And strangely I believe more in marriage now than I ever have. I believe it is worth fighting for and investing in. I believe it is worth pain and tears and patience and forgiveness and then doing all of that again and again. I believe it is a gift, a gift that God gives and gives and gives each day. It only ends when one or both stop accepting the gift any longer. I see marriage as a miracle, designed by God and utterly dependent on Him.
And I believe life is lived offline, with people who are in my life — friends and loved ones and counselors. There are those who write stories of their ups and downs and life’s ebbs and flows — relational trials, work crises, personal struggles — and it works for them and their readers. I am not one nor will I ever be. My life is still private and my own, not to hide anything but for my own sanity and health (and yours too). But from life writing flows, so life must, in some manner and to some extent, be shared. So I share.
Why write this?
I question my own motives in writing this. Is it sordid? Is it to gain sympathy? Is it to avoid criticism or worse, to benefit from the publicity criticism brings? Lord, I hope not.
I want to be forthright and honest. People feel deceived when they sense a thing is hidden or when it is confirmed it was. I want to be able to write freely without feeling as if a portion, a defining portion, of my life must be concealed for no reason other than privacy. I want to be able to write about faith and life in all the ways I have before without tap dancing around the land mines of marriage and love and pain. So I write this to diffuse the explosives, or maybe explode them in a controlled environment.
My hope is that readers will trust me as much or more after reading this. Or maybe they are disappointed or offended; if so I understand. I do not offer an explanation or any details — those are for those close and invested to know. But I offer this piece as a show of respect, for the relationship (if that is the word) I have with readers through the written word and the common pursuit of truth. I want to be trusted and not just trusted — trustworthy.
And I write this for reality, to reflect what is in the world where we live. Life is brutal and hurts so much there are not words. Yet we live it. I write in the midst of it. We read looking for something because of it. And God is good in the midst of it and hope shines through the darkness of it. These do not make pain dissipate nor do they take us away from it. We still live this life, and write it. So we must plod ahead, in hope, together.- Barnabas Piper
