To Infinity and Beyond...

The very next month we would be celebrating 32 years of marriage.  But that morning...well, just look at the picture. 

I had cried my eyes out for a good long time that morning, while my amazing husband tried to console me.  Two of those rings had been on my finger for our entire married life, except for when I would occasionally take them off  --as in this instance. 

So that night before, I had been buttering potatoes for baking and had figured they'd be safe in the cup of my juicer.....yes, Virginia, in hindsight that does sound terrible, I know, and even writing it now I'm thinking, "man that just looks and sounds so dumb!" but I had done it once before and thought they would be safe there instead of directly on the kitchen counter.  No chance of them being whisked away into the sink and down the drain... 

So that next morning I had gotten up and, as part of my morning routine, I had stuffed the juicer cup full of spinach, then carrots, then apple.....and started 'er up.....and now it did sound funny, but I just thought it was apple seeds rolling around in there.....but as it was louder than usual, I had stopped it after a few more turns, not wanting to wake up my husband. 

Then it hit me like a lightning bolt. I looked down at my hand and saw the indentation where my rings should be, and were not.

...now is when we can all hear the collective *gasp* from the crowd...

Still not wanting to wake him, i just stood there at the sink, weeping hard, but also as quietly as possible into a dishtowel.  But, being the perceptive man that he is, he got up and came out to see what the commotion was. And when he saw me crying into the dishtowel, he was just hoping that I had not swallowed a juicer blade or something!  I had to hurriedly tell him that I was not hurt but that I had something sad to tell him.....and then proceeded to tell him my tale of woe.  He, of course, was just glad I had not inadvertently hurt myself and was full of grace and compassion for my goofy mistake.

So we went and looked and found some bits and pieces by straining the juice through a sieve. We salvaged everything we could find.  He then even offered to see if we could take all of it to a jeweler, along with his wedding band, to see if they could maybe combine it all to make two new rings.  It would be like both of us getting brand new rings!  What a sweet, inventive, and grace-filled thought.  And I loved him for that.

But in the end, I did tell him that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with the remnants at that point.  Part of me wanted to keep them as they were now, because the way I had it figured, they were now a great metaphor for a real life, long term, life-long marriage.  Marriage. Is. Hard. It takes work, commitment, compromise, and sacrifice.  You learn how not to be so naturally selfish after a while --if you want the greater good of a healthy marriage, full of life and vitality.  Real Life throws every imaginable ugliness at you and your spouse, both from the outside or the inside, during a life long marriage.  But, if you determine that each of you is going to commit to what God intended, no matter what, no matter how life seems to grind you up --much like that juicer did to those rings --then each of you can weather it all, and weather it all together.  

And, we can take it even further; if you look at the picture more closely you'll notice the the engagement band is fully intact and in one piece, as is the wedding band. Yes, they're both battered and misshapen, but they are intact nonetheless.  Two separate rings demonstrating one commitment.  Both still unbroken, both still never ending.  The broken pieces of the group are of an anniversary band, given to me by my husband on our 13th anniversary....and I could consider those broken pieces representative of the times in our marriage where it looked dark and scary and felt ripped apart...but then I'm reminded that those pieces are surrounded by two unbroken rings --dark, scary times can still be shielded inside an unbroken circle of commitment, a circle of "no matter what". 

And then grace even comes in after that and makes things even sweeter when, several hours later as I went and examined the rings more closely, I noticed that the diamond was missing out of the engagement band. So "something" told me to go to the kitchen sink, where I saw a tiny little sparkle in the drain plug, sitting quietly among the ruins of juice sludge and old lemons, teetering ever so slightly between the crevices where it would have easily slipped down the drain the very next time water was turned on. Yet, how amazing was the fact that I "happened" to go back out to the kitchen and look in the sink one more time.....yeah, there are no coincidences.

Sometimes during your married life, you may come to a crossroads like this...what do you do? Will the sludge and slime of the situation swallow you up and send you down a drain of loss? OR, will you see your marriage at that point as the tiny sparkle it really is, lift it up and out of the sludge and slime, face the reality of the situation, and look for the beauty of it instead?

You know, one of my favorite portions of movie dialogue comes from one of my all-time favorite movies: "Yours, Mine, and Ours"  --the OLD version with Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball  --I think of it often when I read younger women's posts on social media about life and I always want to give this as an encouragement to keep going, even when life gets hard with husband, kids, dogs, groceries, homework, etc  --so here it is:

"I've got a message for Larry. You tell him this is what it's all about. This is the real happening. If you want to know what love really is, take a look around you. It's giving life that counts. Until you're ready for it, all the rest is just a big fraud. All the crazy haircuts in the world won't keep it turning. Life isn't a love in, it's the dishes and the orthodontist and the shoe repairman and... ground round instead of roast beef. And I'll tell you something else: it isn't going to a bed with a man that proves you're in love with him; it's getting up in the morning and facing the drab, miserable, wonderful everyday world with him that counts."

In other words, when married life gives you lemons --and juice sludge-- find that diamond in the rough, polish it off, and wear it proudly! ....yeah, I know --I mashed several metaphors together there, but you get the point!

"If one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not easily broken" --Eccl 4:12