It's Late...

Cliff's asleep and I just got home a bit ago from "Girl's Night" at Erin's. I've spent the last four hours in the company of women I have known for over six years, talking about anything and everything over good food and mellow background music.

And still, I feel such a burden. (I drank coffee at 9PM, so that doesn't help.)

I can't bear climbing into bed with my peaceful, sleeping husband right now because my mind and heart are a wreck. I'm thinking about conversations over the last couple of days about our country. About our families. About our disappointments. You know, the ones non-related to either the country or our families (like jobs, specifically). I'm just so sick to my stomach about it all.

Seriously.

I am fed up with opinions, even my own. I long for an age where truth, intellect, integrity, and (most importantly) love win out. Where people stop making decisions based on feelings or on trends. I wish people thought about what they did more often. I mean, before they act, if possible. So much in life could be prevented, really. So many mistakes. So many seemingly small missteps that lead you down a road you might never recover from.

I think about the world I want my kids to grow up in. I think about the man my husband is and how hard he works to provide for us and to plan and build for a future for our family. I think about how much I want them to know love and to give it freely, not depending on anyone else to teach them or to make them do it.

I think about the freedoms our lives have been afforded because of the sacrifices individuals have made. For our salvation - Jesus. For our political freedoms - our country's forefathers and our soldiers. For living - those who might have given up their dreams to bring us up and to raise us.

It's about more than bumper stickers and blog posts. It's about more than single-sided telephone conversations and our pasts. It's about so much more. And I hurt just thinking that so many people don't see that. They just don't.

I'm sure none of this makes sense together, but sometimes processing isn't like that. I don't think it's always supposed to make sense - life, that is - and that's hard. Sometimes you wonder what God is thinking when He ponders all of this. For the two of us, we try our best to make our home and our marriage a place that the Lord shows up even when it's hard to find Him when we walk out the door, turn on the TV, or goodness, just try to check our e-mail.

It's hard to remember, in times like these, what really matters. And maybe what matters most to us isn't the case for you or for the nation or the world, for that matter. And that's okay.

I just know that when I finally push "publish post", turn off the computer and the desk lamp, and slip into bed, that I will be enveloped in the most significant and beautiful reminder of God's goodness and of His love and of His presence in my life: my husband's arms.