Читать книгу On the Other Side of Fear - Hallie Lord - Страница 10

Chapter One

Champagne Flutes

Fear is the enemy of love.

~ St. Augustine

For our wedding, Dan and I received a pair of champagne flutes. They were delicate and perfectly shaped, and I loved them. I loved them so much, in fact, that one night, having moved into a new home earlier that day, I pounded on the door of our old house and asked the bewildered new owners if I might peer into their kitchen cabinets to see if I’d left them behind in the move.

It was November, or maybe December, but definitely post-Daylight Saving Time, and the evening was cold, dark, and rainy. I must have looked a sight with my long coat pulled tightly over my ratty moving clothes and my wet hair stuck to the side of my face. I didn’t have their phone number, though, and was desperately afraid that they’d throw them out or give them away before I had a chance to retrieve them, so there I stood, pounding away with a slightly manic look in my eye.

They let me in, and there, tucked into the back of a worn wooden cupboard, sat my two perfect matching flutes. I quickly tucked them under my arm and hurried out of the home that was no longer mine with grateful thanks and mildly mortified apologies on my lips.

That twenty-four-year-old newlywed would never have believed you had you told her that five years later she would be furiously smashing those same glasses into a million shining shards against her kitchen sink.

Feats of Bravery

You do things in a marriage that you never expect you’ll do. You become a person that you never thought you’d become. Most of the time this is a good thing. Marriage has a way of making you more generous and selfless and generally less wrapped up in yourself. But that doesn’t happen by accident. That happens because marriage refines you by fire, and fire is hot, and fire burns, and if you have any kind of sense of self-preservation, you spend a lot of time wondering how you can escape this painful refining process. Not escape the marriage, but maybe find a way to make it hurt a little less. Or ask not quite so much of you. Or be satisfied with less than your all and everything.

The smashing of the wine glasses was my way of telling God to back off and give Dan and me a break. From Dan’s perspective it probably looked more like his wife had become a raging lunatic hell-bent on spewing the worst kind of vitriol in his direction, but at the heart of it my grievance wasn’t with him; it was (though I didn’t realize it at the time) with God. The God who had allowed relentless brutal financial struggles to mark our first years together. The God who held back the relief I thought we’d been promised. The God who had stood silently by and watched as the brave, fearless girl I’d been raised to be became a controlling, terrified shadow of herself.

When my mother was young, my grandfather started a family tradition called “Feats of Bravery.” That thing you are scared to do? You will do it, and you will do it with pluck because it’s a Feat of Bravery. You will cross the log that bisects the river, climb to the very top of the waterfall, and jump into the icy-cold mountain stream because you are brave all the way deep down into your bones and no log, waterfall, or mountain stream could possibly take that away from you. In fact, the opposite was considered true — these challenges actually served to encourage and strengthen you. This pursuit, and subsequent acquisition, of fearlessness was at the heart of our family culture, and I loved it.

And then somehow I lost it. I went from being a young woman who courageously backpacked through Europe, proudly assembled her own furniture, and adventurously drove solo across the country to a (somewhat less) young woman who felt utterly paralyzed by fear and anxiety. With every furious strike of glass against my metal sink, with every anguished cry, and with every hot, salty tear that rolled down my cheek, I was mourning the woman I’d been and begging God to give her back to me.

I sunk down onto the hard, cold tile and struggled for breath as Dan grabbed his keys and walked out the front door without a word. He was tired. I was tired. Our union was tired. My newly acquired anxiety, not content to stay tucked away inside me, increasing my heart rate and stealing my breath, had crept out and begun to poison my marriage.

I don’t know how most people handle anxiety, but my response was to try to control whatever circumstances of life fell under my jurisdiction. The problem was that many of the things that fell under my jurisdiction also fell under Dan’s jurisdiction and were, in fact, meant to be co-managed by the two of us. As I saw it, though, when your ship is going down, you can’t have two captains, and I couldn’t stand the thought of anyone being at the helm of our sinking ship but me. That sounds prideful, and to some degree it was, I’m sure, but it was more of a gut-level response to feeling that our life was spinning out of control and that I needed to cling to whatever pieces I could still command. All my husband could see, though, was that I was casting a more emphatic vote of No Confidence in him with each and every passing day.

I pulled myself off the ground and headed for my cold, empty bed. As was always the case after one of our increasingly frequent battles, the minute Dan left, all of my fury and resentment almost instantaneously dissipated leaving me bereft, full of regret, and longing for the comfort of his strong arms and familiar shoulders.

I reached into the top drawers of my mahogany bedside table, pulled out a well-worn See’s floral candy box, sat it on my lap, and pulled off the top. Inside were almost a hundred handwritten letters that Dan had given me over the years. It had become my tradition to read a handful of them after almost every fight, when we were apart for any extended period of time, and anytime I needed to be reminded of what was at the core of our union when you beat back the briars of weariness and frustration.

