reminder

Sometimes, to remember something we know so well that it's slipped into the comfortable recesses of 'everyday,' it takes a fresh perspective to serve as a reminder of something our soul knows deeply. This weekend was one such reminder.

I was walking around the campus of Alabama, which holds childhood memories, graduate school memories, and new ones being formed with Stahler (somehow old enough to be a student) and with Grant as my husband. It is a really wonderful place; it is endeared to me in that rare way that few places ever can be. I was walking around and was acutely aware of the life in it--the young, flirty co-eds on first-dates, blind-dates, great-dates, and horrible ones. There is such a pulse for social interaction, it's not only visible but tangible. It's exciting just being around it. And I wondered why that is--what is it that close proximity brings out in me this joie de vivre?

It's the excitement of not knowing.

So much of these students' lives are unwritten pages--where to go, do, live, be. Where will they work? Who will they marry? Will they have children? Will they live abroad or return to their same small town? Will they change the world? Be the next president? It's all completely unknown as of yet for them. This is exciting.

There is life in not knowing.

The flip side of this, of course, is the unparalleled intimacy, comfort, security, and solace found in knowing--there's life in that too. That kind of biblical knowing that comes only within the covenant of marriage and grows (somehow) beautifully wider and deeper with time. Yes, there's life in that; often time life comes from that--children, healing, growth, maturation, sanctification, wisdom, knowledge, experience. Both are good--and if I had to choose, I would DEFINITELY choose knowing, but we who think we know each other, need the reminder: we don't know everything about each other yet--and we can still surprise ourselves...!!

I think that, in learning more about God, we go through really exciting times of not knowing, really intimate times of knowing, and much in between. Sometimes the knowing hurts. Sometimes the not knowing hurts. Both are good for the soul.

It was just such a wonderful reminder, that as comfortable and safe and intimate and secure and sure we are of each other and ourselves and our marriage, there is so much more that we do not yet know and there is life and excitement in recognizing the ability we have to surprise--our pages are also unwritten...!