31 Days to Finding Freedom: {Day 14} Both hard and holy

I have been planning all along to write this post on freedom in the context of marriage, and every time I sat down to begin, I found myself deleting as much as I wrote. After fifteen years of living with and loving the same man, I still do not feel qualified to do anything beyond share what I know from my own experience. 

What I know is this: the smaller my world becomes, the more driven by rules and fear, the more enslaved I am, the harder I try to make my husband’s world look exactly like mine. My husband wasn’t made for smallness or rules. He lives large and free, and that can look and feel scary to a spouse who doesn’t walk in the same kinds of freedom. I am learning to extend to him the freedom that I wish extended to me.

I have envied his ability to view life as one of infinite possibilities and surmountable challenges. He is comfortable in how he was created. He doesn’t hold hands with fear, or embrace other’s opinions as truth. And so I’ve had to learn by watching. By trying and failing. By fussing and fighting.

It’s imperfect, this freedom journey, as is marriage. Learning to walk the path together has been a struggle, but as we have, my husband has become my cheerleader, my partner, my dream weaver. He’d probably say he’s been my sugar daddy too. Learning to let go of fear and make life altering decisions doesn’t always come cheap, especially when it involves an international move.

What I know is this: we both bring brokenness, but that brokenness allows for one to be strong where the other is weak. Marriage is a place where we can grow in grace, where we can hear and speak hard truths, fight fear, and chase freedom together.

What do you and your spouse chase together? Does it sometimes feel more hard than holy?

This post is part of a 31 day series. I promise to return to my regularly irregular and non-cohesive posting in November. For my first 31 day post click here, for more 31 Day topics (and there are a LOT!) click here.