Disease

A member of my husband's family committed suicide yesterday. He was a good man. I find myself wishing that I could have known him better.
I don't think I am asking the normal questions. I can't say "How could life ever seem so hopeless?" I know life can look that hopeless and death seem like the only option. So why do some people do it and some don't? Why haven't I done it? I am diagnosed as bipolar. Numbers say that anywhere from 30% - 60% of bipolar patients die of the disease, meaning they kill themselves.
Some people see it as selfishness. These people are only thinking about themselves, they say. They are taking themselves away from the people that love them. They aren't taking themselves from anyone. They are victims, this is a disease. It is a disease that is growing and consuming us.
We have put happiness up as the sonum bonum. We have put success as the only option. Everyone has their own definition of success, because everyone is entitled to their own definition of truth.So these people define their reality, they define their happiness, and they throw themselves into that truth. Who they are becomes synonymous with their homemade definition of happiness and success. For a teenager it is a first lover. For a business man it is the balance of his bank account. For a housewife it is a successful marriage and children. For me it was a feeling of creative significance. So when we fail we not only loose happiness, we not only lose success, we lose ourselves. It is impossible to live when you are nothing.
I still fight with this. Going to work everyday isn't enough for me, because my work is not important. I sit up trying to create something everyday because the day feels wasted if I don't. The strings of time in my life where I am not making and doing bring on bouts of depression and that feeling of hopelessness. I have only recently come to the point where I can look past my definition. I can look at the definition that God gives me. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So everything I do should bring God glory in some way, but more then that anything I would do that would detract glory from God is off limits. I am a bearer of the Image of God, I can never be nothing.
It is a disease, and just like so many things in our culture the cure we are putting out there just makes everything worse. Its a disease I have had. The medications to cure my mind almost killed my body. In the end what needed curing was my soul. When my soul found a peaceful place to rest then my mind and my body found better places. Holistic peace is the only answer. Living, praying, thinking, eating, and doing, what is wholesome and glorifying.
So I cry for Ed, because he never found that peaceful place. I cry for anyone who can't seem to find it. Sometimes, I cry for myself, because I know all of this and I still eat the wrong things and live a sedentary lifestyle, I think on dark things and do not exercise my mind, I fret and do not pray. But tonight I cry for Ed and I pray that there was peace and truth awaiting him on the other side.

Absolve, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant from every bond of sin, that being raised in the glory of the resurrection, he may be refreshed among the Saints and Elect. Through Christ our Lord.
Amen. 

I Like Me Today

I discovered something this week. I kinda like myself.
 I remember getting guacamole on my nachos by accident as a teenager. I hated guacamole. I had tried it at some vague point in the past and hated it, but it was sitting there. I tried the green mush, and it was really good. It turns out that sometime, who knows when, I actually had grown to like guacamole.
That's how I felt this week. I have never liked me before. I was one of my least favorite people. Now, I enjoy my company. I have fun sewing with myself. I now have the same hobbies as myself. I've always admired craftiness, but thought I was incapable, turns out I'm quite capable. My clothes have been changing steadily. When Grandmom died I look at my closet and realized I did not have a black dress to wear to the funeral. For the better part of my life I have not had anything but black clothes in my wardrobe. I have wanted Zulu Knots in my hair since I was 15. I would twist my hair up and love it, but talk myself out of them before a single soul every saw them. Last night, I put Zulu Knots in my hair and wore them to a wedding today.
So I find myself asking, how comfortable am I in my own skin now? Do I care what anyone else thinks about my hair or my clothes or my music? If I want to listen to Joan Jett, Rufus Wainwright, Pink, and The Beatles, all in the same playlist then why is that any of your business? It's who I am and I will enjoy my playlist, hippy skirts and funky hair with me.
I was surfing for free patterns on the internet and found this one pattern. It's nothing I have ever seen anyone wear. It might look absolutely ridiculous to the outside observer, but I like it. So how comfortable am I really? I think I am going to make it tomorrow.  I think I may have reached a point where I am not my own biggest critic. I might even have actually become my second biggest fan.

