Marriage is like two streams coming together.
I share stories….
I’m working on a new book, tentatively called, Remarriage…Joys and Challenges…Lessons Learned. I just finished the first draft. If any of you are writers, you know I’ve just begun! But I’m excited I’ve done the first round. There will be many more rounds of writing in the next few months. In the book, I share our stories–before and after we marry and then share what life is like the second—or third time around.
We’ve had fun traveling together.
In that togetherness, there’s a pulling away.
Our experience together has been wonderful. Not perfect, but close to it. Unlike both of our firsts, we are more mature and we like to think we’ve learned from our past marriages. Yet, even in that togetherness, there’s a bit of pulling away. A desire for separateness. I know I don’t want the aloneness or separateness for long. I learned that when I became a widow.
Shocking reality.
It was a shocking reality when after everyone who’d been staying with me after each of my husband’s deaths, left to return to their own lives. I experienced the reality of truly being alone. I regretted not doing enough for my late spouse. Not loving enough. Not encouraging with my words enough. Yet, even now I sometimes pull away from Jim and I don’t know why.
I like the quietness of the early morning by myself.
Most Friday mornings, Jim sets the alarm for 5:00 am. Yes, that early. He gets up and dresses and goes off to his men’s group at church. I stay home and write my weekly blog. I like the quietness of the early morning by myself. Even in the summer, the pearly gray dawn of the day quiets my soul. I enjoy communion with God, reading in the quietness, different Bible passages and a devotional. I don’t understand the pulling away and the desire for aloneness sometimes, but I do know I don’t want it for long and I crave for our drawing together again and reconnecting.
This morning I read about communion. How communion is a gift from creation. What is communion?
When spirits are shared and cups are filled with mutual participation…where humans draw near to each other and to God–emerging from their separateness and partake of the shared life God intended.
Fill My Cup, Lord…with the Peace of Your Presence
Emilie Barnes, c. 1996.
In the morning…..
A cup of communion.
I love sharing my life with Jim, but I also enjoy the quietness of being alone–sometimes–though only briefly. I don’t understand the pulling away and the desire for aloneness, but I do know I don’t want it for long. Even now, as I write, I can’t wait to share what I learned this morning in the quiet dawn. Emilie Barnes calls that coming together a cup of communion.
This reflection makes me think about an old spiritual: “You must walk this lonesome valley, you’ve got to walk it all by yourself; nobody else can walk it for you.” If we don’t learn how to be by ourselves, to be solitary, won’t it be much harder to walk that valley? Of course, even in our solitariness, the Spirit of God is with us whether we recognize it or not. But the “or not” is part of learning to be healthily alone (that is, not lonely).
Yes, your comments are true–we do need to be comfortable “with” our solitude. It’s just better with another!