Simon’s been working like a mad man lately, providing for us, and I am so blessed to have him.
Sunday night he got home from one of his many jobs, tired, worn out. I tried to start a serious conversation about serious things, like where we’re going from here; what we’re up to when our lease runs out in less than two months. He told me what I already knew: that he hasn’t had time to think about it. That he’s either working or sleeping.
And I said, “Let’s get out of here.”
We loaded up the car Monday morning and drove to Charleston, desperate to put some space between us and our house, our his job, all the decisions weighing on us.
I called friends and hotels on the way, and we found a B&B on Monday night. Meanwhile, a friend I’ve made through skirt! wrote to say she was out of town but would be back Tuesday morning, and did we want to stay with her. I said yes.
Sabrina made us feel like royalty. Her house is clean and smells divine, and you could see the joy on her face as she scrambled(the most delicious ever) eggs and made coffee this morning. It’s a gift, I think, to be so joyful in serving.
Simon (who was quiet most of the time, mostly because he couldn’t get a word in edge-wise between Sabrina and me and all our frantic talking and hand gesturing) commented on our drive back to North Carolina that watching how much Sabrina loved having us made him feel like he could really relax. When you feel like you’re burdening someone, it’s so difficult to feel at ease.
We’ve talked about this before. We have other friends – a married couple in England – who are some of the most hospitable people I’ve met anywhere in the world. Arriving somewhere where you feel like preparation has been made for you is a huge blessing. Louisa is always cooking, and Justin is popping wine corks and re-filling glasses with Diet Coke – which he’s made sure he’s stocked up on because he knows it’s what we drink. They’ve gone to the local farm shop and bought bacon for Saturday morning breakfast, left towels on our bed, made plans for our stay. Their young son, Elijah, has even been prepared for our arrival, and is standing at the front door, waving as we pull in the drive.
It’s priceless, really, to feel like you’ve been anticipated. Like someone loves you so much they’ve thought about what you’ll like to eat, to drink, to do.
Last year, in our house group in England, we did a study about spiritual gifts. We had people who know us well fill out questionnaires about us, and it helped to see what our real gifts were. One of my top three? Hospitality. But I’m sorry to say, I’ve fallen down on the job.
As we drove back from Sabrina’s this morning, I said to Simon, “I love the way she made us feel. I think I used to be good at that. I don’t know what happened.”
“Yeah,” he said. ”I’ve noticed.”
Ouch.
He went on to explain that he saw a change in me: the girl I once was – laid-back, excited to have visitors, shopping for special groceries and stocking the house with fresh flowers – left sometime last year. In her place has been another girl. One who panics at the thought of people in her house, her space. One who stresses about how she’s going to get her work done and cook for more people.
To all the lovely friends who’ve visited us in America: I’m so sorry.
To Simon’s parents, to Ben and Martina, to James and Jo, to Veronica, Natasha, and Ben and Helen: please don’t hold it against me. Something changed me last year. My job, maybe. I don’t know.
But I said a prayer today: I asked God to change me, to give me back that gift I loved so much, that passion for people. I’m learning to let go of the me that was starting to take over, to steal my joy. I don’t want to live like that.
Now: I’ve got a spare room and all the time in the world for flower-buying, board game-playing, and goodie-baking.
Filed under a change will do you good, confessions, England, family, food, glorious food, forgiveness, home, learning, spirituality
By the way, those are my sunglasses, and I just don’t think boys wearing women’s sunglasses can really say too much.
Filed under forgiveness, random
There is a time period in our relationship about which Simon and I do not speak. Scratch that: I speak about it; he does not. We broke up for 7 months from Thanksgiving of ’04 to June of ’05. It was not pretty. We talked on the phone about once a week and, every time, it ended in tears for one or both of us.
Apart, it was so easy to be angry. From 3,000 miles away, it was easy to hold on to pain, to wrongdoing, to hurt, to bitterness. I knew, somewhere deep in my heart, that if we could just see each other again – if I could hold him and bury my face in his neck – it would put all the pain into perspective.
I was right.
He flew to the US in June to see me, to “get some closure, one way or another,” and a couple of days into his trip, all the anger we’d been holding on to melted away. Together, laughing at each other’s jokes, seeing each other’s smiles, the stuff we’d been grasping with a white-knuckled grip didn’t seem so horrific.
I’ve had the same experience with friends and family members since then, and remembering how things were for us during that seven months helps bring everything back down again. If someone hurts me, and then leaves; if you say horrible things to me, and then hang up the phone, and I don’t hear from you for weeks, it’s all too easy for me to hate you until you call me back again and I’m reminded why I loved you in the first place.
I talk to my little sister every day. We fight like sisters do – screaming one minute and laughing the next. It’s because I can see the amazing in her as well as the horrific, and vice versa. She offends me and impresses me in equal measure, and we have learned to love each other in spite of all our imperfections and brokenness, because we have to; because we’re family.