My Favorite Moment

One of my favorite things in my life is preparing the table for the Eucharist on a Saturday night. The other ladies in the Altar Guild talk about getting over early and getting it out of the way. I understand the sentiment, and like all things there are days it is not as convenient or enjoyable as others, but I like to wait. I like to wait until the sun has gone down and everyone has gone home. I like to walk into the dark church. I like to turn on the single light above the altar instead of all the lights in the sanctuary. There is a palpable peace in that room then. There are no crying children, no laughing teenagers, or or chatty ladies. Brian is usually with me, but he finds a chair and a book and leaves me to my work.
When I walk up into the chancel I am acutely aware of where I am and what happens there. This is the place where the greatest things in my life happen. This is where I am fed. This is where I was married. This is where I was confirmed. Even when we are in another building, another city, I will be in the same place. This is a square of earth where men have been admitted to the Holy of Holies. This square of earth, and every other square of earth set aside for this purpose are the place where Christ's presence is particular. There is nothing remarkable about it on Saturday night, but tomorrow Christ will feed all those who call upon him in that place. The bread and wine I prepare will be host to the mysterious presence of Christ.
Tonight, I found myself thinking about the women going to the tomb. There was a ceremony to what they were doing, they knew the supplies they needed and the order in which to proceed. I gather my supplies and place everything properly, as I get more comfortable with the process it becomes like a dance. This ceremony held special significance because of their love of Jesus; it is the same devotion that has brought me here. There was a very practical aspect to their work, a body must be prepared properly. I take a moment to look at the calendar and decide how many people I think will be in church. Is it a holiday, or are the kids away on a trip? We want to have enough bread and wine, but not too much. I feel as if I am taking part in a tradition started late one Saturday night 2000 odd years ago.
I've gone to the church on Saturday nights when things just weren't going well. There was one night that I walked through that door and all the tears I had been holding back for days came out. I just knelt in the dark with my head on the rail and cried and prayed, mostly cried. I pulled myself together and started my dance. When I was done I had thought through the problem and had some semblance of an answer. There were no voices or visions, just peace, enough peace to recognize what I should have already known.
The funny thing is, I hate silence, it makes my uncomfortable. I feel like silence is an empty chasm that I might fall into. The silence in the church is different. It is full, like a feather bed, its warm and soft and all around me. It might be selfish, but I wish that I could be the Altar Guild all alone, so that I could be guaranteed that moment every week.

New Words For Old Thoughts

I said something on Sunday I had never said before. It just popped out of my mouth and it was so true but I hadn't thought it through and I hadn't planned to say it. I imagine it is what happens when fictional people fall in love without knowing it and those 3 little words just fly out.

"If my children ever came home and said 'I asked Jesus into my heart today' I think I will cry," and no I didn't mean tears if joy. It sounds weird or, if you happen to be an Evangelical, disturbing. But hear me out.

I don't remember not believing in God. I don't remember not believing in Jesus. But I do remember being told I had to have a conversion. So at five I said a prayer and it was supposed to change something, which it didn't. I still wasn't really a part of the church because I wasn't allowed either sacrament at 5. So why was it necessary? I didn't believe anything the next minute I didn't believe the minute before, or even the year before. It didn't give me access to my church. I was still an outsider looking up and in.

No one would ever have a baby, give them to an orphanage and say, "When this baby decides they want to join our family we will welcome them with open arms." So why would we exclude our children from the church until they can chose it? Why leave them spiritual orphans until they can verbalize something in the language of adults? Is it because we only understand salvation in a personal context? Is it because we've lead ourselves and our children to believe that there is salvation outside of the church? Do we believe that we each need to make our own path to God? Do we leave our infants to find their own way to food? Why leave them to find their own way to God?

I want the opposite experience for my children. I want to give them to the Lord as soon as possible. I want to tell them from that day forward that I loved them enough to give me away. Like Hannah, I prayed to have them, I cherished them, and so I gave the most precious thing I had to the Lord. This is not a hypothetical dedication. This is not a promise. I want to allow them to be grafted into the Body of Christ. I want to grasp all of those promises for them. 

They will be part of the church from the beginning. They will know that those promises are for them. They will know that by no merit or action of theirs they are the next generation of the covenant. One day the time will come for them to receive the Body and Blood of Christ and they will have been in our arms at the rail every week. They will have known, from before they can remember, what it is and why we do it. Then when it is their turn they will take all of those promises onto and into themselves. 

Finally, when they are old enough to verbalize all of these things they will stand in front of the bishop and he will ask them if they believe. They will confirm and be confirmed and they will stand on their own in the Lord, independent from me and from their father. The Lord will be the same yesterday, today and tomorrow for them. Nothing will change, if we've taught them and guided them well.

