I was reading a book the other day (I read a lot.) and one of the lines when a certain character was being described was that "He left a long time ago. One day he came home... with a wife!" After a little over two years of traveling and learning, and it being well over a year since I've been home, I'm in a unique position where I've had a culmination of experiences surrounded by other cultures, being met by the Lord in different ways, and plenty serving opportunities gone and passed. While Europe isn't that strange in comparison to the U.S, it is so historically rich that sometimes I laugh at how pitiful ours is. That's not to say a lot hasn't happened, but things started to happen on this side of the continent long before the 1600s. I've been growing my view, reading, and experiencing a lot, and yet I know that my view is still very small. Lately, this is an internal resource I've been investing a lot into, and investing a lot into it has reminded me how much I value objectivity.
These days I'm living a much different life than I was a few years ago. A few years ago I had no idea how married I would be and had no plans of being as married as I am. I didn't know or have any frame for what commitment really was, I slept around with people I thought I liked, partied a lot, enjoyed music, and just kinda floundered through life. People ask me how many jobs I've worked, and normally I have to count, but that is always a struggle. I was thrown this way and that by the wind and waves, never fully able to get myself up. Today I believe that I'm supposed to affect the outside world more than it affects me, that I'm supposed to walk in the highest form of authority, and in royalty. I believe that authority starts with commitment, righteousness, and submission. Then, I would've flinched at these words. Now I celebrate them. One paradigm I'm still working to adopt is that there's usefulness in every part of our lives. I know this and have seen it with my wife, even with extremely painful things that have happened to her. Looking at my life, I'm not so sure that I know it for myself. I still see my actions and habits and ask "but was there a usefulness to that?" I simply see them as big mistakes. Sure they could instruct me on what 'not' to do. However, I desire to see them in the light of "what else could be useful here?".
We all went to school with him, even in those days he was a bright kid, severely undermotivated, but still enjoyable. The librarian and English teacher always had compassion for him because he devoured books and literature, but his mind always seemed elsewhere when the class just got to be a little boring. For what he lacked in skill at concentration, he didn't seem interested in making up for it anywhere else. When we all graduated, I would wonder what he'd get himself up to. Where his life took him next though was a shock - I think even to him. He came home one day with a wife on his hip and a light in his eyes. He seemed to know that someone was proud of him. I nodded, and that was good enough.
a.w hughes