Hard Chapters

This past weekend, Ryan and I attended a marriage retreat in Fort Wayne. I had looked forward to it so much all week last week. A fun getaway at a hotel...eating out with our friends...encouragement from a speaker...meeting new people...all of that.

And it was fun. We really enjoyed the time away {though we sorely enjoyed being back in our own home at the end of the weekend...} and the speaker was fantastic.

But in all of that, the unexpected happened.

God uncovered hard places in my heart. Areas where I'm not secure in who I am as a wife.

Areas where deep fear rose, unbidden and certainly unwelcome, to the surface.

Ugly Bekah emerged one morning as we stepped out into frigid, wind-chill scarred temps in search of a McDonald's that Siri SAID was much closer than it actually was. I stomped in my boots down a sometimes-slippery sidewalk, unable to feel my legs, missing my coffee and I. Was. Ugly. I was the wife that I always looked at when other wives acted that way and thought, "Man she doesn't appreciate what she has." And it wasn't that I didn't appreciate him. {On the contrary - I was aware that he was tolerating ugly Bekah quite remarkably and I appreciated him all the more for it.} It was that I was cold and we were lost and Siri lied and I. Just. Wanted. Coffee.

But that is not the wife I want to be.

And other things crept to the surface that weekend as we explored the topics of the retreat...and I found myself feeling hurt...not by Ryan, but by other things...and those things made me retreat and sit silently in my seat wondering how a wife responds in such a way that encourages and uplifts - when really mad, wild tears feel warranted.

I came home exhausted. I'd had fun, sure. But I also knew God was calling me to work. To get to the bottom of the fears and hurts of my heart and make new patterns. Ones that are healthy and good and cause growth.

Don't you just wish sometimes you could skip past all that and be better than who you are now?

But oh the beauty of the growth. The chance to grow in intimacy and favor with my husband while allowing him to see ugly Bekah, working to become stronger Bekah.

Hard chapters...but necessary for the story He's writing.

We fix our eyes not on what discourages us {moves us away from courage} but on Jesus, the One who saves, redeems and restores. He's working!

~ Susie Larson ~