No one, if I have anything to say about it, will ask them for their testimony. There will be no pressure to tell a story of a fall from grace and a rescuing hand. They will, if my prayers are answered, be one of the 99 sheep who remained safe in the pen warm from the night and protected from the wolves by their family and the faithful shepherds serving their master. And if they ever feel the need to "pray the sinner's prayer" then I will cry because I failed them as their mother and I have failed the Lord as a shepherd. 

A long time coming

I haven't had much to say. There was another death in the family. My great-uncle Harry died in early January. In a lot of ways, until I was an adult, Uncle Harry and Auntie Pat were a bigger presence in my life than my Grandmom and Grandpop. I love him, and I miss him. He hadn't been sick long enough for me to feel the dual sensations of loss and relief like I did with Grandmom. I just miss him. I am just sad. Which has made sad for Grandmom take presidence over relief for her.
I am lonely. Not that Grandmom and Uncle Harry were regular companions. There is just something about two people I love not being in the world anymore that makes it a lonelier place to be. When I come home at 1am the house is empty. I sit with Peanut and the house is just empty. Everything is very empty. I do things, I putz and keep busy but it doesn't fill up those spaces. Brian is at work, Dan is either out or asleep before I get there. I wake up in the morning and its still empty. Brian has gone to school. There is nothing to my life. There is no real purpose. The world is just empty right now.

Death

My grandmother died last night. About 8 hours ago. She would have been 90 years old in June. My dad has been taking care of her for years, it was 8 years ago this month that she and my grandfather moved in with us. It was almost 6 years ago that my grandfather past.
She has been so out of it. There is only one instance in the last 6 months that I can recall her having any real personality or thought of her own. She was in pain last night, she could only get comfortable and stop moaning if she was held up on her side. So Dad sat with her in her bed and held her until she could rest. It was all very poetic and appropriate in a circle of life, I Love you Forever, kinda way. But its strange. I didn't think I would be sad when she died. I had thought about it. I had hoped that all the suffering would end. It had gotten too hard to watch this shell of a person decay in front of me.
So why did my knees wrinkle under me and my eyes well up? Why is it that the only thing I can think is that I bought her hot chocolate mix for Christmas? Why is it that I just can't fathom what else I can possibly do with 12 varieties of hot chocolate mix? She stopped eating a week or two ago. The only thing she would take in was tepid hot chocolate and vanilla ice cream. So I got her hot chocolate mix in brightly colored boxes. Because when there were bright bold colors she smiled and said how pretty it was, even if she had no idea what was. So I bought her Hot chocolate and I put a shiny bow on it and it is under my tree. What do you do with Christmas gifts that are wrapped under the tree for a dead person? Do you give them to someone else? Do you say "Hey I wasn't going to get you this, but I already spent the money and she's dead?" Do you keep it? I mean I can't serve my Grandmom's hot chocolate to other people. I don't drink hot chocolate.
What do I do with the hot chocolate?

Happy Thanksgiving

It doesn't feel like a holiday today. I remember as a kid, as a teenager, even as recently as maybe 18 months ago, my stomach would get little electric butterflies in it. When the sun went down I started to buzz. Not Christmas, I never really liked Christmas, but Thanksgiving made me buzz. I can't put my finger on anything particularly memorable that ever happened on Thanksgiving. In fact, I can remember some awful Thanksgivings that made me want to run away and join the circus. But as irrational, infuriating, or ignorant as any single member of my family can be, I still vibrated with anticipation of a day spent eating and playing games with them.

I'm not buzzing. I don't know why. Something killed my electric butterflies.

Ramble

I apologize if this is meandering. I need to work this out.

We are going to lose our house. Our mortgage payment is a fraction of what rent would be, even in places I wouldn't be willing to live. Our property taxes are exactly the same each month as our mortgage payment. They went up over $200 a month this year, they may go up again next year.

A could very conceivably get a job that would still make the payment, but that doesn't cover what we are behind on. There is government funding to help with that, but they won't give it to us because our W-2s look awful. The only reason we've survived this long, was some help here and there from family, money from Dan whose rent payments are unofficial, and a job I got in December and had until April. None of this shows up on last years W-2 which is how they are judging our worthiness.

All those "help stop foreclosure" websites and organizations are for people who got mortgages for obscene interest rates from predatory lenders. We have a great rate. Our township is a predatory taxer and there is no help. We will never get another mortgage after what the last 2 years have done to our credit. (In an attempt to avoid hyperbole I suppose I should say we won't get a mortgage for 3-7 years.)

