Oh, the difference a year makes!

I sit here amazed at what a year can bring.

This last year brought unexpected blows to me personally. It all started five years ago--when I got married. Watching my wedding video last Valentine's Day, Rory and I both found ourselves emotionally impacted by how trusting, how joyful, how confident I was in Rory's hands. But as the next few years would show, Rory had no idea what to do with that. Little by little my confidence and joy and trust were thrashed. I found myself alone and hurting and crying--a lot. And he didn't know what was wrong with me. Even worse, I didn't know what was wrong with me.

I started to think and feel like I was going crazy.

Then we found the gospel of Jesus. Don't get me wrong--we were raised Christian and I knew Jesus intimately most of my life. But we hadn't heard much about how Jesus is supposed to behave at home. And by Jesus, I mean the husband, the spiritual leader, the stronger partner of a marriage who is called to love and walk in His likeness.

I remember a man asking me one day to name some emotions that Jesus caused me to feel. I hesitated and so he helped me. By the end I had a list that looked something like this:

safe
loved
important
accepted
cared for
heard
valued
respected
beautiful

And so on and so on. Just touching those wonderful emotions that Jesus causes me to feel brought me to tears. He then compared that list with how I was feeling at home: alone, hurt, neglected, unimportant, like a bother, etc. That list really hurt to talk about.

Then he looked at Rory and asked him if Jesus would make me feel the way he was making me feel. I was an emotional basket-case at this point.

This was the beginning of our realization that I wasn't crazy. I wasn't the problem at all. By getting married Rory took on a grave spiritual responsibility that few people in the world are truly aware of. He became the leader of my spirit. There was no way out of it. We were one (Ephesians 5:31). We were partners. I am the weaker, he is the stronger (1 Peter 3:7). He is the leader, I am the follower. He is the head, I am not (Ephesians 5:23). He is the Jesus, I am the church (Ephesians 5:25).

Suddenly, Scriptures I had read my entire life became alive. The living word of God spoke to us and applied to us. And began to change us.

These changes have literally taken years. We are having to re-learn our ways and our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8). And it has been hard. It is often misunderstood by the world and even the church.

But it works. I didn't always believe it would, but literally about four years into it, I felt my heart open up to Rory in a way I had never imagined and could have never manufactured. I wasn't loving him just because I married him, I found myself deep in love and respect for him out of his selfless care and love for me. I began to feel, literally in my very core, the things that I had once ascribed only to Jesus. Safe, loved, very important, etc.

It's why I can say that I get to live with Jesus. Rory has literally spent the last four years of his life learning to lay it down. For me!!! ME! Little old, used to be crazy, me. This kind of love blows me away. I can't tell you what it has done for me to have my husband's undivided attention, complete heart and whole understanding. We are truly one, now, in heart, mind and spirit. Something I never knew to imagine!

And I did nothing. Just like the gospel of Christ. He did it all. It humbles me more than you can ever know.

Cue the big blow of my heart. Last fall, Rory made a horrible decision and let a relationship with a mutual friend go too far. Nothing technically happened but he lied about it. And I felt like dying. He had opened his heart to another woman. And just when I had finally found faith in him. But again, he was the leader. He has full control over my spirit and he had spent that last four years learning to understand it (1 Peter 3:7). He acknowledged the pain, his horrible decision and learned how vulnerable he is. And somewhere in the middle of all that, all his years of work and self-sacrifice, appeared to me and convinced me deep in my heart that he loved me.

We still talk about that situation and thank the Lord regularly for what it taught us. And we are learning that there are lots of people who can relate to it.

A year or so ago, we had a miscarriage. But while I was still pregnant, I shared with Rory my heart in having a midwife help me give birth. Boy oh boy did he let me know how ridiculous that idea was! He shut me down so quickly that I knew not to bring it up again. His fear had crushed my spirit.

Here I sit, a year later and several major blows under my belt, and laugh. In sincere joy.

Now, as he has learned to value me and truly seek the Lord as he seeks to understand me, things are so different. Just last Sunday at Easter, Rory sat at his family's dinner table and explained in long detail about the birth process and the benefits of having a home-birth. Can you believe it?! I sat there, eating the delicious bar-be-que, listening to my husband share with his family how blessed he feels to be able to learn all about birth and to be able to have our baby at home. He talked about how talented and educated our midwife is and how important the birth environment is and so on. He has become my biggest champion. And I find myself becoming very quiet and humbled and beaming with respect in the process.

I am literally laughing out loud as I type. Oh boy. A year ago it was such a different story. And there are so many other stories we have as our testimony to the value of a husband truly taking up the call to love and live as Jesus--even in his very home.

It makes my heart shout, "The gospel of Jesus lives!" It's in my very home. I invite the whole world in to come, see, taste and feel the goodness of the Lord.