Photographer's choice

I meant to post my Week 5: Photographer's Choice picture a few days ago, but as you perhaps read in my last post, I've been really struggling with some major blues...  well, what else is new, right?  There are many shades of blue in my life - in my heart.  Sometimes I handle it better than others, I guess.  Sometimes - lately - it feels overwhelming, as if I'm drowning.   I can't always pinpoint why.  I mentioned two actual catalysts in my last post, but most of the time these tidal waves of grief just come seemingly out of the blue.  Sometimes it's because I try to picture the future and...  I am afraid.  I'm not supposed to be afraid, but I am quite afraid. Life is both beautiful and terrifying, don't ya think?  Or is that just me?

None of  us really know what the future holds, but we all have images of it... hopes and dreams.  What do you do when the storm lasts so much longer than you could have expected... when you're not sure it'll ever pass? What do you do when those images start popping like pricked balloons?  What do you do when those hopes and dreams are crushed to oblivion?  Well, if you're me, eventually you realize that the future looks more terrifying than beautiful. I shouldn't feel that way. After all, Jeremiah 29:11 tells me,  

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Yet I do.  I do feel that way.

"All I really need to know
Is if You who live in eternity
Hear the prayers of those of us who live in time
We can't see what's ahead
And we can not get free of what we've left behind
I'm reeling from these voices that keep screaming in my ears
All the words of shame and doubt, blame and regret"

(Rich Mullins, Hard to Get)

Well, this week was photographer's choice, and I can't think of any better subject than the wonderful man that God so richly blessed me with!  The man who sees me - and truly loves me - through all the thicks and the thins, the betters and the worses of this beautiful terrifying life.  We've seen more worse than we could have imagined, and honestly - I'm not quite the woman he married. I really fear that all that's left of that woman is the very worst of her.

Yet my Ar, my darling husband, loves me. Of that I have no doubt. In fact, I know that he loves me more now than ever. He still thinks he's the lucky one; he still sees me as the light of his life...  but it's me - I'm the lucky one.  He dries my tears - in fact, he came over and did so just a minute ago because, of course, I started crying again while writing this - he listens, he puts his arms around me, he makes me laugh, he encourages me - and he believes that our future will still be bright.

He helps me to not get too caught up in the terrors of my mind.  He doesn't always understand, but he always loves - in word and in deed. To be truly loved in this beautiful terrifying life is an amazing thing. As crushed as I am over what I don't have, I know that what I do have is precious. 

Photographer's choice: My darling Ar

Unfortunately, because it seems I'm incapable of processing the beautiful without the terrifying, I'm so very afraid of losing him. I'm not afraid of him choosing to leave, I'm afraid because one day one of us won't have a choice in the matter.  That's life. And so I want to cage him up and keep him safe, as if I could...

Perhaps it's pure hubris, but this - this fear - is one of the worst aspects of childlessness to me.