The Good of Broken-

When a 40 something man and woman who have spent their lives going where life takes us begins to buck the system and begin thinking about where we want to take life....it is painful.

We are not a "normal" couple by any sense of the word. 

 My husband is one of those highly intelligent men who always has to be learning something new.   When I met him in Bible college, he was one of those eccentric guys with rainbow shoelaces, hair as long as he could get by with and drank hot tea!  Don't ask me...but a guy who played chess, guitar, saxophone AND drank hot tea was from another world.  He loved literature and was just a little edgy.  I fell in love.

Some of his drive for learning was out of desperation.  Learning the work of tires, learning to be a short order cook, working with adults with developmental delays, factory work (which is a totally different culture), instrument repair, teaching music, farming and ranching and welding, EMT and now all that goes with being a surgery tech.  These were just his second jobs.

He is not a "normal" pastor.  Never growing up in a church and unencumbered with tradition, he questions everything.  Why do we do it this way?  He is a gifted teacher and musician.  Ask him a question on philosophy, music and theology and he is happy! 

 He is the most underutilized teacher I've seen.  He is not a social person.  He is very loyal.  His family and his church family are all he wants.   He was not the one at Bible College pegged to be the Next big thing.  In fact, I think bets were taken to see how long he and I would make it.  He is still here.

He got saved because he wanted to play in the cool band in heaven with a friend.

He loves his boys more then life and yet feels separated sometimes out of his own sense of insufficiency and inadequacy.  He wants them to think for themselves and go for it.  To not ever look back.  He doesn't want to hinder.  A feeling passed to him by his Dad.

  My husband taught himself how to hunt, archery, knife making and now leather work.  He sharpens knives to keep his hands busy.  His work is beautiful.  He still reads widely-Canterbury Tales, Oswald Chambers, Tolken and Knife Making.

He felt called to ministry to reach those like him.  Those atheist, questioning and seeking souls.  To show them hope.  Hope that he found as a lost young man.  Who needs money when you have a calling?

We were engaged by Christmas my freshman year of college and married by May.  Our first son surprised us after a summer internship and we celebrated his birth like crazy.  He jumped up and down when he found out we were expecting again as he stood in the tire shop.  He whooped and hollered on April Fools day when he found out in a field that we were expecting our third.

We did what parents do.  Worked.  He worked to keep me home with the boys as long as he could.  He came home to switch from work clothes to church clothes and step over my daycare kiddos and then head back out.

When we moved to our current area, our Superintendent told him that the most spiritual thing he could do is stay.  So we bought our house.  And we have worked to keep it and the boys in clothes, sports, vehicles, activities, food, camps and now college.

So now to the point.....  It takes me awhile.

Our idealism is gone.  All that we thought we would do in ministry did not happen.  

We pastor a small and amazing church that we adore but didn't grow in the way that Pastors get credit for.  Our house bought to keep us rooted, needs remodeled.  

So do our dreams and our hearts.  The three precious boys are growing into men.

We are at the end of ourselves.  Broken.   

I realized this morning that it is a beautiful place for us to be.  Life has not been perfect or ideal.  Our bodies are different.  Our marriage has had its difficult times.  The boys are normal boys with their own ups and downs.

The path is littered with used up dreams, broken expectations, moldy compost where fruit once was and a LINE in the sand where my husband has trudged.  The ground broken up and filled with the compost of a hard worked life lays behind.  Wisdom has come from grabbing the handholds in the rocking sides we climbed.

Now that we know that we are not and can not be the idealistic perfect people.  Let's enjoy the good of brokenness.  

Of resting in the fact that life is not up to us.  Our past and anything good that ever came out of it was through our living and doing the best we could.  Our future will be the same.  

The grandiose and pumped up rarely last and the turtle wins the race.

What is the next step?

Brokenness is dangerous.  

This place will either cause us to give up or defiantly get up and try it on our own again.  Then we will be here again.  

It is also the opportunity to surrender and follow God down whatever path He leads.

Who knows we might be foolish and dangerous again.  Jump all of those cliffs and barriers put up and run down the road God has for us.

We hold hands...the hick and the hippie.  

We will stay in the brokenness together.  Together we will walk where our God leads us to the next grand adventure!