Mirror Mask

Ok,  I haven’t been at this blog in a while. Life has gotten ridiculously complicated and difficult since then. My wife of six years has left me and taken our children with her six hours away and although I have been in therapy for two months, things still seem to be at a stand still.

However, I think I may have determined what part of the problem is.

I’ve been focusing on trying to fix the marriage, on trying to make her come home.

Right, wrong, or indifferent that is what I have been doing. Trying to make her see that we have to do this together and focusing on my anger at the way she left and the position I felt she had put me in.

Newsflash… I helped put me here.

So now I am going to take a different approach. I’m going to stop looking at her part of it, at the parts that we own together, at the situation, at the seperation from the children, of the horrible finances, and the anger. I’m going to start looking at the scary part….

I’m going to start looking at me.

Because that’s all I am in charge of, it’s all that I can change… and if my instincts are correct there is going to be a lot of work to do just on that part alone.

Maybe I can fix myself enough that she’ll give me another chance to live up to the man that she hoped I could be. Maybe she won’t, but I owe it to myself, and to our children to be that man regardless of what happens next.

More later…

Blue Christmas

Me and Christmas have never gotten along that well. It stems from the fact that I was raised in a religion that celebrates none of the holidays celebrated by society at large. Christmas chief among those. I’m not going to go into all of that mess however. But it is important to know that I didn’t really celebrate Christmas in the secular gift-giving way until I was in college.

So fast forward 10 to 12 years. The economy and several unexpected disasters including 2 months of unemployment and having to buy a newer car at the beginning of the year have landed me in a place where my wife and I have decided that in order to give our children a proper Christmas we cannot get gifts for one another.

This as we used to say in college sucks big.

To my wife’s credit she assured me that although I am the sole provider for the family financially that this in no way reflects on her opinion of me. I work hard, and in spite of that this year has been more difficult for our family financially than many others. I, of course see it as a failing. 

However hard that pill is to swallow, that isn’t the issue that is weighing on my mind. It’s my own selfishness that is causing me the most distress and general sense of gloom.  To put it as sharply and bluntly as I can, I want presents.

It’s sad and not very grown up of me. I know that, and it makes me feel terribly selfish and juvenile to realize that about myself. I am not going to be recieving gifts from anyone except from my wonderful in-laws. And while I know that as a almost 35 year old man, that should be good enough I still really want presents from the person that knows me best, that isn’t just picking from a list provided by someone else. Please understand that I love and respect my in-laws they are truly some of the best people I know and they have been wonderful to me and my family for the entire course of my marriage and it is not that I don’t appreciate the gifts I do receive from them. Because I absolutely do. It just doesn’t feel the same…. and part of me knows it’s just because it is human nature to want what you know you cannot have.  It’s childish and selfish of me, and I know it and I feel terrible that I can’t just tell that inner 10 year old boy to shut his freaking trap and have him listen.

It doesn’t help that my marriage has been very rocky in recent months and while I know that things are getting better, I want to be able to give my wife something for Christmas. I know that presents aren’t a big deal to her, they never have been. But they are a big deal to me, both in the giving and the receiving. It bothers me to think that I am for the first time in almost 6 years of marriage not going to be able to see the look on my wife’s face when she opens a gift from me and it’s not something that she would have expected from me. That is a Christmas gift you can’t buy in stores.

I suppose the easy thing to do would be to blame my childhood, and not accept responsibility for the fact that I am an adult now and should as the Bible puts it “…put away childish things…” . But I cannot allow myself that luxury any more, I have made a decision to lead my family in a more Christ-like manner and Jesus led through sacrifice and if this is the sacrifice I have to make this holiday season so be it.

I’ll just have to look for a “priceless” gift for my wife. I love her enough to find it. Of that I am sure.

Rich Man, Poor Man

In all labor there is profit, But mere talk leads only to poverty.  -Proverbs 14:23

I came upon this verse at the end of a chapter in a book on marriage I was reading last week and immediately thought ” this is probably where the expression talk is cheap comes from.” While that is a distinct possibility, to just look at things from that perspective is terribly limiting. It was when I mentioned this verse to my wife that I found this new layer of meaning. Well to be fair, I didn’t find anything. My wife is far more versed in Bible study pointed out that “poverty” isn’t just lack of gain, but can imply moving backward. I never would have seen that, and am very thankful that my wife pointed that shade of meaning out to me.

