Two songs

From a talk with a friend, there are two songs that come to mind which have really helped me in the past months deal with my emotions. Because of their juxtaposition I thought I would share them together. Let it hurt by Rascal Flatts and Sera was never by Elizaveta. Maybe I will explain this tomorrow, because I should be sleeping now.

Chaos

Four months ago I would have told you that life full of normal stresses but uneventful.  Today is a different. Today I am over my in over my head in the chaos.

I am "the straight spouse ". I am the one left behind to pick up the pieces when my husband told me that our marriage  is over because he is gay.

I did not deal with it well. My marriage, my self-confidence, my dreams, my best friend: gone.

I am home now. Back in the town I grew up in. I have the suport of my family. I miss my friends. But I am in a much better place emotionally and spiritually.

I knew my husband likes men when we were dating, more than he liked women, but he said he loved me more, chose me, wanted to be with me forever. So I was committed, he had chosen me and I believed that was all that mattered.

I love him still.

I question if our understanding of love is the same.

I have a very difficult time understanding when people say that is just the way he was born. My choice and honour are higher in my identity than my sexual preferences. It is hard to empathize with those who find their identity  so strongly in their sexuality, but I comprehend that people do. In the same way, my honour to my word defines me in my mind. I have a hard time going back on my word; I think hard before speaking so that I minimize the times that I might have to.  So that he said he did love me and wanted to be with me once, but doesn't want to now: I comprehend but I cannot understand.

Even though I have questioned my own sexuality, I still don't understand.  I did get to choose to be straight.  I can tell you which grade and my general thought process. I'm still attracted to people but they are not who I chose  so I am free to enjoy their beauty for who they are. I still don't understand, but I want to.

So I am the straight spouse, learning who I am without my chosen.

I am the one left behind to find a new path.

At first, I was terrified.  I was alone.  I was lost.

But I am still me.  I can pick up my dreams again and have no restrictions. I can go anywhere and do anything.

It is not my fault he left me. I am attractive. I am smart. I am strong.

I still love him.  I would like if he realized that he still loves  me as he said in our vows. But I will thrive even if he doesn't.

I am sad.  I will grieve. I will acknowledge the hurt. I will remember the good. I will dance. I am joyful.

I will trust that my God will work even this  for His glory. I choose to trust more in this chaos than I did before.

You might just find you're better for it
When you let go and you learn
To let it hurt, let it bleed
Let it take you right down to your knees
~Let It Hurt by Rascal Flatts

The Kingdom, Starfield

Rooftops

This was the prelude at church this morning.

From the Valley

More-with-Less Cooking

A while ago at a used book sale I saw a cookbook that looked familiar; sure enough it was a copy of one of the staple cookbooks which a dear friend and mentor had on her shelf. I bought it for about $2 and forgot about it.

I found it again at it is a perfect guide for the food project we are setting out on. The book was published in 1976 so some of the statistics are wrong now, however, how to make sure you are eating whole proteins with legumes and grains hasn't changed, nor has the fact that meat costs a whole lot more per gram a protein as the vegetarianism options.

The book is More-with-Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre and is filled with good old fashion Mennonite cooking sense. Now I am not Mennonite myself but every Mennonite I have met has had an appreciation of good food, and usually lots of it.

So here we go, aiming for a less meat and lower cost meal but more filling and satisfying!

First meal attempt:
Six-Layer Dish
I was craving a casserole type bake anyway.

Layer in order given in a 2qt. greased casserole, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper:
2 medium potatoes, sliced
2 medium carrots, sliced
1/3 c. uncooked rice
2 small onions, sliced
1 lb ground beef
1 qt. canned tomatoes
Sprinkle ove;
1 Tbsp brown sugar
Bake at 300 for 2 1/2 - 3 hours
Options:
Just before ground beef add 1 c. cooked kidney beans, drained.
Substitutes browned book sausage for ground beef.

I'm adding the beans, substituting chicken and omitting the onion, mostly because of what we have available in our pantry. It's not normally what I would make, but nothing we wouldn't normally eat, and it does look more filling than what I would normally make. I am looking forward to it.

Hopefully it cooks down, or the 2 qt. pan might not have been big enough...

A Quest to Eat for Less

So we're looking ahead at our third month in Saskatoon. It's not as glamorous as we hoped but we are making ends meet, barely. Eventually my husband will get more hours at his job but it means lots of work first and probably two more years of school before he's at sustainable full time. That seems to be the difficulty of breaking into the counselling business.

There are three major things that we're working on at the moment; two are for our personal lives, one is for work.

For work, both of us are working together at setting up a group pre-marital counselling seminar. It is going to be ten three hour sessions, likely once a week for four to ten couples. This is something that after talking to pastors from various local churches seems to be a need. So we're putting our schooling to work at getting this together. Eventually, my husbands boss would like to offer this through his work too, but since he is not working at a Christian counselling center we will have to modify it to be less Christian. Now, I don't know how that will change it, other than some wording, because I feel that all sound marriages are based in Biblical principles whither or not the couple believe in the One who created those principles. We will just have to work it out.

For ourselves we are going to do to things: We realize how much stress we have been under with the move and are going to take some time for ourselves just to study Scripture together. We're using a book to guide us, it is one that I have read before but am looking forward to reading again. The Good and Beautiful God: Falling in Love with the God Jesus Knows by James Bryan Smith. We also have the second book in that series, The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ. I am looking forward to working through these and memorizing Scripture with my husband.

Second, we are looking to eat better, really to eat for less. Both in the sense of eating for less money as well as for less junk and calories. Both of us, when we are stressed start to eat more food, and less of it healthy. So we are sitting down and actually planning out healthy meals, instead of just cooking whatever we can find. This means eating less meat, it is often the most expensive thing we eat, and making sure that we are getting full proteins and lots of vitamins and minerals from what we are eating. Lentils and beans are becoming our friends, they are cheep, chalked full of goodness and I still get to feel full after eating.

God is good, all the time. The work will be worth it when it all comes down to it.  I know that even though we feel like we are coasting at the moment, God has a plan for us. Sometimes I worry but I know that we can lean on God and do the best with what He gives us. Moment to moment. All the time, God is good.