How to Make it to the Big 50

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My husband and I attended a 50th anniversary party Saturday. Surrounded by their four children, many grandchildren, extended family, and friends, they celebrated a life that probably was not what they envisioned on the day they married.

This couple met at a carnival in Cuba, where they were born. My friend Gloria and her sister snuck out of their house to visit the carnival. She met up with a boy she liked, and when he got a little fresh, decided she didn't like him after all, but that hardly mattered because that was the night she met her future husband.

This teen-aged couple married six months later, so they're only in their 60s with many years ahead of them. The only thing is, I'm not sure they even like each other, but like and love can look different in other people's marriages. All I know is that not one golden anniversary kiss was exchanged, and while I often visit Gloria, I don't see much affection exchanged.

What does it take to arrive at a 50th anniversary and still love your spouse? We still have 23 years to go before reaching that milestone, but on reflection, I think these pieces need to be part of that puzzle picture:

• forgiveness
• persistence
• commitment
• selflessness
• deafness
• blindness
• determination
• realism
• patience
• friendship
• acceptance
• sense of humor
• teamwork
• sacrifice
• respect
• love.

What do you think should be on this list?

Dark Rooms

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Now that it's spring and the trees have all their leaves, my kitchen is dark most of the day. We have a large maple tree in the backyard and a small woods behind our house that block out the sunshine.

This morning I idly thought, "Most homes have dark rooms." Then I thought, "Most hearts have dark rooms too."

What are the dark rooms in your heart, the places you don't want anyone else to see? These could be sad, traumatic, hurtful, or painful experiences that still ache too much to share with anyone.

They could also be dark thoughts, those places of sin we desire to hide. Would anyone still love us if they could see into those dark rooms? Envy, greed, anger, pride, judgment, lust, just a few of the dark rooms of the heart.

As believers, we know light and darkness cannot exist in the same place. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit (and we are), how can we reconcile the existence of light and darkness in our hearts? We are not fooling God. He knows all about the dark places within, but yet we still try to hide those secret little rooms inside of us.

It seems our dark rooms constantly need to be discovered and broken open. The doors and windows must be opened to let in the light of God's love and forgiveness and let in the fresh, clean breeze of the Holy Spirit to blow away that which is wrong within us. God won't force the locks, we have to willingly open the doors ourselves so He can enter and clean out the dark rooms in our hearts.

Some of my dark rooms have rusty hinges because I have kept them locked tight for too long. It might be time to get some spiritual WD 40 to loosen the hinges so the Lord can go in and do His work letting light into my dark rooms.

Learning to Let Go

Forgiveness is almost a selfish act because of its immense benefits 

to the one who forgives.

Lawana Blackwell

I think one of the healthiest mental and emotional changes we can make is to learn to let go. Letting go of anger, hurt, old grievances and the past is difficult and sometimes even feels impossible, but can be the start of a new approach to life.

For me, prayer has been the only means of throwing off the load of stuff I've carried along the way.

It is even possible to arrive at the place where not only can I forgive, but can happily see the good things that resulted, not in spite of, but because of the hurts.

It is exciting to discover the joy and emotional release that can accompany learning to let go.


Welcome to the Blogging from A-Z April Challenge 2013. I'm aiming for short, entertaining and occasionally insightful posts. Topics addressing transitions are the goal . . . but we'll see.

Image: victorhabbick/freedigitalphotos

Submerged

Our mistakes have a way of coming back to haunt us even when we've changed.  Bailey Craig in Dani Pettrey's book Submerged discovered this the hard way.

Bailey was a wild child as a teen, sleeping with any boy who wanted her.  Abandoned by her mother, Bailey lived with her aunt in Alaska.  Despite her aunt's love and support, Bailey felt deeply wounded by her mother's abandonment and looked for love and acceptance anywhere she could find it.

She left wreckage in her wake.  Her first boyfriend, Cole, was one of those pieces of wreckage.

When Bailey's aunt dies, she has to return to Alaska to sell her aunt's business.  She dreads returning because she doesn't want to face Cole who was a good friend and she doesn't want to endure the knowing looks and unkind comments from others in the small Alaska town who knew the kind of girl she was.

The kind of girl she was.  Bailey's a new person now.  She became a believer in Jesus while she was in college and changed her lifestyle.  And now as a college professor and a Christian, she is respected by her friends and colleagues in Oregon.  Going back to Alaska to face her past is not something she ever envisioned doing.

After learning her aunt's death in a plane crash was not accidental, Bailey is compelled to stay in Alaska to unravel the clues her aunt left that can explain why she and several more people were killed.  The longer Bailey stays, she discovers that not only has God forgiven her for her past, but so has Cole.

Submerged is about transitions and forgiveness set against the backdrop of Alaska in the summertime.  Dani Pettrey weaves information about Alaska's Russian heritage into a contemporary story of murder, greed and power-seeking.  Not to mention skin-diving, treasure-hunting and the search for the last descendants of the Romanov dynasty.

Bailey is a complicated woman still filled with unhappiness and hurt. Although she knows she is loved and forgiven by God, she has difficulty accepting that love and forgiveness.  The character of Bailey is a person-type with whom many of us can identify.  Her struggle for wholeness is universal.
  
There are elements of predictable romance in the book, but by not brushing over Bailey's struggle with believing she is genuinely forgiven and a new woman in Christ and not providing easy solutions, Pettrey gives the book authenticity and weight.

Submerged is absorbing summer reading, not fluffy, and particularly interesting because of the focus on Russian Alaska history.  It is the first book in the Alaskan Courage series.  Pettrey introduces us to many other characters who I think will be the lead players in subsequent entries in the series.


Submerged by Dani Pettrey
Bethany House Publishers, 2012
Christian Fiction, 313 pages
Bethany House Publishers provided a free copy of Submerged for review. The opinions stated are my own.