I’m not healed. I’m not exonerated. I’m not complete. I am in the process of fulfilling my God-given purpose.
I am ready to be joined again in holy matrimony. I am ready to start the next volume of my story.
I didn’t expect to take seven years to get here, but I needed every minute. I’m grateful for the pain and darkness of this chapter. They have taught me to appreciate the light and to care for all the blessings in my life.
These seven years have completed a difficult stretch in my journey.
In a recent Bible class, the leader explained God’s Infinite Love as a bubbling fountain that overflowed to become the Creation we inhabit.
I’ve been caught up in that living water since Christ began to heal my heart.
As His little creators, I believe we are meant to channel His love into the world through our thoughts, words, and actions. We are His tiny fractal fountains in a reality founded on love.
As we devote ourselves to a lifetime of union, Kristen and I are building a fountain together. Our love has already bubbled into a home, a family, and a business, but there is so much more we are destined to create.
David Norbut is doing amazing work in the experiential analog art/craft/work space.
Kristen and I have been celebrating our engagement everyday since she agreed to be my wife. Today we visited David’s studio and had two tintype portraits taken.
Isaiah 66:3-4 RSV — “He who slaughters an ox is like him who kills a man; he who sacrifices a lamb, like him who breaks a dog’s neck; he who presents a cereal offering, like him who offers swine’s blood; he who makes a memorial offering of frankincense, like him who blesses an idol. These have chosen their own ways, and their soul delights in their abominations; I also will choose affliction for them, and bring their fears upon them; because, when I called, no one answered, when I spoke they did not listen; but they did what was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I did not delight.”
We create our own hell. Or rather, God afflicts us with our own delusions.
It’s a powerful observation of the way in which God’s Creation operates.
Isaiah 65:17-25 RSV — “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the child shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed. They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be, and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, or bear children for calamity; for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the LORD, and their children with them. Before they call I will answer, while they are yet speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”
The commentary is all over the place with these verses.
I don’t know how to think about the new heavens and new earth. I love the idea of a physical restoration of Eden, but many seem to see these lines as a symbolic time that we are already approaching (or living?).
However one decides to see the particulars, I do see God’s promise of a new life in Him. I believe this promise is physical, spiritual, and mental…a complete, and eternal life. Jesus has already defeated Death. Everlasting Life is found in Him.
Widowhood devastated my assumptions about the present and the future.
Almost seven years ago, on a cold, sunny afternoon, I sat alone in front of a church and had a vision of my mind shattering into deep plum shards in a black expanse. Some flew away, others spun in place, still fragile. Terrified, I didn’t know what I was losing, what was left, nor how I was supposed to reassemble these loose fragments.
It was, and remains, a puzzle full of puzzles. Assembling them is my healing journey.
I’ve found the last piece of one of those puzzles.
Kristen and I will be getting married this year. It will be the close of a journey I thought might never end. In Kristen I have found new purpose, new future, new present, and a deeper love bourne out of deeper healing.
I will always be a widower. I will always carry Mary in my heart. The turning of this page will be as bitter as it is sweet. And, as with all my joys, it will come with the reminder of horrible cost.
Some are, fairly, saying I took too long. But I had to get this right. I had to let my heart prepare. I had to wait for God to clear the path.
The path is clear and my heart is full. God willing, we’ll becoming ancestors to generations.
Isaiah 64:4 RSV — From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides thee, who works for those who wait for him.
It’s not the focus of this chapter, but this verse speaks to an intuition I have carried for a long time. There is one God. We all have different names and faces and ideas of what He is, but that doesn’t change His nature.
