boyradd

I Wanna Puke

Genesis 2:18 – Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”

So when this gets posted, I will be about 2 weeks away from getting married…for the second time in my life.

Satan, and my own anxieties, is having a field day with this.

There are all these thoughts going through my head.

“Fred, the first time you weren’t strong enough to hold on to your wife, what makes you think you can do it this time?”

“Fred, you couldn’t even keep your own household in control and look where it got you…divorced.”

“Fred, just give up.”

I battle those thoughts constantly.

Mimi and I have not had the most fairy tale courtship, lol. Everyone who knows me knows how it began, on Twitter. But the subsequent 3 years to get to this point has been a serious uphill battle.

About 6 months after we started “dating,” Mimi decided to move east. She was already planning to come east to get out of Minnesota for a while because of needing a break from her past life, but this put her within 2 hours of me.

That’s when this relationship really became, well, real.

I couldn’t hide my real self anymore. All my bumps and bruises would actually be seen by her. The times my kids would misbehave? Yep, she saw that. How about those times that I came across as if I knew what I was talking about, but actually didn’t? That was now on the radar. And what about those areas that we simply differ, whether they be theological, spiritual, mental, or emotional? Those were on parade for her to see.

And let’s not forget, I was the one to say “I love you” first. So now I have to live up to that. Once you say the “L” word, you better be prepared to act because love is verb, not a noun. (and grammar experts, please don’t correct me here, I know that technically it can be both in the English language, but I am going for effect here so just roll with it.)

Proverbs 27:17 – As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another

The next two years would be very hard. Of course we had some amazing times. Getting together with her kids and my kids at her parents’ house and surprising her by attacking her with silly string. Having an impromptu water balloon and water gun battle. Actually having someone to spend “date night” with. Those were all amazing.

But then there were the not-so-amazing times. The time we actually broke up over a dog (not the one we have now). Or what about the times either my communication or her communication skills lacked? Those were plentiful, for sure. Or what about the times my kids rebelled against me and her because of her? That one is still going on and we are fighting back with a lot of prayer, grace, justice, and close friends.

The first time I got married, I knew how, when, and where I wanted to propose. I wasn’t scared. I was excited. I was thinking in my carnal one-track male mind that it was the next logical evolution of a relationship.

Psalm 56:3-4 – When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?

This time I am scared beyond belief. There is nothing logical about our relationship. Who on earth moves from Minnesota to Maryland to build a relationship with a man you met on Twitter? How do two people with so much heartbreak in their pasts come together to create a life together? She takes everything literally and I take quite a bit of life figuratively, how will THAT work? She is always looking to uphold the law, I am always looking to extend grace. Boy, has that one caused a lot of grief.

This relationship flies in the face of logic.

But something else flies in the face of logic. The fact that my Creator has extended me enough grace to give me life, give me freedom from condemnation, and desires to spend eternity with me. The relationship of the Bridegroom (Jesus) to His bride (the church) is a relationship that, in itself, goes against logic.

Why would Jesus want to marry a Bride who is constantly letting you down, not changing for you but expecting you to do all of the changing, and fighting with your children about how to raise up newborns?

Jesus, for all intents and purposes, should have never been courting the church! The universal church is so broken, and resistant to healing, that Jesus could just have easily said, “Nah, folks, I am going to go over here and find some aboriginal tribe that has no concept of me yet and court them. You all are bat crap crazy.”

But He didn’t.

He made a commitment to us.

He shows His love for us over and over and over again.

He cares so much for us that the world looks at it and says that there is no way someone can love another person so much.

And that is the same kind of love that Mimi and I have. It isn’t logical.

Song of Solomon 1:8 – If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents

And while I think she is one of the most amazingly beautiful women on the face of planet Earth (dare I say that she is HAWT!), it is not only my hormones telling me to chase her.

And while she and I care for each other like a good friend that you want in your life always, that isn’t the only reason I am chasing her.

You see, the love we have is agape love. It comes right from the throne of heaven. The world doesn’t understand agape love. The world’s definition of love is so skewed that anything beyond sex, looks, and being able to get along is foreign to a relationship in the world.

So I am choosing to love Mimi with agape love. And she is choosing to love me with it as well. We may never perfectly show love to the other, but we have a singular purpose in mind, imperfectly seeking Jesus as we do life together and including God into every aspect of our lives.

And because of that, I know that I have finally made the right choice when it comes to women and got myself the right one.

1 John 3:1 – See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him

But I still wanna puke.