your smile and the sunshine

I never knew that your smile
and the sunshine
could provide for us a happy place

nevermind that there's a raging war
you bring me peace I've never known before

I never knew that your smile
and the sunshine
could provide for us a happy place

This past Saturday morning, I woke up with this song in my mind. It's not a song I've ever heard before, but I imagined an older man on the top of a mountain, strumming his guitar, singing these words from the depths of his heart. To tell the truth, the man looked like my father and maybe he even sounded like him. I don't' know. He had a voice that sounded like it was from the 70's, like some John Denver or Joe Crocker or Cat Stevens. In any case, it was a beautiful voice, mostly because it was sincere. It seemed that the Lord was giving me that song as a way of healing that father wound. Like He was saying, "This is the song your father should have been singing to you when you were a child. This is the song I have been singing to you all your life."

I cried that morning. A healing cry. My husband held me and loved me in that moment. He's very good at that. He never tires of my needs. He never tires of comforting me. He never tires of listening to me. And, looking back now on what happened in the hours that followed that morning, he never tires of forgiving me and accepting me where I'm at and encouraging me to do better and strengthening me to persevere. I must say he is perhaps the greatest husband in all the world. Women are envious when I tell them all the great things he does for me.

I know a lot of great guys. I know a lot of great husbands. I know a lot of great marriages. In all my ten years of marriage and having married friends, I have never known any couple to get divorced! That has to say a lot in this day and age. And with all that, I can say that my husband is the greatest. He is everything I need him to be. Everything I need him to be. And yet, I am not always content. Sometimes it's like I think he is too good to me. Sometimes I think I really don't deserve him. Alright, alright, I admit it -- sometimes I just firmly believe that I deserve to be treated like shit. And maybe that's what this is all about. Maybe I sometimes think my husband is a dork for loving me as much as he does. Maybe that's why I have found myself, on a handful of occasions, clinging to someone who is mysterious and intimidating and who doesn't care much about me at all. That's screwed up. It really is. But what other conclusion is there?

And now I am exposed and vulnerable once again.

Okay, I'm stepping into the sunshine now. I am walking OUT of the shadows. No more musing. No more pondering. No more holding a magnifying glass to all my scars and my pathetic neurotic behaviors. I will stop focusing on myself and start focusing on others once again. I will be giving and considerate and loving. I will get my life back into its proper order. And for Heaven's sake, I will STOP being the most self-centered, self-pitying person in all the world!

God bless anyone who is reading through all this trash. I'm off to lunch now. Adios.