As if being newly married weren’t difficult enough, my husband and I live in a house with 4 roommates, all of which are women. To top off the awkward things that I’m learning about my husband: (i.e. Why he brushes … Continue reading
I have never known a time of lack like these past 10 months of my life. My husband is in grad school with three full-time internships. Every penny we make has a place to go, and some weeks there is not one thing left over. This was not what we pictured when we excitedly addressed wedding invitations and ran around Target scanning registry items (After all, when you’re soon to be married there is much hope to be found in towels that look like a Downy commercial and an expensive set of knives.) We heard it would be hard and that all newlyweds face financial difficulty, but it never set in. I have never really known lack in my life, and so I couldn’t even picture anything but the sweetness of being married in our own little house forever, chopping vegetables on our new cutting board while sipping wine with Bublé in the background. For awhile, it was like that. Then came the long nights waiting up for my husband, who had to take on more and more hours as his class load and work load got heavier. Many of those nights I would kick a soccer ball around our apartment in my nightgown just to stay awake to see him. These past ten months I have learned for the first time what it means to help somebody else shoulder a load, to stand behind them and cheer them on when it seems like every bit of stability we know is bound to crumble at any moment.
In only ten months we have encountered closed doors, shattered dreams, hunger, fear for our future, and fear for the health and full function of our child after she is born. I now know the relief of a food pantry, of needing food so much, and filling my box with canned vegetables and cereal, overwhelmed by the fact that it’s free. I have learned the new humility of accepting unimaginable gifts, and the truth of God’s provision with unexpected checks in the mail. Every moment I live in the reality of what all of this hardship has done to my marriage.
We have known faith shaking helplessness yet somehow, face-to-face with all of it, we have managed to thrive. On more than one occasion my husband has turned to me and admitted that he has never felt so blessed in his life.
And we are, suddenly. In every situation. More than ever.
Yesterday I found blackberries for 99 cents. Ninety-nine cents. What a luxury, blackberries. I watched them travel down the checkout line in their plastic container and I felt like crying. Because I felt rich. I felt a rich, blessed feeling that was more than I had ever felt when I had more than enough.
What is this overflow of goodness? Without extra money, we have more time for winter walks. We connect over which food is most healthy to buy and freeze for smoothies. I am awakened with a kiss every single morning without fail, from a husband who smells like toothpaste and is never resentful that he is about to face another fourteen hour day. We have more time to spend before bed in hysterics over bodily functions because there isn’t a TV in our room. When he sees so much worry brimming up inside of me, he stops the car to pray. And when he comes home long after I’ve been in bed, this man literally tucks the covers up around me. We live in one room with a space heater, but it is the coziest, sweetest time of my life. Nothing brims over like the blessings that money could never offer us. The simple every day wonderful things that lack has given us as the most unforeseen gift of all.
I’m gonna miss this.
Now we are moving. Into a beautiful new house.
What if someday I forget this hard beginning? It feels like we have been trying to plow the rocky ground for so long. I want to remember the tears of frustration, and the anger at God. The helplessness. The confusion. Why is this happening to me? Why aren’t my dreams coming true?
The true lack would be if I forgot all of this. If I went on to my big beautiful house in Tennessee and after my husband graduates, I was suddenly able to fill my cart at the grocery store and then stop to fill the tank before arriving home. Unpacking my wealth into separate cupboards and starting dinner with the big screen TV on in the living room, I listen intently to the news. I go on filling my heart and mind with every meaningless thing under the sun which is setting out the kitchen window, gold spilling behind the trees. Of course I never notice, because I am checking Facebook messages on my i-phone while stirring the pasta sauce and listening to commercials.
In our one room packed to the brim with everything we own, my husband knelt down and looked at me funny. He had just returned home, and I could smell the food on him the minute he walked through the door. It was a few weeks ago, and I was reading a book about breast feeding schedules. He changed out of his Copper Kettle shirt as usual because my pregnant nose cannot handle the lingering scent of butter and grease he brings home with him. In fact, tonight when he opened the door I was suddenly annoyed with the anticipation of that smell. He asked how I was and I snapped something curt before ignoring him completely.
“Uh, Babe?”
I looked up and he was kneeling there next to the bed looking like he had some serious news. “What?” I slammed the book down on my lap, exasperated.
“I just wanted to take the time to ask you…” He cleared his throat. “Will you be my Valentine?”
It was the sweetest thing. On a normal night. I laughed out loud. All I could think to say was, “Are you real life?” I hope he skips all the Valentines gifts he could ever buy. In one moment, I am outdone.
This year, on our first Valentines Day, we have so little, yet I am filled up with more blessing than I ever dreamed possible. I never dreamed it could be this good.
Hi. I look like my daddy!
I was recently asked if it feels odd to have a human being shift positions inside of me. The feeling is no longer odd, even after only about 6 weeks of small hands fluttering, or a tiny bottom taking a seat on my bladder, it all feels as natural as gas (I’ll get to that). No the odd feeling, the overwhelming weirdness has more to do with this growing sense of awe and terror. Happy terror. The depth and height and overall bigness of being pregnant grows as I grow. This feeling is perhaps brought on by the idea that I will soon hold her in my arms. Tiny being. Fragile soul of whom I’ve co-created in the secret darkness of myself from where so much mystery has always lived. Maybe I’m afraid of lifelong responsibility, or maybe I am aware of what my journey will entail. Her little clothes are lined up on tiny hangers on an open rod in the basement room where I live. Her small green slippers hang from a clothespin above our bed. Recently we’ve begun sleeping with her little lamb between us. All the while this growing sense of awe and terror spills quietly behind our every moment. There is a wishing that we had more time just us, being married, and also a longing for her that we thought we’d never know. Both unexpected, just as our life now is everything and nothing we thought it would be all at the same time. Just ten months since our wedding day it still says, “Just Married,” in faded yellow letters on the back window of our car. We’ve discussed leaving it, and putting up the, “Baby on Board,” sign right under it. Hello, controversy.
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