Tag Archives: marriage

June 17, 2009 · 6:00 AM

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Trust is an interesting word, because as my mom says, “It doesn’t exist until it’s tested.”

Consider mine in full existence.

Mike climbed Mt. Baker last weekend, and I didn’t handle it well — at first.  This was his first climb of this intensity, and it’s a bit of a mystery to both of us.  What do we know of mountains?  More specifically, what do I know of what they do to men?

I know that they call to men, beckoning them for reasons that escape me.  I look at mountains and think, “How beautiful!”  Men look at mountains and think “I must conquer you.”

Mike’s sister Wendy is married to a man who has answered that mountainous whisper numerous times.  Naturally, I went to her with my nerves bared.

“Worry is futile and unproductive,” she advised.  “It’s definitely something I’ve come to understand over time though…so don’t feel like you have to instantly be at peace and calm about your hubby climbing a mountain.  It’s a process.”

It’s a process.  So it’s fine that I cried after breakfast on Friday morning, when I knew I wouldn’t see him until his return on Sunday night.  And it’s fine that I cried after lunch on Friday afternoon, when we said goodbye again, since I needed more than one goodbye.  (Believe me; I know how pathetic I sound right now).

It’s embarrassing to admit, but I was afraid.  Not of Mike’s inability, but of the mountain’s strength.  Climbing produces an onslaught of foreign words that sound like causes of death:  crevasse, glacier, peak, ice field, snow slide.

Add to this that we have only spent one night apart so far in our marriage (I know, you’re gagging).  Add to this that we had just returned from a six day trip in which we had been together 24/7.  The result is that the thought of his absence made me feel like a limb was missing.

I guess that’s what I felt all weekend: phantom limb.

So I called my mom on Friday and told her my fears.  She listened.  Then she asked if I was going up the mountain with him.

“No, I’m not going,” I said.

“Correct.  You cannot protect him.  But Jesus is walking alongside him all the way up to the peak  and right back down.  So tell Him to protect our boy and then let it go,” she said, using my three least favorite words in the English language.

Let it go.

Release.

Essentially, stop being myself, because I am a control freak.

So, begrudgingly, I did.  I told Jesus this was truly His worry, not mine, and I stopped thinking about it.

OK I didn’t stop thinking about it.  I just stopped worrying about it.  I still thought of him every day, but it was thoughts of missing him, not imagining him falling into an abyss.  This was progress.

I also made plans.  The last thing I needed was to be home alone with my thoughts, so I called Rachel, Mike’s other sister, whose husband Phil was climbing with Mike.  Then we called her mom, because her son and son-in-law are our husbands.  So we all felt the same and decided to be together to feel the same.

We went to Anacortes where Mike’s parents have a house, to distract ourselves, even enjoy ourselves, and relax.  This was the best possible decision we could have made.

Rachel has been through this worry-release almost as many times as Wendy, so she was a rock for me in my first experience.  Just looking at her peaceful expression made me think of the boys less and less often.  Instead, I was fully present with Rachel and Colleen, and could enjoy a gorgeous sunset dinner overlooking the San Juan Islands.

I suppose peaceful dinners are one of the fringe benefits of “letting it go.”  Who knew?

As I write this, on Sunday afternoon, the boys are not home yet.  According to the “SPOT” device they use to let us know their status, they are still OK.  Every couple of hours they push a button on this device and it emails us their location.  I can’t overstate my devotion to this product.

The boys have a motto when it comes to their climbs:  “The summit is optional.  Coming home is not.”   These are good men.

As for me being a good woman?  I’m ashamed of how much effort it takes for me to trust.  I want to be the woman who says, “Go!  Adventure!  Live!”  When what I whine now is, “Stay home!  Be my security!  Never leave my side!”

But that’s not living.  That’s not what we were made for.  And Mike isn’t my security anyway; God is.

