The Slow Shattering

As I journal today I realize...this is a cycle repeated, a process reborn, relived, recycled.  I am where I was before, and it is good.

The previous decade was about men...romantic love...a savior in the form of some Prince Charming ideal.  This decade is about money...the belief that it saves...the hope that it will provide.

The thought occurs: how many of us (women in particular) live these cycles?  How many of us grow up waiting for, searching for, longing for these particular idols to save us?

I took my two-year-old daughter to see Beauty and the Beast in the theater last week.  And so it begins, the indoctrination.  Teaching her that she will be saved one day, romantically, by a prince who longs to do nothing but make her happy.

We left the theater and my husband was disgusted.  I teased him, telling him that he was supposed to be like the prince, his every desire focused on wooing me.  I said in my best flirty voice, "come on, honey; that's what I grew up longing for, won't you be my prince?"  He looked at me with a sad seriousness and angry determination: "we will not teach our daughter to long for that."

He's right, of course.  The Hollywood-ideal is untrue, both practically and spiritually.  Romance is not the point and love is not flowery in the end.  It is service...make-your-knees-bleed, get down and dirty, serve one another, that's what love is, making the hard choices no matter what you feel like doing, choosing eachother again and again because you have committed - before God and man - to love in both word and deed.  Love is hard, yes, but also so, so good.

There is a Prince, of course, a true Prince, the Prince of Peace.  He's whom I need to serve, not these idols of romance and money.  I write in my journal: "I will not depend on _____ to provide for us (our house selling, a job coming through...you name it); I will depend on you."

It's confusing.  I mean, it seems logical to look to a job for money, right?, and to money for provision.  We need money to live.

Or, do we?

We've lived five months with next-to-no money, and, in many ways, we've lived a fuller life than we have in the previous five years of marriage.

My understanding is challenged, my preconceptions altered.  I decide to shift my stance just slightly and bow in a different direction, toward Christ Himself. 

It's in that subtle shift of directional thinking that I find Peace.