How I Met Sam Part 32

The second weekend when we met up to go to the Barbeque etc. Sam and I had begun to talk about relationship issues. He was asking me certain 'inquiry' questions about friends who are girls - kind of using me as a reference as in 'I don't know what girls think when I am their friend...' type of thing. Being the engineer that he is, he just figured that you just pick one of your girl friends (not girlfriends) and pursue and jump through certain relational hoops and voila! you get married... It sounded very dry and mechanical and deeply unromantic to me. Who am I to talk, I suppose, since I wasn't enthralled with the idea of romance myself. I should have just agreed with him and his methodical approach to relationships. No, on the other hand, if I had agreed we'd never be where we are today...and I must believe that it was good I didn't agree. So for all my protesting (inwardly, to myself and others...) I think I was disingenuous to remark I had no place for romance. I couldn't probably admit it to myself, that there was something to the idea that chemistry happens, that circumstances orchestrate in such a way that... in some situations, at certain times, and in the providential plan of God, people do connect in a way that defies description and to put it on paper makes it sound dry and ordinary. And for outsiders looking in, it is entirely ordinary. People find romance every day. Sounds quite basic. But for those who find themselves in it, it seems unique and most EXTRA-ordinary!

Some correspondence from that time is linked HERE  (I'm disorganized, so just call that the next chapter :) )


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Craziness of Faith

Image
 I realize people of Christian faith, people of other faith, and people of no particular faith, read this blog. And all are welcome here. Thing is, I sometimes ponder my own life of faith through an external-journalistic eye, and pronounce my own opinions of myself: Sarah, your faith is just crazy. Even in my prayers, I express this directly to the God I believe is there: "Lord, is this just a fanatical, pie-in-the-sky sentimental thing that I do - praying to You? I sometimes feel crazy trusting You this much ." Here I am, in those moments, asking God if He thinks I'm as crazy as I seem to think myself. Sometimes I trust God so wildly, so boldly, so almost-stupidly, that I think I'm more than a few cards short of a full-deck. And then I tell God what I think of my trusting Him so much - I analyze it and say, "There's a word for this in psychological terms: Magical thinking."  Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around this concept: magical thinki
Read more

23 years and half my life

Image
 23 years ago today I woke up and felt miserable - I think I had vomitted in the night and I phoned Sam first thing in the morning. "I don't think I can get married today," I said. This was, of course, disheartening to him. But I gingerly drank some weak tea, handed my Dad a folded up plastic bag to keep in his pocket while he walked me down the aisle, and proceeded to prepare for our wedding later that day. It was Easter Sunday - a day full of hope, joy, and resurrection celebration. Maybe I was hoping that Easter would represent our marriage - the resurrection power of Christ infused into our union. Easter is a day of hope fulfilled, faith becoming sight, the unbelievable becoming real. That's essentially what I felt marriage was going to be.  And I don't intend to dampen the romantic notions I had but I must say, these were indeed, romantic sentiments. Marriage has turned out to be gritty, challenging, (rewarding, yes!), hard work, stretching, painful, on the n
Read more

Radical Hospitality

Image
 I was about 15 when I first read the small tract-pamphlet, "My Heart, Christ's Home" and I'm not quite sure how I felt about the message it brought. I think I cringed a little. It felt like I was tempted to hide parts of myself from God, for fear or shame of what He must think of me. It evoked something contrary in me...something...amiss? I can't quite place words to describe my misgivings. Even so, it left a seed - a thought-seed - in me, to germinate, ponder, and dialogue in prayer, asking, "Lord, are You welcome in every crevice of my heart?" And I lay that before God and we explore together, even the darkest corners of my soul. I believe in the exploring there is grace. And discovery - not so much for God - surely, He knows what's there before I do.  Many years later, I discovered Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle. It harkened back to that germinating seed - is my heart Christ's home? Her writing drew me in differently somehow. I suppos
Read more