What is it?

Sunday, all day will pass.
Then, Monday afternoon, sometime, I will get to talk to Caleb.
I feel this weirdness.
I can't define the weirdness.
We've been apart for so long, I don't really know him.
We don't have any part of our lives in common anymore.
I do things out here, he does things in there, there is zero overlap.
We love the same God.
We love the same children.
We love his family and my family...
We are trying to sell the same house.
That's it.
We haven't had an actual relationship for years.

He's had drugs, drug buddies, and work... and hung around us when it suited.
I've had family, children, church, community, and my work... and I have sat around dreaming and praying for the day I would have a relationship with my husband...
I have had dreams of dates,
dreams of family visits together,
dreams of vacations,
and ever since we said "I do" I have been dreaming of family dinners together... I enjoy making dinners... and I have wanted so desperately to cook for my husband, for him to come home and sit at the table and eat with us.
Now, I cook for way more people... and I love it!!
I have dinners with people every night, adult people, people who like what I cook (mostly)...
I have life abundant.
But Caleb is going to call.
And last night I was driving, and out of the blue I had a flashback to one night.  A night of terror and pain and it was as if that night happened again, all of it was so real, my body shuddered under the pain of it and I couldn't catch my breath.  It was just me in the mini van, driving home from my sister-in-law's house... I couldn't tell you what made me remember that night, but I remembered all of it...
I don't remember it now, typing about it stirs up no emotions...
But it was a flash of vivid pain last night.
The reality of the depths that addiction to heroin can drop a person...
I don't know if it was an attack of Satan, but I cried out to Jesus... that was all I knew how to do in that moment of re-play.  I prayed and prayed as these thoughts lapped over my conscious like stormy ocean waves.
I had to think about my breathing.
Think about my prayers.
Speak out loud to the Prince of Peace.
And eventually the episode ended.
But I was shaken.
I won't write about that night, I don't want to remember it again.
But I will write about the weirdness.  This present weirdness of saying "I love you" to a complete stranger.  Of speaking of Caleb to others who know him, the same way I have always spoken of him, as my husband, my one and only... when in reality, I know most of his siblings, now, better than I know him... I know what they had for breakfast, but not him... I know what music they are into now, but not him... I know where they worked this past week, their funny stories from the week, their trials and defeats as well as their successes... but I don't know any of that about Caleb anymore.

Marriage. Broken.  I am living reality of marriage broken.  I'm not giving up, I know God can turn things around.  I know miracles happen and I can be thankful for the beauty of my blessings, just for today.
But Monday, Caleb is going to call.
And we will talk small talk about a month worth of little happenings...
But the unity of our lives is broken.
Trust has been annihilated.
And I know it will be 12 more months now, before he finishes this program. And then?? What happens then??
What does that look like?
What am I holding on to?

My dad likes to point me to the Israelites.  He isn't the only one who likes to use their wanderings as a solid gripping point for those floundering in pain.  Ann Voskamp, in her book One Thousand Gifts, hit me in the gut with this one:
"When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose.  When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites gathering manna.  For forty long years, God's people daily eat manna-- a substance whose name literally means "What is it?"  Hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling.  They fill on that which has no meaning.  More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don't comprehend.  They find soul-filling in the inexplicable.
They eat the mystery.
They eat the mystery.
And the mystery, that which makes no sense, is "like wafers of honey" on the lips." (Voskamp, pg 22)

My marriage is a mystery.
My future is a mystery.
But God has daily met my every need for companionship and relationship while I wait for my beloved.

Because, as weird as it is to call him my beloved, him I do not know anymore... My commitment to the promise I made to him before God and my commitment to God in the covenant and sacrament of marriage means, he is still my beloved.

My marriage mystery? I must be filled with the promise of God's deliverance.  Even when I began typing this entry, the weirdness was overwhelming and I had no idea what would come of my "what is it" blog... I knew I had to write about the coming phone call, but I never know how these things are going to end.

God reminded me of that Voskamp quote...
Reminded me that sometimes, He lets us be nourished by mystery... lets us wander while we learn to let Him sustain us and meet our needs...
because when He is first, and only when He is who we worship and turn to first, for comfort, for peace, for adoration, and for intimacy... then, we will be able to have the world as He created it to be, to see others as He sees, and to be thankful, joyful, and content.
Obviously, I have a ways to go...

But He created the sacrament of marriage.  It wasn't created for my happiness... it wasn't created for anything more than to bring Him glory, to bring about an understanding of His character, and to bring about His purposes for His people...  Marriage is bigger than me.  Marriage is bigger than my problems, pain and weirdness.  So I wait for God to bring about what needs to happen for His purpose, and I am filled, I really am... even though I still look at my marriage and say, "What is it?"  I guess, right now, my marriage is simply... manna.

Although I know I have months of lonely lessons left before I am ready to step back into intimacy with the promised man...
I have faith that God provides for me, every day, and will sustain me, just like the Israelites were sustained all those forty years, until they were prepared to enter the promised land...

About that phone call, I guess there really isn't anything to worry about.
Since God will be there.  Since we both love Him.  And since we are both listening, trusting, and waiting for Him to complete His work in us...

Who knows, maybe it will be a phone call where I get to know Caleb, the real Caleb, just a little better than I ever have known him before.

And those of you who have your spouse right next to you, do me a favor, turn off any and all electronic devices tomorrow... and take extra special time just really getting to know them better... be intimate in conversation, play games, read together, have a deep-long intimate discussion about what your marital strengths are... laugh together... do that for me, please?  Don't take for granted the time you have together and get so bogged down in all the other life-stuff... Slough it off for a day, and delight in your beloved, because I want that for me but don't get it, so I desperately want that for you who do!

God bless you all.