foundations.

daniel told me yesterday to make sure I didn’t lose my spark for writing in the fall when classes start up again.

“you’ve started writing, and you’ve started loving it again. don’t lose that by just taking too many classes.”

I told him about my medium stories but he hasn’t seen any of them yet, as far as I know. he just sees the google docs I send him once a week and ask him to edit before I submit them for publishing.

he locked himself in the guest room (which has become both a writing room and a plant rehab center) on saturday and spent his weekend working through 50 pages of my writing for an exam I’m trying to turn in.

fifty pages. on a weekend.

daniel is many kinds of gifts to me — he is the gift of joy, a gift of understanding, a gift of graciousness, a gift of freedom, a gift of help, a head and a shepherd and someone to dialogue with me and help me see my blind spots.

this weekend he spoke to thoughts he didn’t know I was having — and another time, he listened as I cried about thoughts I was afraid for him to know.

sometimes I wish I knew what went on in his brain — when he watches me, or listens to me, or what’s behind his eyes when he wakes up first thing in the morning.

I’m glad I don’t know, I guess. because he always leaves me wondering — and laughing, and surprising. he always surprises me.

This medium page is both a practice of perpetual honesty and consistency in writing, and also a stream of consciousness-experience of my new life as a wife. there is such a tender vulnerability to my current perspective: everything is soft and fragile, but also so hopeful and formative. It’s as if I know my interactions each day are building a life for myself and my husband that we will only begin to understand fifteen years from now.

there is a sort of pressure that can come with that: a tendency to overanalyze or be unsure.

but there doesn’t have to be, either. this is what I’m currently learning — that just as the Lord gives us new mercies each day, he also gives us guidelines for a life together that shape how we move towards the future.

love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

love does not keep a record of wrong.

forgiveness does not bring wrongs back up to you, to myself, or to God.

these principles shape our day to day lives.

marriage, sometimes, is looking at someone and agreeing to walk alongside someone for the rest of their life and watch them change from one degree of glory to another.

marriage is also sometimes signing up to have the front row seat to someone’s sin and sin patterns in each of those degrees of glory. and that can be painful.

marriage is a bunch of remarriages, one after the other — recommitments, and rededications to not just “make this marriage work” but to see your marriage thrive.

this is something I think I could write about, perhaps. building the foundations and the principles we rely on. I should think about this more.

Yesterday, I told daniel I would think about an article along the lines of “success in seminary doesn’t always result in a diploma” or something like that. I’m not sure where it will go, so I just need to think about it. another note to self.