All of that is about money. I don't like money, I don't understand money, and I am bad with money. This is what it come down to. I love my little house. There is work that needs to be done on it, a lot of work, but it is my house. With my purple walls, my green bathroom, and my tiny kitchen. I want to finish the basement as a 4th bedroom and 2nd bathroom. I have plans for cabinets over the island with a wrack for stemware. My bedroom is the safest place in the world and no one can hurt me there. I DO NOT WANT TO LEAVE.

I'm not asking for a mansion. I'm asking for a way to keep my little row home, grumpy neighbor and all. I'm not asking for a hand-out. I am asking for a chance to work. I'm not asking for a 6-figure salary, but a 5-figure one would be nice.

I want a chance to succeed.

My dad told me this story about when he was in seminary. He had no shoes, his only pair got a hole in the sole. He couldn't afford a new pair of shoes appropriate for school, and for pulpit-fill. So he prayed for shoes.I'm pretty sure he was expecting a pair that fit at a 2nd hand store. Instead 3 pairs of new shows, just his size, came into his life from 3 different places. So I've prayed. I've had faith. Every application I've sent in, every interview either of us has had, I get EXCITED. I'm like a kid on Christmas. I figure out how the schedule would work, where the money would go first and how to stretch the pennies for the first 6 months so that we can make up for what we've missed.

Every application, every interview, goes wrong. And now it's passed, unless I get a miraculous job by mid-October we are done. There is no more deferment, there is no more stalling. I know miracles can happen, and I know miracles do happen, but how long do you hold your breathe for a miracle?

I don't know where I will be living in 2 months. I am scared out of my mind. Yet again the lectionary smacked my knuckles with a ruler. Matthew 6:24-34 "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."

I believe, I really truly believe, I see the evidence of God's faithfulness in other people's lives every day. I see people who have a path laid out for them and as long as they walk that path everything comes together. But after years and years of looking and trying and failing, I thought, THIS TIME, I was on the right path. I thought that this time this path was right. Brian in seminary, me at DCPC, both committing to ministry with zeal and joy. So where do we go from here? Because nobody is calling me back. Because nobody is flying in at this final hour to whisk us out of the fire, at least not yet. So just like everything else in my life I am pessimistically idealistic. No matter how many times life proves to me that I will not win. No matter how sure I am I will never win. I'm always holding my breathe as the buzzer sounds. Maybe, just maybe, this time, I will have been wrong and good things will happen.

P.S. To save you all the trouble: Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those that are called according to his purpose." And to save me the trouble: Trust me, I was an English major, that verse is only comforting if you put the commas in the right places! Are we called according to his purpose, or is the good according to his purpose? And the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever, so if our misery brings glory, then by definition it is good because it has accomplished our chief end. Just because God promises all things to work together for good, it does not mean that this situation will end well, nor does it mean that I won't be accidentally deported to Siberia with a sun-dress and a bible. Maybe I am meant to freeze and be buried in a snow-drift so that some future post-Christian Siberian can find it and rediscover the gospel. You see all things work together for good, but that doesn't mean I'm going to like it, or that I am not going to fail.

Christian Music

I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same
The Three in One and One in Three.

I bind this today to me forever
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in Jordan river,
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb,
His riding up the heavenly way,
His coming at the day of doom
I bind unto myself today.

I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of cherubim;
The sweet ‘Well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord
And purity of virgin souls.

I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the star lit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea
Around the old eternal rocks.

I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward;
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.

Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility
I bind to me these holy powers.

Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave, the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.

Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.

I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.
By Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.

- St. Patrick's Breastplate

Over the Mountains and the Seas,

Your river runs with Love for me,

And I will open up my heart

And let the healer set me free.

I'm happy to be in the truth

And I will daily life my hands,

For I will always sing of when your love came down.

I could sing of your love forever (4x)

- I Could Sing of Your Love Forever

Twelve men went to spy on Cannan

Ten were bad and two were good

What did they see when they spied on Cannan?

Ten were bad and two were good

Some saw giants big and tall

Some saw grapes in clusteres fall

Some saw God was in it all

Ten were bad and two were good

-Twelve Men Spy on Cannan

I find myself a little disappointed in St. Patrick for that hymn, because it is repetitive. I shake my head and say, so that's where they get it. But then I read it again and realize that the repetition has a purpose. That hymn teaches so much. It teaches the basics of the trinity, the creeds, the nature of omniscience, and the importance of theological orthodoxy. This is the purpose of hymns. Christian music starts out in the early church as Psalters and other scripture. Like the Hebrew people before them they sang the scripture, which encouraged memorization. We still do this today, especially for children. I can remember so many songs from Sunday School and Summer Camp that told the basic story of Noah, or the 12 spies on Canaan. These songs were simple, for children, and they told the story with one or two final lines that told me the significance of that story.

