Adam in the garden, he was simply hiding from God.     

 So there I was a newly-wed, then a new mom committed to a man in rebellion, a man hiding from God. When we took our vows I never thought: in sickness and in health, in running towards God or in running from God. Was I going to have him and hold him while he struggled with alcohol? Yes! Not because I made a commitment though that should be reason enough but because the man under the struggle was the man I loved. He may have stopped laying down his will for God's will but he was still worth laying down my life for.       

Google defines Love as an intense feeling of deep affection but with God love is so much more. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” With God love is an unstoppable force that cannot fail. I had to remind myself of the man that I loved, the man hiding under the tree leaves, the symbolic effort to hide his shame. I held on to that better man in the midst of the worse one and with years of prayer and unfailing love he came back to me. We are two flawed, sinful people committed to each other. I have had my times of being “for worse” and he has continued to love me. Marriage works, commitment works, when you have patient unfailing love.

1John4:8 “God is LOVE”

My Broken Legs

In my first blog about fear I mentioned the story of Mephilbosheth which can be found in the book of 2 Samuel 4:4; 9:1-13. When Mephilbosheth was five his nurse took him and fled, fearing for his life but as she ran she fell and dropped him. The fall left Mephilbosheth lame in both his legs. The reason I love the story of Mephilbosheth so much, I too was dropped as a child. My wounds were emotional not physical and luckily didn’t leave me lame but did leave me wounded.  When I was very young, possibly around three, I was taking advantage of by a pre-teen boy. I was not the only girl that this happened to, in fact there were many.  I now remember bits and pieces of what happened. The boy would say we were playing Doctor and would take me into the bathroom and ask me to close my eyes. I also remember talking to a woman about what happened, I don’t know if she was a policeman or social worker. I remember my Dad cursing at the boy’s father on the phone one night.  This is what I remember now but growing up I didn’t remember any of this.  

The first time I was faced with what had happened to me was when I was a teenager, the boy’s younger brother mentioned something to my sister about the interview he had with the police/social worker.  It was like he was talking about a dream I had had once, there was something familiar about what he was saying but I didn’t understand why. There would be two or three more times that something like that would happen. I would over hear people mentioning what had happened and know somehow I was involved but not really remember. I pieced everything together my sophomore year of high school. I still didn’t know all the details; I hadn’t talked to anyone about it. All I had were glimpses of my own memories. These memories started to haunt me, jumping into my mind at inconvinent times. Even when I was at church or reading my bible. I started to struggle with the way I saw myself and my own purity. Google defines shame as a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. The wrong and foolish behavior was not my own, I was a victim. But somehow I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know, I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. It was a wound I thought that needed to be hidden from the world.  But my wound couldn't be healed if it was hidden. 

Healing did come and still comes, with wounds like these healing is a process. My first "round of healing" happened my sophomore year of high school. I was facied with the truth of what happened to me. I was extremely overwhelmed, confused and discouraged. I went on a run to clear my head and talk(yell) at God. I was crying and remember telling God this situation feels like a giant brick wall that I'm never going to get over. That same night I attended a prayer meeting, there was an alter call and I went up.   2 Samuel 22:29-30 was prayed over me, "For you are my lamp, O Lord, and my God lightens my darkness. For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall." When I went home I painted those words on my wall. God had lifted my out and over my confusion and discouragement.

My "second round of healing" was from my husband. When we were dating and started talking about marriage I knew I had to tell him what happened to me as a child. I was a virgin at the time and the idea of sex was scary. I wasn't sure if this past hurt would taint healthy married sex, I didn't know if telling him would some how taint me in his eyes. I started to allow fear and shame back in. I remember crying and shacking as I told him. He held me and told me, "I wish I could of been there to protect you." At that moment sitting on a beach park bench with the man I knew I was going to marry, I felt loved, accepted, and safe. There is so much power in someone seeing your broken parts and loving you. Just like King David saw Mephilbosheth's broken legs and still blessed and loved him, God knows our brokenness, our faults and yet wants to bless us and loves us.

Facing FEAR

I recently moved away from the only home I have ever known, I moved across an ocean. Moving was a leap of faith, I had to face the unknown and my own fears of those unknowns. I remember a conversation I had with my husband, Josh, when we were moving about how we wanted to face fears in our lives. If we could face the fear of the unknown, we could face other fears. I remember telling him I was sick of dumb fears stopping me from living. I was thinking of silly things like, my fears of my kids surfing big waves were sharks live or fears of white kids getting bullied by Hawaiian kids. True fears of mine but one’s I, in and of myself can face. But when you tell God you are ready for something, He doesn’t just hit those small things. This is a God who told Gideon twice to send soldiers home so Israel would know that the battle is won by God and not by the small three hundred that were left.  God in His loving kindness has taken me and told me, “you want to face your fear, here is your greatest fear; let’s face it.”

I grew up in Sunny San Diego just south of Hollywood. There women can be more plastic then flesh. They literally put thousands and possibly millions into their physical presentation.  Why? What would possibly motivate a woman to do this to herself; fear. Fear that their natural state is not acceptable, desirable or good enough. I have always taken a stance against a Hollywood kind of women. I want my daughters to have an example of a woman who loves and accepts her natural state, even as she ages. But what I have come to realize is I am still a women covered in plastic. In a women’s group, a lady shared how sculptors used to sell broken statues as perfect ones by covering the cracks with wax. I realized this is me.

Google defines FEAR as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. The Bible defines fear in 1 John 4:18 as the opposite of love. My greatest fear wasn’t sharks but am I excepted, am I loved? Not the waxed, polished me but  the natural, cracked me. Can someone see me, really see me and still Love me. 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear.” God wants to take my fear but I have to let go of it. I have to remove the plastic, melt down the wax and let the love of God take away my fear.

I am reminded of the story of Mephilbosheth, He was not perfect. See he was left lame, his legs were broken and un-useable. But King David loved Mephilbosheth and took a broken man and placed him among princes. At King David’s table Mephilbosheth wasn’t a broken man, he was a beloved son. David didn’t care that he wasn’t perfect. He didn’t hide who Mephilbosheth was;  he just placed him with his children and expected them to love him.  I have been in churches were sins were hushed and frowned upon. Everyone was a waxed statue perfectly polished. 1 John 1: 7-10 “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” As a Christian ,I should be honest about who I am; imperfect, broken and I should bean example of King David’s table an excepting place for the broken.