At the top of the pile was a journal entry Dan had composed about the two of us shortly after we’d met:

Cars may wreck around us, stocks may rise and fall, clocks wind down, but it’s not enough to distract us from each other as we chatter and ask and talk like two parts of a steamroller engine. I touch her and she touches back. She cares about me. She encourages me. She likes me, not for certain things I do, but precisely for what I am. I am what she loves. And she is what I love. How about that?

A heart-wrenching realization washed over me: I didn’t think Dan could write those same words honestly anymore. We no longer acted like two parts of a steamroller engine. I no longer encouraged him. And did he still know how deeply I loved him for precisely what he was and not what he did?

How could he when all I ever did was to correct, suggest, micromanage, and fret? What had happened to the carefree girl who loved with abandon and wanted nothing more than to make him feel beloved by her? And how could I fix it? How do you pull yourself out of a downward spiral when you feel so unbearably sad and paralyzingly afraid? How do you wrestle a sinking ship out of a storm when all your strength is gone?

The answer came quickly. “You pour love in, my sweet girl. So much love that it drives out all the fear. Every last bit of it.”

Call it divine inspiration, a whisper from the Holy Spirit, a gentle nudge from our heavenly Father — or all of the above, I suppose — but even before I knew exactly what this prompting meant or how to go about answering it, I knew that this was what I must do. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I must summon all the love I possessed, borrow a whole lot more from God, and pour it all into Dan. I had to silence the fearful voices in my head, refuse to allow them access to my voice, and strip them of their power over us.

The old me would have immediately started arguing with God and listing my objections. This marriage was a partnership, why should I suddenly stop sharing my perspective on things? What about the Scriptural exhortation to admonish my brother when he sinned? Was Dan being exhorted to do the same? Once upon a time I would have certainly hoped so.

I was so tired of being a resounding gong and clanging cymbal, though, that I was willing to try anything, even embracing the “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” adage of my youth. I knew that God wasn’t asking me to become a Stepford Wife, he was simply offering me a formula — a temporary corrective measure, if you will — for overcoming my fears and healing my marriage. A formula that didn’t just ask me to bite my tongue, but demanded that I fill the void with love. He knew that I needed to experience for myself the truth that darkness and light cannot coexist.

I sat in the darkness, pondering how to answer this call. Pies were definitely in order, as were love letters, tokens of affection, and actual affection, of course. I was about to switch my lamp back on and begin making a list when Dan’s headlights swam across our bedroom walls. I heard his key in the lock, held my breath, and prayed that God would help us find our way back to peace.

Moments later Dan crawled into bed and wrapped his arms around me and I knew. I knew that though I had a lot of work to do and that together we had a long way to go, we were going to be fine. Even better than fine.

Tested Courage

The months that followed were not easy. Every day I searched the pantry for random ingredients that I could turn into a meal, and I considered adding the customer service representatives at the utility companies to my Christmas card list for the number of times I had to call and beg them to hold off on disconnecting our utilities. As serious financial difficulties continued to plague us, my newly assigned mission to love often stung. Even with the consolation I’d received from God, the shedding of my controlling nature caused more than a few growing pains.

To say that I did this imperfectly would be a huge understatement. But amidst those growing pains I could see that the roots of our marital tree were growing deeper and stronger and that tiny blossoms that promised rich fruit had sprung forth. Our arguments began to decrease in frequency and were replaced by sweet moments of romance and rebonding.

On some level this didn’t surprise me. It serves to reason that if you start treating your spouse better, your relationship will thrive. What did surprise me was that the previously implacable grips of fear that had imprisoned me for the last handful of years had slowly begun to release their hold on me.

I couldn’t see it at the time, but my putting a stop to the endless cycle of criticism allowed Dan to get off the defensive and return all of the love I was pouring into him, often tenfold. God parted the storm clouds, and I was able to see, once again, how much this man loved me. I was reminded by his every sacrifice (which were daily and plenty) that he would, in fact, do anything and everything within his power to care and provide for me.

Yes, we’d been threatened with eviction. Yes, our utilities were sometimes turned off. Yes, we were without insurance. Yes, we both worried about providing for the needs of our children, but what I began to see is that the entire time that I’d felt the need to micromanage our lives, Dan was doing everything possible to bring us to greener pastures. He was hustling like no man has ever hustled, working two, sometimes three jobs at a time, and humbling himself to borrow money when life demanded it. My fretful contribution had added nothing but animosity.

Do you know who was behind the fact that we struggled? God. With sudden clarity I realized that God had allowed these circumstances. It was he who had brought us to this season of want and allowed us to suffer. He had tied these crosses to our back and asked us to carry them. And though I hadn’t wanted to admit it at the time, we had consented. As we were preparing for marriage, Dan and I had told God that we would follow him wherever he led, through rocky valleys and beautiful vistas. We wanted to do his will, trusting in his goodness. Well, as it turned out, his will was to remake us in his image, and his method was poverty. And to give credit where credit is due, it was effective.

