Love

as obi-wan would say.... hello there.

for the twos of you who have requested more words, i have heard my peoples cries.

so i am writing this from my new laptop (pics to follow) while sitting in our hotel room at cedar point. we got an amazing deal on a sweet room right inside the park, overlooking lake erie. it's rie's birthday present...no not lake erie!!! hey, i'm good but come on!



anyway, to hop right into it, it is amazing what God can get bored and decide to do. we were all settled in our room and were trying to figure out what to do next. we decided to go put the parking pass in our car, and to get fresh air, on our way back there was a group of (guessing) high school kids, both boys and girls. after we got past them, i glanced at rie and she was shaking her head and had a half grin as if in disbelief. it took me a minute to get it out of her, but appearantly when we approached them, they got quiet and rie distinctly heard one of them say something about "a dyke", clearly referring to her. and they weren't trying to be heard.

by this time the kids were gone and trust me we did look, not to kick their ass (probably not anyway) but to show them what their attempts to be cool in front of their friends did. it left my beautiful wife in tears and me right behind her.

(picture ironically taken of a boys&girls van on the way to cedar point)


we went to dinner and were talking about it. there were several points of interest that we discussed. among them were:

we joked that they were actually offending me not her. i tried convincing her that they must have thought we were a couple, which meant that they thought i was a big fat lesbian. so on the plus side, at least they thought rie was the "bitch"

then the thoughts shifted to how rare this passing exchange was. three days before the trip, i upgraded our room to a different hotel for just $2 more. different hotel, save $2, we don't see those kids. if i didn't want to put the parking pass in the car right then, we don't see those kids. any number of freak things and we don't have our night ruined by insensitive kids.

and then, somewhere in my attemepts to explain to rie that they were probably just being stupid, and how i knew that because i used to do stuff like that. just trying to make my friends laugh, trying to look tough, or basically just being stupid. and then i brought up how i have even done things like that recently, where someone walks by and you make an insinuation in your head, or to your friend you're with. then i remembered that rie just a few months ago was at panera with a friend and whatever the circumstances, found themselves laughing at a woman as she walked in. but this woman on her way out, approached them and even asked "im sorry, but were you laughing at me when i came in here?" to which they said no, even though they were.

at the time i remember talking to rie about how self conscious this woman must have been, but know i see that in reality, she wasn't self conscious, she wasn't stupid, she knew she was being made fun of and decided to confront it. i give her credit, that is a tough thing to do.

after more of these examples to each other of things we had done of the same type, to try to prove that these were just dumb kids, something amazing happened. we went from crying out to God about how we had been wronged, how we had been hurt and how we wanted these kids to know what hurt they had spilled by shooting words like arrows. and what God did was ask us if we had ever been those kids? and we had, too many times to count. i don't know if i ever keep my mouth shut when there's a chance to make fun of someone else, even if it's more to make my group laugh, than to hurt others feelings. i've probably made other peoples wives feel the way that i
watched my wife feel last night, and it made me sick.

so by the end of it all, we found the roles almost reversed. we forgave the kids, and asked God to do the same, instead of having him release their seatbelts on one of the rollercoasters for a good scare. and we found ourselves asking God to hold US accountable for all the painful arrows we have released in our lives at others expense.

and guess what people, it felt good to be offended last night, it felt good to have our feelings hurt. to remember that we do still care, we do feel, and that we need to open our love to every single person we see, not even ones we actually meet. we need to show the same love that we show to our spouses and families to that "funny looking" person that just walked by, or the gay couple holding hands, or whatever it may be, because guess what, they hear the words, God hears the words, and it hurts both of them deeply.

by the end of last night i found that the entire event had led me to refocus my love for my wife. i got a chance to remember what it was like to want to defend her with every bone in my body. i even told her how when thinking recently about our impending deaths, hopefully somewhere way down the line, that at first i had thought that if given the choice, i would want to die first, so that she could continue to live and enjoy life. but what i finally understood, was that i love my wife so much, that as funny as it sounds, i would want her to go first, so that she can go home and be with God, and it would be me stuck here to suffer withouth her. i explained that i never want her to have to feel the emptyness and heartache of having to loose her true love. i would shoulder that burden until the day i too finally die and am able to see her again.



i tend to struggle with pornography and all the evils that fester from it. i am in a great marriage, but i somehow continue to find myself being captivated by the wrong things. which as i've learned, demeans, degrades, and destroys everyone involved. and i didn't want to think of other women but it would happen and then i couldnt get the thoughts out of my head. all the while, i would do anything for my wife, but sometimes i just flat out forget how important she is to me, and how she is the only woman i want. i asked God to strengthen me more than ever so that i could hold onto the love, the caring, the willingness to die for my wife that she deserves. and i asked him to never let me forget that every lustful thought, every inappropriate action, whether my wife knows about it or not, breaks her heart every bit as much as a stupid kid calling her a dyke.

it might appear to be ramblings or two seperate issues but in my head, heart and soul, the two are inseperable. they all come down to love, pure true love that we ALL, ALL, ALL deserve. your spouse, your family, your roommate who you want to smother in their sleep, the stranger on the street who is different enough from you that you feel threatened enough to try to break them down verbally or worse to make yourself feel more dominant.

watch what you say, watch how you live and watch how you love.