There were scripture songs, they were just important verses set to music, sometimes, again, with a summational line. Then hymns began to evolve in the 7th Century, particularly in Ireland and England, but their purpose remains the same. They teach, now theology and much more complex concepts. In a time when most people were illiterate, the church still knew the importance of an intellectual understanding of Christ.

The protestants spread their messages through hymns, Luther especially. The Great Awakening is spread through music, the Wesley's together pen hymns that get the church through a century of changes.

We reach the modern and post modern age and this whole structure seems to disappear in the American church. What do these songs teach? I think the better question might be, how many songs do we need to have to learn that God is love? What about the nature of that love? Well it sets us free, okay, from what? Where is the establishment of the need for that love?

Now, I have been corrected, there are a handful of modern songs that are hymns, even if I find the settings to be inappropriate for a sanctuary. I wonder what the state of the church will be in 20 or 50 years, when there are few if any hymns that address the theological needs of a church in the post-modern age. Do the teenagers in our churches have any answers when asked about the nature of the trinity? Can the adults in our churches explain the difference between polytheism and trinitarian monotheism? Even in an age where almost everyone can read, people need context to read in. How do you tell the difference between your heart's desire and the Spirit's leading if we haven't been taught the nature of the Spirit? Teaching is imperative, and not just pithy one line "truths", but real teaching. The nature of omniscience is not too complex a concept. We have dumbed down everything else about life, why not God?

If an illiterate Irish herdsman can memorize and sing St. Patrick's Breastplate, then anyone with a 5th grade education is more than prepared to hear about omniscience from the pulpit. We worship Christ through our understanding of him, not the random repetition of his name thrown into a mixture of love, forever, Abba, and sundry prepositions and adjectives.

"Let my find you by loving you,

let me love you by finding you." - St. Thomas Aquinas

My Hero

Brian and I had a huge fight this weekend. It went pretty much the same way all of our fights go. To sum up, Brian does something a little dumb, I over-react, he informs me I am over-reacting, I yell and slam doors, he stays fairly calm and un-slams the doors, I get more upset because he is so calm and I can't seem to calm down, he apologizes for whatever he did that I have blown completely out of proportion, and then I apologize for everything else.

When it was all over and we were sitting on the bed Brian looked at me and said "I'm sorry." Our apologies had all been said, everything had been covered, I really had no idea what he was talking about. "I want you to feel like a treasure." I told him that I knew he loved me, that I knew I was important to him. He corrected me, he didn't want me to feel that he treasured me, but that I was a treasure. He wants me to know that I am of infinite value, not that he values my infinitely.

Well, I was speechless, and he proceeded to enumerate his failures. That was when I realized that I had failed him even more than he felt he had failed me. He's my hero. He is my knight in shining armor who battles every dragon that ever threatens to devour me. Sometimes his horse isn't properly shooed, or his armor is a little dingy, but he always slays my dragons. Yet, all he sees is the shoes and the dingy, because I see them.

I remember being a kid and someone always pointed out how I could have done better. I know they thought they were criticizing constructively, but it taught me to say, "Thank you for rescuing me, but if you don't fix that horseshoe you might kill us both next time."

It's wrong. It is 100% wrong and I am confessing that to him, to you, to God, and anyone else who is listening.

So today we went to church, and I was grumpy, because I hadn't slept well and my dress was not cooperating and Brian was going to be late when he was reading, and hadn't gotten the passages ahead of time, and it was all my fault. When we get into church it turns out that the reading was Ephesians 5:21-33 (KJV) "Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband."

I just sat there, and I'm pretty sure my mouth was hanging open. Now this is not the first, or even the hundredth, time I've heard that passage; but do you see it? A man is supposed to make his wife a treasure and to be her hero. It's right there!

So I have a new goal. My goal is to show my husband everyday that he is heroic. I am going to make sure I do the really simple things, like not taking him for granted, saying please and thank you even when I'm in a hurry, and telling him when he's made my life better.

I wonder what it would do for the divorce rate in this country if we taught this as romance again? Bring on the fairytale princesses! Even if the only dragon my husband slays tomorrow is an empty gas tank, it's something he's done for me and he searches for needs to fill. My job is to let him know how much better my life is because there is gas in my tank and he put it there.