God is endlessly creative and has an infinite number of ways to purify a soul. He could see that Dan and I had become far too reliant on, and proud of, our own abilities. Poverty is a surprisingly potent antidote to such a weakness. When all of your efforts to earn your daily bread prove fruitless, you quickly start begging God for help. And after enough of this begging, you begin to see (and have to concede) that everything ultimately flows from him, not you. That’s humbling.

The wonderful thing about God is that he’s always waiting to offer consolation and insight right at that very moment when you feel your knees start to buckle from the weight of it all. Every so often during this painful process he would part the curtains that hung behind his workshop windows and allow us to peer in, just for a moment, so that we could see how he’d been softening our hearts while pummeling away with his mallet. We could see that he’d somehow managed to make us a little more patient, a bit more kind, and a lot more humble.

That young woman who’d traveled solo around the world had an adventurous spirit, absolutely, but courageous? Only until she was tested, and then that “courage” crumbled so quickly you would have missed it if you’d blinked. She marched through life never once giving credit to God for her accomplishments, never thanking him for her gifts.

Pies and Peppermint

There’s a very satisfying high that comes from doing daring things. And I absolutely agree with my family’s assessment that challenges such as Feats of Bravery can serve to strengthen a person. But this brand of courage ultimately needs to be supported by valor, a sort of undaunted courage in the face of overwhelming odds. The kind of valor that comes from trusting God implicitly and knowing that he will never abandon you though the winds may batter and the waves crash upon you. The kind of valor that is free of pride and posturing. The kind of valor that knows that what God says is true — that strength is found in weakness.

I had become a victim of fear because I believed that everything depended on me and that the only way to overcome my anxieties was to assert control. Oh, how wrong I was. All along freedom had been waiting for me to meet fear head-on with love.

When I was worried about buying groceries, I found peace in taking our last box of cherry jello, preparing it lovingly, and serving it to our kids on our very best china.

When Dan seemed especially stressed about paying the bills, I found solace in lovingly rubbing his back, encouraging him, and thanking God that we’d been given the privilege of carrying this cross together.

When I was utterly weary from the challenges that come with a bank account that hates you, I found relief in praying for the poor, meditating on their suffering, and giving thanks to God for the many gifts he’d given us.

I was not then, nor am I now, perfect at this practice, but I suspect that if one could measure such a thing, we’d find that the degree to which we pour love into our lives and loved ones is the degree to which fear is forced out.

Someone once told me that if you pray for your enemies, you will no longer be able to hate them. That the moment you begin to advocate for goodness in their life is the same moment that your animosity will begin to exhaust. This is because the light of love and the darkness of hatred cannot possibly exist in the same space.

The same is true of love and fear.

Love creates life-affirming beauty, fear sets out to destroy it. Love is joyful, fear miserable. Love frees, fear imprisons. Love is kind, fear cruel. Love is honest, fear deceitful. Love is brave, fear afraid. And love is strong, while fear is weak.

For as long as we exist on this earthly planet, love and fear will be at war. There is no harmony to be found between the two. But though they may do battle over and over again, love’s victory is written in the stars. For love is God, and God is love, and both are omnipotent.

Later that year, on the Feast of the Holy Family, Dan handed me another letter for my See’s candy box. This one told the story of a family that was still young and had much to learn, but was working hard every day to choose love over fear and because of it had never been happier:

So, here on the Feast of the Holy Family, we heard in Mass how, after Jesus was born, an angel told Joseph to take his little family and live in Egypt so King Herod would not find them. They were there for about a year or two before Herod died and they could safely return to Joseph’s home in Nazareth.

And what did they do in Egypt? No one knows. But I know what we would have done, if it had been us. Knowing that we couldn’t leave — not yet — because God needed us to stay there for a little while, I would have gotten a job teaching theology. We would have chosen a small mud and brick house in the subsuburbs where our neighbors periodically crept by quietly on chariots and sketched drawings of our house to turn in to the neighborhood housing board as proof that we weren’t combing the sand on our property as often as everybody would like.

It would never rain, we would be exhausted and overworked, we would never see our families back in Palestine, and we would rarely have any shekels to spend since theology teachers don’t make much.

But we would settle in. And Christmas would come. And I would fret a little about how few presents we could buy. But you know what? I would be happy. I would be happier than I’d ever been in my life. How would that be possible?

The broad answer is that all things are possible for God. More specifically, I would look at our Christmas tree, festooned with baubles and glistening with colored lights (a miracle, and not because no one had discovered electricity, but because we had not paid our power bill and our service had not been disconnected). I would see the lights gleaming in the eyes of our children who, for all our lack of shekels, looked somehow healthy, and warm, and well-fed. I would look at my wife, plump with a new baby, smiling her beautiful smile, holding wrapped presents for the kids. I would smell baked pies and peppermint and chocolate, and drink wine, and kiss my wife on her soft, full lips and think what a magnificent thing it was that God had brought so much out of an exile in the desert.

That’s how it would be with us, if an angel told us we had to go to Egypt. Thank God we get to stay here.

Dan and Hallie were back. They had much to learn and many mountains yet to climb, but they were back.