Shouldn’t it be so for all of us?
Filed under confessions, family, forgiveness, learning, marriage, spirituality
Yesterday, a friend said to me: “Can I confess something to you?”
“Uh, yeah. Of course.”
Her confession was of a sin that many of us struggle with – the desire for fame for ourselves that battles with our desire for fame for God. It’s not an uncommon fight. I could relate, and we talked for a while about our struggle, and what the Bible says about it. Mostly, it felt good to both of us just to get it out there; to say, “Listen, I’m going to be honest, I’ve been thinking something lately that I know I shouldn’t be thinking.” Saying it out loud is also admitting that it’s a problem, instead of internally justifying it.
Confession is one of those things that often feels horrible before you do it, and liberating afterward. There are some things I’ve confessed to my husband – thoughts I’ve had, things I’ve said – that I dreaded saying out loud. It hurts to say I was wrong, to admit I’m imperfect. And it’s always awkward to hear my shaky Southern accent admit to things I’ve blatantly done wrong.
Although I’m painfully aware that I need God’s grace, the perfectionist in me is constantly railing against that Truth. But admitting it – saying, “I suck at this.” – is freeing. Recently I confessed to Simon and to God that I have been entirely too proud about my writing. I am oversensitive, I crave the approval of man, and, although I had asked someone for criticism, I was devastated when I received it instead of the praise I was so desperately desiring. I felt stupid saying out loud that my pride had gotten the best of me…but the great thing about confession is that, as soon as you’ve done it, the change begins.
Psalm 32 says:
1 Oh, what joy for those whose rebellion is forgiven,
whose sin is put out of sight!
2 Yes, what joy for those
whose record the Lord has cleared of sin, whose lives are lived in complete honesty!
Living our lives “in complete honesty” brings joy, and confession is the beginning of healing.
Someone close to me once confessed to an addiction that no one else knew of. The fear of judgement – from her parents, her friends, the church – had kept her from admitting her struggle earlier, but things had finally gotten to the point where she just couldn’t take it anymore. She needed help; she needed someone to share her burden. She is now healed of that addiction(and has been for two years!), and I believe that confession was the beginning of her healing process. Our subsequent prayers – passionate, pleading – were the next step. God wants us to confess our sins to him(1 John 1:9), but it is also good for us to confess our sins to each other.
James 5: 14-16 says:
14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.16Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
The enemy is called the Prince of Darkness for a reason: he thrives in darkness. He convinces us to keep our secrets, but darkness and secrecy are breeding grounds for shame. It is only when we bring our sin – our mistakes, our addictions, our brokenness – into the Light that we can begin to be freed from it.
Filed under being afraid, confessions, forgiveness, learning, spirituality
Last night, I had this dream that Simon was cheating on me, so, of course I am mad at him today. I’ve been trying to tell him about the dream all day, because it was the first really vivid one I’ve had in a long time, and I actually think it was pretty interesting. But he keeps telling me he doesn’t want to hear about it because it’s nasty (that’s pronounced “nAH-stee” instead of the normal “nasty”, on account of his British accent. it also means “horrible” and not “gross.”)*
So, I thought I would tell y’all about it, because I think it’s pretty entertaining, and the more I tell it and realize how funny the whole thing was, the less I will be mad at him for crimes he did not commit.
It started out with me sitting in a restaurant, or, like, a Dairy Queen, in a booth with Simon and some other people, and then this very petite, brown-haired girl** in jeans and a pink t-shirt came and sat by Simon on the other side, and then I was like, “Wa-..are y’all holding hands?” And they were.
And I was like, “Simon!? What the heck?”
And he was like, “What? She moved to Smithfield and she doesn’t know anyone.” As if that was a perfectly good excuse to start dating someone when you’re already in a relationship. I’m not sure if we were married yet, but I kept yelling, “I saved myself for you!”
Apparently we were in the food court of some mall, because then I went upstairs and was leaning over the railing watching them come up the escalator, feeling sick and yelling at them. Then, I said, “How old are you?” to the very petite girl, and she was like, “17.”
When I woke up, I was pissed. But also very relieved that my husband was not having an extramarital affair with a child.
*nAH-stee is like a secret code word we use in arguments. I guess, technically, it is neither secret nor code, but what I mean is that, if we’re arguing, and Simon says, “Stop being so nAH-stee,” I always say “I’m not being nAH-stee,” and then we’re done arguing because I’m overwhelmed with how cute it is that Simon talks like that and he’s overwhelmed with how cute I am because I’m Southern and try to do a British accent. Basically, we’re pretty sick.
**i.e., my complete opposite.
Filed under being southern, eww, forgiveness, marriage
