Ain't All Sunshine and Daisies

Twelve years ago when my now husband, then boyfriend and I spent our first Valentine's Day together we had been officially dating for about 6 months and had spent about half of that time living in different places.  He was working as a co-op in a small town near Houston and I had just started nursing school in Austin.  We were both figuring out new things in our lives as well as how to make a long distance relationship work.  No suspense there...it worked.
Here we are twelve years later and even though I feel like I was allowed to enjoy the illusion of fairy tales as a little girl I don't think I was ever led to believe fairy tales come true in the Disney sense.  In every single Disney book I read to my children, the "and they lived happily ever after" part at the end causes me to pause and wonder if I should add a small dislcaimer.  I don't think I have to do that.  We talk enough about reality for each child in age-appropriate ways, at least to the best of our ability.  We're mostly just making it up as we go along.

Life around here has been a bit roller coaster-esque and it shows in parental behavior.  It is hard not to let the underlying stress of the unknown come across when our kids are vying for our attention and we parents just want to have an uninterrupted conversation (or thought).  We are both frustrated at different times about how hard it is to plan for a future when we aren't sure where that future will happen.  We both realize that the frustration doesn't help anything and we'd both like it to just go away, but sometimes it just won't. 
All day yesterday, I was "foul with a capital F" to quote someone else, and I just couldn't pull myself together.  I was dreading this week on my own with the kids out of school and the possibility of many more weeks on my own in my near future.  As much as I don't want it to, the situation makes me resentful and irritated by the little things.  It brings out my weaknesses when I'm on my own and I don't want to face them.  It isn't fair to everyone else and I eventually come around every time and pull through for the team.  (I don't really have a choice, do I?)  But in that time when I'm irrational and irritable and foul with a capital F, I feel so badly that everyone else is subject to me.  Thank God for grace and for new days and for love and vows that include "for better" and "for worse".
After dinner last night, my husband came in with a look on his face I couldn't quite interpret.  "We have a problem". 
My heart sank.  What now?
I followed him to the garage from where an overwhelming odor even more foul than my behavior, distinctly came.  He showed  me the problem and I'll spare the details, but just say that I saw much more than I ever wanted to about how Belgian plumbing works (or rather doesn't work in this case).  There was filth inside the garage and when he lifted up the drain cover (the very one that I have tried hard to put out of my mind during the past 3 years of living here) we saw very clearly the problem. 
We only thought we were stressed before.  Each of us was thinking about what had to be done and neither of us wanted any part of it.  We have been living here long enough to know that calling the landlord (would actually be calling their son first, who will then say, "Oh, I call my mother!") and waiting for them to call "the plumber" (who apparently moved to France at some point) would take longer than just dealing with it ourselves.  Now, had this happened one day later with me here on my own, I would have taken option B and probably cried.  A lot.
My husband of almost 10 years, who always comes through in a house-related pinch, promptly set to work resolving the problem.  I mostly stayed by his side during the entire process for moral support, if nothing else.  I had to leave a couple of times to take care of (actually yell inappropriately at) the children who remained oblivious to exactly what was going on in the garage.  Additional stress directly correlates with our lack of patience and understanding with our children.  I later ran the stairs about 10 times flushing each of our 5 toilets and running down as quickly as possible to make sure everything was going well on the other end.  (What I would have done if it wasn't going well?  I have no idea).

By the end of the evening (after scrubbing the garage and then ourselves profusely and lighting every scented candle we own), we were laughing and thankful for the plumbing we do have.  Thankful it has worked without issue for the last almost 3 years and thankful that we have each other in times like this.  It was one of those little reminders I need once in a while when I start throwing myself a pity party about my life.  It can always be so much worse.  I have no reason to be unhappy.  We are blessed beyond measure.