So with that in mind, let’s just assume that I like to talk. A lot. To make matters worse, my obsessive nature makes sure that I’ve never met a dead horse that I didn’t want to beat.

Repeatedly.

Needless to say, this drives my wife insane. She calls it rehash. While on one hand that label aggravates me, I can completely understand where she is coming from. I don’t even like hash the first time around, let alone the second, third or fourth time around. Heck, I don’t even like re-fried beans. But I digress. 

This is another scripture that focuses me inward, making me examine my own behavior and the clock work of my mind. And once again, I find a distortion of the image of God.  God is decisive, he allowed men free will, and once we made a mess of things, did he say “Well, that didn’t go well, let’s hit the restart button on that.” No he stuck to the grand design and provided a way for our redemption. God is wise, he gives matters due consideration, but he doesn’t dwell on things, he acts on things. Take the unlawfulness of Noah’s time. Did God sit back and ponder a course of action for ages? No, he provided for those who would listen to his commandments, had Noah build the ark and proceeded to sweep those who would ruin the earth away with 40 days of rain. The coming end times could be likened to that story as well.

So if I am to try and be more like the creator, I need to learn to act more than I talk. The scripture is right, mere talk is empty and broken promises and good intentions don’t add up to anything but a hole that it is all too easy to dig, but much harder to fill.

So it’s time to get to the labor. I think the choice of the word labor is no mistake. Being decisive and making choices and sticking to them isn’t an easy thing. Especially when there are all those dead horses lying around.

But as they say, silence is golden. Gold is the color of money, and I’m ready to see about the profit Proverbs is talking about.

I’ve seen enough of the poverty.

Cowards and Fear

I was reading on John Eldredge’s website and I found this little gem. I wish I could find the actual source to credit, but I’m being a little lazy and it’s immaterial to what I want to talk about.

“I forget the source of the quote, but I read long ago that a coward faces his battles twice – once in his apprehensions and fears as he anticipates them, the other when he must face the battle itself.”

I’ve been told countless times by countless people that I think way too much.  I have a tendency to obsess over things and try to see all scenarios and contingency plans, and look for hidden meaning and context. Because of this pattern I tend to make even very small issues into larger ones, and even create issues out of things that most people would just let slip right on by. Is this really being Machiavellian or trying to be prepared or is it just an aspect of emotional and mental cowardice. Am I looking for the worst case scenario and planning on how I’ll deal with it so as to avoid having to truly face the reality of the given situation by busying myself with speculation and the what if game?

What if this really means that, or points to this other thing? What if this seemingly harmless thing is actually a precursor of a disaster coming around the corner? What if I respond this way, will it change the possible disaster or simply help move it along faster?……

This sort of thought pattern is endless and circular, it feeds upon itself and gains momentum each time it makes a circuit. Before I know it, my thought process is so far out of control that I feel helpless to step outside of it. It’s like being inside of a Cyclotron, where the centripidal force keeps you pressed helpless to the wall. It is fun when you are a kid at the state fair, but mentally it is terribly draining.

Is this behavior fear based? The more I consider the possibility the more I belive that it is, and allowing myself to be ruled by my own internal clockwork of fear is undoubtably a form of cowardice.

So I did some looking around and found a scripture that relates to the Biblical view of fear.

“For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”    – 2 Timothy 1:7

So if fear does not come from God, then it is not a great leap to make that it comes from Satan. And if we are to attempt to be more like God, to reflect his image that was placed in us at our birth then we should reject our fear.  In that context, I should look at my proclivity to over-focus on and over-analyse any negative situation as being a rejection of my God given design and not of “sound mind”. 

Having seen that God has not given us a spirit of fear, it seems important to look at what he has given us, namely a spirit of love and power, and sound mind. These are obvious qualities of God and by association ourselves as we are made in his image. So it is both loving and powerful to look at any statement made that opens the door to the spirit of fear within us, and take it only for what it is. To do this effectively we must take control over ourselves, exerting that god-given power and choose to respond out of love and strength rather than stewing on it, and running circles in our minds letting fear gain momentum until it is a cyclone, sucking away our ability to think clearly and from a godly place.

That is a difficult kind of bravery to conceptualize for me, but I’d rather face my fears once than continue to have them circle me, like a murder of disquieting crows.