So when Mike gets home, as I trust he will, and I am relieved and happy and filled with hope that my trust was on solid ground — then I must hold onto this trust, learn it, keep it.  Because I know exactly what he’s going to say:

“I can’t wait to climb Mt. Rainier!”

Mike, Greg and Phil make their way back down the mountain.

  Mike, Greg and Phil make their way up the mountain.

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June 3, 2009 · 6:00 AM

UPward Adventure

*Disclaimer:  It may be best to read this after seeing the new movie UP, both to avoid giveaways and to understand what I’m describing.

If you were to ask anyone, stranger or friend, about what they consider an adventure to be, very few would reply “a relationship.”   You’re far more likely to get answers about hiking in the Amazon, climbing Mt. Everest, or exploring the Mayan ruins.

And who could blame them for thinking the great outdoors hold the keys to most thrills?  Earth is essentially a giant piñata awaiting a bat-wielding person to reveal hidden treasures.   Until last year, I completely believed the outdoor-definition of adventure.  I clung to the ideal that unless I traversed the far reaches of the world, I was settling for a mind-numbing existence.

Being with Mike has taught me that sacrificing my plans can actually lead to a different adventure, a much greater adventure: the adventure of intimacy.

But who cares about that?  Where in our society is there an example of marriage being EXCITING, of all things?  This is why it’s such a surprise that the central theme for the animated movie “UP” is that adventure can be found in a relationship, in a marriage, as much as it can be found traveling the world.

The trailers for the film show a septuagenarian soaring in his home suspended by a thousand brilliant balloons, headed for the wilds of South America.   However, the story is infinitely richer and more multilayered than the simplistic journey of an old man.

In the first wordless five minutes, the filmmakers display a portrait of a marriage spanning fifty years in images so poignant they brought me to tears.   I glanced sideways at Mike and could see the glisten of moist eyes behind his 3-D glasses.  We both realized their relationship held so much of what we want for ours.

But I think the reason this movie struck me so deeply is that I sometimes battle the feeling that I am missing out.  Many of my extended friends are exploring Machu Picchu, serving the poor in Ethiopia, and heading to China for graduate degrees – they are LIVING.   And everywhere you look it seems that married people are not.

Which is exactly why I didn’t want to get married, or even have a boyfriend, until I was thirty.  I had a list of things to accomplish (literally, a Word document titled “Things to Accomplish Before I’m 30”) and I wasn’t going to let any man halt my plans.  I knew that the moment a ring was on my finger, all of my adventures would be over.

I was so wrong.

My adventures, even wild ones like cliff-jumping off waterfalls in Kauai, tempted to distract me from ever experiencing one of God’s greatest intentions for us – intimacy with other people.

In the book “Sex God,” Rob Bell writes, “We want someone to see us exactly as we are and still love us.”  It would be incredible to show Mike the adventures I’ve been on, because I know he’d be impressed and want to know more about me.  It would be harder to show Mike who I truly am, without any accomplishments, and still be loved by him — but that’s exactly what God wants me to do.  Because once I let Mike love me, I might be better at letting God love me.

Now when I tell Mike my ideas for adventure and desires for our life, it means that I trust him to hold onto them.  It means that he’ll work with me to make them happen.  And it means that they aren’t just mine anymore; they’re ours to live side-by-side.

What I didn’t know before, and what I’m just learning now, is that by sacrificing my plans I’m opening myself up to more excitement.  I don’t know what’s ahead, but I know who’s going there with me.

It scares me.  It’s unsettling.  But it’s exciting.

The most surprising aspect of most of our mutual “dreams” is that they have nothing to do with physical attainment.  We have normal dreams of travel, entrepreneurship, and having children, but most of our ideas for adventure are for our relationship.

We talk about how we will get to a place of trust that is unshakable.  We dream of total openness where we can share ANYTHING and feel safe.  We imagine the richest intimacy possible in this life before heaven.  That is an adventure.

