In Hope, Faith, and Love

I knew that my wedding...our wedding...would be the start of an incredible adventure. I guess I just didn't quite know how indescribable and immediate the adventure would be. I mean, from day one...really, from hour one...I feel like I've been learning and growing so much.

I don't know quite what to do with it all. I feel like I'm moving forward and learning tons, but I also feel challenged. I get frustrated because I want so badly to grow so much more than I have and sometimes feel like I should be so much further along than I am. I know it's a bit ridiculous to have such tremendous expectations of myself, but then again...do you know me?

I believe it is also because already, I have gained so much more hope. I know that I am meant to be right where I am as John's wife. He truly completes me in a way that I am not sure I even dared dream. And in experiencing that, I can envision more just what God may do through us and through our marriage. I mean, there is just so much potential...that has made me feel so inadequate, and ironically insecure. I mean, in thinking about all I could be and all I wish to be, the care I want to give, the difference I hope to make, the love I dream to share...oh man, I sure come up short at this point in my life.

I'm just too easily frustrated and deterred, I guess. Like pretty much every game, activity, etc. that I've undertaken, I understand that I have the ability to rock at it and then am frustrated and upset when I can't show that during my first undertaking. So, too, in my marriage I know I am a great fit for John and will be his partner throughout our life...but...my faith in myself and my ability to grow are easily weakened by all the many miscommunications and adaptations that have accompanied the infancy of my marriage.

So, I find that my God has given me great hope for what is to come. I have so much hope for what we will accomplish in our lives together, and that hope, or at least an awareness of it, is growing in me each day...and I now have a renewed sense of purpose and a new dream for my day to day life...to find ways to grow and to spread that hope to the lives of others...such as those I encounter at work.

And while I feel like my faith is fragile, it's also growing in tremendous ways. I am seeing, more and more, just how faithful God has been all my life and realizing the constancy of His care...I feel my faith is shaky but I think it's more of a growing pains kind of thing...or maybe more closely related to the fragility of new growth...you know, like new shoots of grass, until they've reached greater maturity walking on the grass can just break the blades and grind them into the mud from which they came. So, too, I feel like I am growing in faith, but am coming up quite short still...and the growth I have experienced is fragile at best. I feel I am so easily shaken.

I become even more confounded because it seems un-natural for one's hope and one's faith to be out of step with each other, but that is just where I find myself. I am so full of hope for the future and even for the moment...but I think I'm uncertain as to how much faith I actually have that those hopes will actually come to fruition in something magnificent. I'm frustrated that my faith is so fragile...so fleeting... bah! I want my hopes to reflect beliefs...beliefs backed by faith filled with hope and passion...*sigh* On the upside, in my heart, I hear the words "Help my unbelief." Repeated over and over again, and I bet that such a small prayer in my heart will result in greater and deeper prayers of my heart and soul...heck, maybe they'll manage to break through to my consciousness from time to time. Regardless, it seems encouraging of growth...

Anyway, back to the point, this is all so new and occasionally overwhelming because these are all new developments...I chock up the turmoil and emotions to my feeble attempts at adjusting to being a new wife...a bride... It's such a tremendous life change and so complete...

Who knew that love changed lives so completely? :P For real, though, at our wedding I was so aware of the uniting of lives and loves...between John and myself...as well as between our new family and God...Such complete and awesome love... My hope and faith (what faith I can grasp) grow out of my new found assurance (Blessed Assurance) of the love that is in my life. John truly loves me. He has committed himself to being my partner, lover, friend, husband, brother for all his life (it's in our vows, you can check). It's crazy because I still don't know why he would love me, why he would love me so much, why he would love me so much as to make such a commitment...but I know that he does love me unconditionally and wholly...not perfectly, mind you, but that's what makes me so very aware of God's love in my life. God's love is what makes up the difference, as it encompasses and is the source of the love we have for each other. I'm finding more and more that I identify with the term "wellspring"... as in the spring that feeds a well...a spring that brings life, and in this particular case, a spring of love (I know it's a cheesy image, but bare with me). I feel like the source of the well/fountain of our family is God. His love is just pouring in and overflowing...and like water fills in the gaps where we struggle to see eye to eye or communicate as well as we could...God's love binds us together. But it's so overwhelming and beyond us that it pours out and beyond...well, that's my hope anyway.

My hope is that the love that flows in our marriage goes beyond us and causes love and joy and peace (all of which God has blessed us with in our marriage) to flow into the lives and hearts of others... like I want to carry that out. Granted, my life and self are broken and thus imperfect vessels, but I want so badly to be the vessel that carries the love of God to the broken lives of others.

That's how we get back to the previous discussion. I described my hope, but my faith is weak in that I feel truly unworthy and truly ineffective and thus doubt my ability to actually execute that very hope and dream. Hopefully, then, the love in my life will continue to spur me on to grow in faith and realize my hopes and spread the love and joy and peace with which I am so blessed...

(I just want to note that I love that my life is filled with blessings and that those very blessings are what cause my tumultuous feelings...and this meandering post...oh delightful irony...hahas...)