Today my husband & I mark 19 years of marriage or 6941 days of choosing to say, “I do.”
Over the years whenever I have the ear of an excited bride- or groom-to-be I tell them to invest as much time into preparing for the marriage as they do for the wedding because with each day of marriage I have been reminded of how much grace, patience, faith, hope and love is required to make a marriage flourish.
And I don’t see any registries, wedding themes, or event planners offering those things. In fact, the very ‘things’ Peter and I stressed over, registered for, planned for or paid for captured, at most, a static snapshot of a day.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for our wedding photos (though I don’t know if I can say the same for our wedding video) and for the gifts the 1,000 guests at our big, fat Korean American wedding gave.
But as Peter and I get ready to celebrate our wedding anniversary, I can’t overlook the more difficult days when I had to learn over and over again that the wedding was over but the marriage would require daily recommitments.
It was easy to throw a party at the beginning.
So here’s to saying, “I’m sorry” and knowing what I am sorry for. To asking for forgiveness and extending it generously. To saying, “I love you” when it was a choice. To recognizing when we needed help and getting it. To learning about bowling, movies, dentures, coffee makers, memoirs, composting and jewelry even when it wasn’t our thing. To encouraging each other to chase a dream or two. To learning some lessons faster than others and being grateful we haven’t yet given up learning the more difficult ones.
Today I again say, “I do.”
The day between death and life and defeat and victory is a long one. I am impatient. I cannot wait. I do not like sitting and waiting. I want to move. I want answers.
Good Friday and what Jesus accomplished on the cross doesn’t become Good News until I’ve sat through Friday and Saturday. Until I’ve allowed myself to taste the anguish and utter devastation of losing and loss, of death, of fear. I’ve come as close as a mother ever wants to that kind of anguish, of losing her son while clinging to the tiniest hope that all is not lost forever. No, my son is no Jesus nor is he a savior, but I remember and can still feel that loss and grief and fear and hopelessness wash over me as I picture a curtain not tearing in two but separating us from the flurry of doctors and equipment.
And then there was the waiting. The in between I find myself sitting in now. The initial shock and reminders are over, and I wait. There is a way to mark Friday and Sunday but what about the in between? Waiting for Easter and the little boys and girls in their Holy Sunday finest (that is not the fight I chose to fight with my now not so little ones) because it is new and exciting and hopeful and in so many ways easier for me than to sit here on Saturday night. Waiting.
There are only a few minutes left of this day, and it is finally time to sit and wait and prepare my heart again. I’m thinking of friends who are waiting and hoping for God to make all things new because the brokenness of Good Friday in our daily lives is almost too much to bear. I remember sitting and keeping watch over my son as he lay in a drug-induced coma thinking I was either going to have to prepare for his burial, just like the women did so early that morning, or find that this time around death would not have victory, just like the women did so early that morning.
I am so impatient. Just a few more minutes.
This post is going to generate a ton of spam.
I’ve been invited to sit on a panel to discuss sex, specifically on the topic “Respecting Sex and Reducing Abortion: What Can Churches Really Do?” I was reluctant to accept the invitation for a variety of reasons including fear of putting at least one foot in my mouth, fear of digging a hole large enough to discredit me but not large enough to sink into and disappear, fear of looking and sounding like the least experienced expert and the potential scheduling acrobatics for me and my husband so that we had morning coverage on the home front. However, the sex talk lady is back.
Let me first explain the nickname. A few years ago I took on several campus speaking opportunities – every single one on the topic of sex and sexuality. I suppose writing the chapter on sexuality in More Than Serving Tea and also helping lead a weekend college student training module entitled “Christians, Sex and Intimacy” for several years had helped shape my reputation as a Christian woman who was not afraid to talk about sex, faith, ethnicity, gender, sin, failure, guilt, pleasure and hope. It was during that crazy year of sex talks that I had the opportunity to speak at Wheaton College during chapel on the subject of sex. That’s right. Wheaton College. Chapel. Sex. The sophomore class, I believe, invited me back to do a Q & A, and the promotional flyers and posters said it all: The Sex Talk Lady is Back.