Today it occurred to me that our little experience last night can be a great metaphor for marriage.  Most of the time we think things are flowing along rather smoothly and even though we know we have "stuff" to deal with and that it is coming out all of the time, we don't always want to deal with it.  We choose to just "flush it away" and  not really think about where it is going and what is happening to it or to those who might be affected by it.  Sometimes there is just too much "stuff" and we can't keep flushing away without thinking about it.  If we do, it can back up and force us to deal with it.  Once we get all of the stuff cleaned up and flowing along again, it helps to keep in mind how quickly things got backed up when we weren't dealing with all of it.  It makes us more mindful of our "stuff" and what we do with it. 
I've been thinking about all of my "stuff" while studying Beth Moore's "Breaking Free".  There's a lot to think about and I don't always want to think about it.  I find that even though I feel like I've come so far in what I can handle in life when it is thrown at me, I don't always want to handle it.  I'd rather take the safe, easy way and just coast along.  Unfortunately, I can't go back to safe and coasting since I've come away from it.  It doesn't work like that.  I can't feign ignorance anymore because I've studied more of what God wants from me and there's a constant pulling on me to put it into practice.  Phew, that's hard though.
Looking back at our 9 1/2 year marriage and our 12 1/2 year relationship, it has never been all sunshine and daisies.  There has been plenty of sunshine and lots and lots of flowers.  What I find most interesting is that what once looked like sunshine and daisies, doesn't always look that way anymore.  The "stuff" that looked like what we dealt with last night can look more like sunshine and daisies when we are on the other side of it and when we find that we overcame.  I've written before that marriage is work and even looking back at what I wrote then and what our "stuff" was then, I see how far we've come and how much harder we've had to work.  We had no idea then that we would ever be in Belgium cleaning up a mess like that on Valentine's Day.  Another thing I really didn't fully grasp when we took our vows was just how much we would both change every day.  As the saying goes, "The only constant in life is change".
There are so many parts of the this Bible study I've enjoyed, but a part that came "flowing" back to me last night was this:
Isaiah 40:18 "If only you had paid attention to my commands your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea".
About that verse Beth writes:
"When God used the analogy of a river, He described a peace that can be retained while life twists, turns and rolls over boulders".  "To have peace like a river is to have security and tranquility of heart and mind while meeting many bumps and unexpected turns on life's journey through change.  Peace is submission to a trustworthy Authority, not resignation from all activity".

The second part that came back to me was this:
Isaiah 43:1-2 "But now, this is what the LORD says--he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.'"

Beth points out that God does not write that we might pass through the waters or we might walk through the fire.  He wrote "When" not "If".  The peace is still there and it is available only from Him.  This is how we walk by faith and we are not always delivered from difficult experiences, but through difficult experiences.

So no, I'm not writing all of this because I think my big challenge in life is backed up toilets, but to remind myself that while I'll living in this world, I will go through trials and challenges most of which I will never predict or expect, but I always have God's word and promises to get me through them.  I fail every day in some way and remembering this is much easier when I'm sitting here without some major stressor weighing on me in the moment, but that is why I want to take the time to reflect and really think about this "stuff" rather than just letting it go and moving on to the next thing.  I can learn from how I handle each situation and I can learn how to turn to those promises rather than just grabbing on to whatever seems to be nearest at the moment. 

Not really sure how to tie all of this together to make it all neat and tidy.  This is a little all over the place, but it has been therapeutic for me and as I begin a week of waiting for my husband to come home and fill in the details he will hopefully bring home and a week of trials in parenting on my own, I need therapy however I can get it.  Today I haven't faced the problem of yesterday and I don't know what challenges I could face in the week ahead, but as Jesus said in Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  So far today that trouble has been a minivan door frozen shut on the side where the little one sits, slippery unsalted snowy/icy roads, a mini-meltdown by the little one when dropping off two big kids at a fairly empty Sports Camp at school and the guilt that the melt-down and the emptiness of the sports camp elicited.  Not so bad and the day is more than half over.  Praying for a safe and delay-free week for Daddy.  May none of us have to deal with anymore "stuff" this week.