It's that season of life...the one where your friends are  married, if not already having children, and the ones who aren't are working hard to make sure their time comes soon.  It's weird actually living in this stage of the journey, especially thinking back to all the playtimes of make believe that my siblings and I enjoyed as kids, where such parts of life already existed in our imaginations.

To be honest, there is something scary to me about the kind of love that is shared between lovers, which may come from the fact that I never saw romantic love modeled well growing up.  Yet, the undying idealistic part of my heart knows deep down that all the fear must mean giving someone else your forever is even more incredible than the best love song ever written.  If there is such a fight over the covenant of marriage in our culture, and if that is one of the main areas where trust gets both tested and broken, it must mean that when marriage is lived out as intended, it is one of the most amazing, life giving relationships we experience here on earth.

Today a woman came into my work and started talking about things going on in her life.  Coffee shops and bars must do that to people, magically stripping away barriers.  She is going through a divorce.  The reason is painful, a place of deep betrayal.  If I wasn't at work, I probably would have found a comfy seat to sit down and cry with her because I know how real that pain feels from watching my mom and dad cry tears of deep brokenness in the face of bad decisions.  As she spoke, I felt old, familiar fears that I've been  asking God to make me face rise up in my heart.  Fears over the fact that real love doesn't control another, and in the refusing to manipulate, it releases them to make their own choices. And questions over whether or not I can be totally secure in the Father's love, to the point that the human tendency to want to control in order to protect is not allowed to tamper with my deepest of relationships. Which is a beautiful way to live. But so risky.  As I went home, my heart started asking questions to the Father.

Which is when He reminded me of the friends I have who are doing marriage well, where everything is centered around Him.  They didn't have perfect models either, but there is something about their hearts intentionally wanting all that God has, where they are constantly surrendered to His way and His heart. Covenant becomes natural and full of life when it is birthed out of surrender and maintained by the heart and grace of the Father.

Usually I find it hard to write out posts like this because even if no one reads my blog, there is still something vulnerable about putting a deep fear into words.  But I feel that many in my generation have not witnessed models of covenant that can be emulated, yet there is such hope in the Holy Spirit coming in as the teacher, helping us face the fears that were often born out of trauma.  And when He teaches, it is perfect and it brings wholeness that changes and blesses nations.  Kingdom, covenant marriages do that.  They breathe life into places and people in one of the most mysterious of ways.  So as I face the reality of our culture and the mistrust that surrounds relationships, I choose to believe that God's way is so attainable, and that it is seriously better than anything I could ever dream.