When it comes to the topic of sexuality (not so much abortion, though I will certainly address the issue on the panel) my hope is for church leaders to understand that the Church can do and must do a better job teaching a theology of sexuality that acknowledges and encourages understanding and thoughtful engagement with the cultures around us and the realities we face. And as a parent of both a daughter and sons, I cannot leave the topic of sexuality and the ongoing conversations up to the youth pastors, health ed teachers and pop culture.
Because in reality repeating the line I heard in church – “Don’t have premarital sex” – did not prepare me well to deal with the warm fuzzies I felt after watching those Hollywood rom-coms and definitely after my first french kiss. Sure, the script kept running in my head (Kathy, remember, premarital sex is bad. JESUS IS WATCHING!) but NO ONE TOLD ME that the script in my head would have to compete with nerve endings I did not know would fire and feel that way and the emotions that became enmeshed with those physical experiences. All I heard was “sex is bad” and then I walked away feeling like “I was bad”. And then, for awhile, it was easier to just walk away.
I could rant on and on, but I won’t because this morning I have a list of things I must, must, must get done. However, I would again appreciate hearing from all of you. Please, be respectful of one another’s opinions, which may differ from yours. Please.
What, if anything, can the churches do to respect sex and reduce abortion? Should churches be doing anything at all? What did you learn about sex, sexuality and abortion at church and how has that helped (or not) you understand and respect sex? If you could help shape and change the message your church is sending about sex, sexuality and/or abortion how would you do it and what would that message be?
Being a published writer is a very strange thing indeed. I remember feeling grateful and proud when I saw my first byline, and I remember that More Than Serving Tea didn’t seem real until the first copies arrived at my home. I couldn’t believe someone was going to read what I had written.
But that’s when the fear and doubt really try to settle in and get comfortable. Getting published (or writing a public blog) doesn’t mean anyone is going to read what you wrote. It just means you’ve entered a new kind of crazy, manic, creative, wishful, hopeful, fearful place. Being published doesn’t mean having readers.
Blogging has opened up an entirely new avenue for writers to do just that – write and then hope their words will have readers who not only read what they’ve written but love it. Or at least like it enough. Is there anyone out there who blogs on a public blog and doesn’t want people to read it? You? You write a public blog but you don’t care if anyone reads it? Liar.
😉
We bloggers all have our good days when we write something that we think is funny or thoughtful or thought provoking, and our lovely readers concur. And then we have our bad days when inspiration never strikes or the words aren’t as clever or don’t turn quite right.
I would be lying to you if I told you I didn’t know how many readers I have. It keeps me humble because most days here at More Than Serving Tea it’s a small but faithful bunch. It’s been fun over the two years or so to learn a little more about some of you, and even better to actually meet some of you (Alvin!).
But today (Friday) was not a good day or a bad day. It was weird. I was popular.
I’ve seen surges in my readership, especially when the likes of Scot McKnight or Sojourners crosspost or link to my blog. It is flattering because I respect both blogs and the communities that read those sites, and I’m grateful to have that exposure and mutual respect. And it is dangerous because I see how easily my humility turns false and gratitude for a God-given ability to write wants more than feeling God’s pleasure as I write. I want fame . Or at the very least some blogosphere popularity.
But today the blog stats were beyond anything I had seen, so initially I thought my post on keeping my mouth shut was beyond amazing. I still think I had a pretty good line or two and that the overall post was well-written, but that really wasn’t it. I lucked out and my post made some popularity list that I think is created randomly. I could say that it was a God-thing, and maybe it was. I’m pretty sure in some way it was. I just don’t think it was to make me popular and famous, per se. Popularity, even for one day, can feel like success, and even success is fleeting and misguided because it easily makes me stare at my bellybutton.
Today was a good lesson in popularity because I had it and I was “it”, and, friends, it is the same as it was in high school. Fast, flattering and fleeting. I can only hope that a handful of the many first-time readers (heck, I’d take one) would stick around for the ride to join the ranks of my long-time readers, first-time commenters. But that’s popularity.
I could work hard to try to be witty and write posts with popular tags in popular categories. I could try to be popular, but if today was a God-thing, God was giving me a tiny bit of space for me to think about why I gave a “bleep” about what other people think about my writing before I gave a moment’s thought to whether or not my words communicated integrity, faith, grace, hope and love.
Do I want to be popular first or do I want to be found faithful first?