For the joy
The past seven months we have taken on the daunting task of helping move my parents out of my childhood home. Sorting through each box and drawer has been equally beautiful as it has been difficult. Nonetheless, it has inspired me and Ryan to thoroughly sort through our own home. Over the past six years we have accumulated more medical paperwork than I have the stomach for but, with a working shredder, we finally tackled it.
All in all, we ended with eleven bags of shredded documentation. Eleven bags of mail that I didn't want to open when it arrived. I reread every word, each written proof of the mountains we have journeyed together as a family. It was strangely emotional seeing it all in such a massive pile. God's grace found us in every sigh of relief and in every tear cried over those pages. Getting it out of our home had all the hallmarks of closing a chapter of our life and declaring a victory over each of those mountains.
Something else we found in all those papers was our wedding invitation with Hebrews 12 quoted on the front: "Let us run with endurance the race set before us." At the time, I had no idea that would become a declared verse over our marriage.
Ryan had his first craniotomy when we were engaged at 20 and 21. It was an unwelcomed surprise just four short months after he proposed. "Yes" suddenly carried a much larger weight. As his fiance, I was in the audience of what was unfolding for him and his future. I didn't know where I stood in line, and I felt very alien trying to understand what my place was supposed to be in it. There was no limit of confusion because I was hearing and seeing two different things. There was no limit of anguish because this was the man I love. There was no limit of fear because every detail of our future felt so uncertain.
I remember sitting in the hospital colliding with this indefinite sense of loss, asking if this was what God had in mind, wondering if I had the courage to sit in it and walk it alongside Ryan, and hoping that, by some measure of mercy, God might grant us those fifty years we were so eagerly anticipating. I recited and prayed these quoted verses over and over until I arrived at the conclusion that my love for Ryan had to reflect that of God's love for me. I left that hospital knowing I would be running those last legs of the race with him. Six months later our vows acknowledged all that may or may not be but, most of all, that our dependence on Christ in our commitment to each other had to remain steadfast. All with no concrete grasp of how difficult that would turn out to be.
We celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary next month. A whole lifetime has fit into this short decade. Joints are being straightened and healed, and He is indeed setting paths straight. Our future may be just as uncertain to us today as it was then and, even with the many hopes and desires we deny daily, I think we can both confidently say this has been a small price to pay for all the ways God has met us and answered our many prayers. His best plans have prevailed and His steadfastness is our oak. Tremendous peace has been found here. So for the joy set before us, here is to another ten...
All in all, we ended with eleven bags of shredded documentation. Eleven bags of mail that I didn't want to open when it arrived. I reread every word, each written proof of the mountains we have journeyed together as a family. It was strangely emotional seeing it all in such a massive pile. God's grace found us in every sigh of relief and in every tear cried over those pages. Getting it out of our home had all the hallmarks of closing a chapter of our life and declaring a victory over each of those mountains.
Something else we found in all those papers was our wedding invitation with Hebrews 12 quoted on the front: "Let us run with endurance the race set before us." At the time, I had no idea that would become a declared verse over our marriage.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set out before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. ...Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed."
Hebrews 12:1-2, 12-13
Ryan had his first craniotomy when we were engaged at 20 and 21. It was an unwelcomed surprise just four short months after he proposed. "Yes" suddenly carried a much larger weight. As his fiance, I was in the audience of what was unfolding for him and his future. I didn't know where I stood in line, and I felt very alien trying to understand what my place was supposed to be in it. There was no limit of confusion because I was hearing and seeing two different things. There was no limit of anguish because this was the man I love. There was no limit of fear because every detail of our future felt so uncertain.
I remember sitting in the hospital colliding with this indefinite sense of loss, asking if this was what God had in mind, wondering if I had the courage to sit in it and walk it alongside Ryan, and hoping that, by some measure of mercy, God might grant us those fifty years we were so eagerly anticipating. I recited and prayed these quoted verses over and over until I arrived at the conclusion that my love for Ryan had to reflect that of God's love for me. I left that hospital knowing I would be running those last legs of the race with him. Six months later our vows acknowledged all that may or may not be but, most of all, that our dependence on Christ in our commitment to each other had to remain steadfast. All with no concrete grasp of how difficult that would turn out to be.
"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
1 Corinthians 13:7
We celebrate our ten year wedding anniversary next month. A whole lifetime has fit into this short decade. Joints are being straightened and healed, and He is indeed setting paths straight. Our future may be just as uncertain to us today as it was then and, even with the many hopes and desires we deny daily, I think we can both confidently say this has been a small price to pay for all the ways God has met us and answered our many prayers. His best plans have prevailed and His steadfastness is our oak. Tremendous peace has been found here. So for the joy set before us, here is to another ten...
Copyright 2020->Renee Sunberg
As usual ...beautiful! This could be the 1st chapter of a beautiful book!
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