And the most rewarding part of the adventure, in my opinion, is exploring the person.  In my case, it’s the endless journey of finding out who Mike is, what makes him tick, what he loves, hates, and how I can be the best partner for him.  It’s so much more intense than it appears.

If I’m really dedicated, truly trying to reach a level of intimacy neither of us has ever known, it takes all I have.

What could be more adventurous than giving someone all of me?

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May 27, 2009 · 6:00 AM

A Greater Disease

I’m not usually one to comment on the lives of celebrities (that is a total fabrication, but it makes me sound as pious as I one day hope to be), but the recent unraveling of a marriage has me troubled, and I must explain why.

Jon and Kate Gosselin, of the TLC show “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” are rumored to be divorcing, and last night the premier episode of their fifth season seemed to confirm it.  The question we are all asking is, why?

Based on widespread reporting, Jon had an affair with a 23-year-old school teacher.  That is the most obvious explanation for their breakup.  But an affair is never the cause of a breakup; it is the symptom of a greater disease.

Just 18 months ago I was inundated with pre-marriage counseling, a dozen books on marriage, and countless sentences of advice, so when couples fail the reasons strike me as textbook.  I’m no expert, but I am married.

In this case, Jon’s apathy and lack of leadership appears to have had the direct response of making Kate feel like she has to do it all.  Kate’s survival method of controlling everything (she DOES have eight kids) had the direct response of making Jon withdraw from her.

To a wife, a withdrawing husband is torture.  I have learned that women rarely agree to forgo affection.  If a woman isn’t adored at home even briefly, she’ll seek affirmation elsewhere (I am not defending this, but have noticed it in myself and my married friends).

For Kate, this took many forms: she decided that the quiet face of the camera was more sympathetic than a terse reply from her husband.  The worshipful fans in the Barnes & Nobles across America were more supportive than the rolling eyes of the man she married.

I find it hard to blame her.  I can’t count the number of times I have battled the desire to tell a loyal friend about a fight Mike and I had, and of my innocence in the situation, just so they’ll reassure me that I am in the right.  That is the essence of what Kate is doing: she wants the audience to back her up and agree that Jon is a disinterested oaf.   We agree, but in the process we notice she’s an obsessed, type-A commander.

But that type of affirmation doesn’t solve anything.  Instead, what’s left is the quiet awkwardness that neither of them will admit that they’ve done anything concretely wrong.  Instead, everything is coated in generalities:  “It was wrong place, wrong time,” said Jon.  “I have done my best,” said Kate.

What he didn’t say:  “As a husband, I don’t create boundaries or lead my wife, and I committed adultery.”

What she didn’t say:  “I treat my husband like a child and disrespect him.”

This is why I find their separation so disappointing, so threatening.  This isn’t Brad and Jen breaking up out of boredom or because a hotter star entered the picture.  This is a bland Pennsylvanian Christian couple who look all too similar to me and Mike.

And even though I don’t have stakes that are quite so high (eight children and millions of viewers watching my every move) , I participate in the same equivocation.   “Since you didn’t respond the first time I had to yell at you to get your attention,” said Abby.

What Abby didn’t say:  “I demand that my husband be available to me in ways no human possibly could.”

So as Mike and I watched this spectacle unfold last night, we found ourselves turning inward.  We asked ourselves what we will do when we have children, with Mike at work all day and I in command of our home in his absence.  Will I become Kate?  Will I treat him like a child instead of my leader?  Will I bark orders in the name of efficiency?

I would love to say that the difference between the Gosselins and the Rephs is our endless love and devotion, our radar for problems, and our unfailing optimism — but it is not true.  The Gosselins were probably strong in those areas when they were newly married 10 years ago, as we are now.

Instead, the most I can say is that we hope in a God who is the glue to our marriage, we try to love each other with a servant attitude, and we have grace for each other in times we fail.

I want to avoid telling my friends and family, as Kate did Monday evening, “This is not where we were supposed to be. This is not what I envisioned for us.”

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