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[scionofgrace]

I did something really clever in preparation for Holy Week.  I read Perelandra.

It wasn't on purpose.  What was on purpose was listening to Handel's Messiah during Holy Week, as that oratorio was written for Easter (not Christmas), and anyway, every time someone started quoting Messianic passages (in church or online or wherever), I could only

Comments

[rj_anderson]

And there are times when your married friends, no matter how much they love their husbands and children, look on you and sigh a little at how free you are by comparison. Not that you don't bear your own burdens and struggles, not that your life is necessarily easier than theirs, but because you can make decisions to go and do things (within your means, of course) wherever and whenever you want to, whereas every decision for a married person is fraught with all these complications and logistical difficulties, and all the more so when children are involved.

And also because hormones, however compelling they seem when you're young and single, have a way of mellowing out or even outright deserting you later down the road -- especially once you have kids -- and no matter how loving and wonderful and attentive a husband you may have, there are days when intimacy seems like just another chore on the to-do list and frankly, you'd rather have that extra half-hour's sleep!

[scionofgrace]

Y'know what the hardest thing for me is, though: children are a legacy. We all want to make an imprint on the world, to better it in some way, and you can't get more concrete than raising a family well. I'm having to get over that, having never realized how far it had gotten into my assumptions. Go figure!

[izhilzha]

This is all very, very well said--and I say that as someone who has been where you are, and appreciated austerity (although I can't believe I never called it that!) while I was in the midst of it.

Man, I'm glad not to be there anymore, though. :) It's nothing to do with singleness as such, at all; but I'm having a hard time not being angry with my past self for, even while I enjoyed my life then, being so very withdrawn and fearful and unable to find prodigality within myself. Perhaps this anger is a necessary bridge between my past and my constantly-coming future freedom.

[scionofgrace]

Yeah, "oneself" is not necessarily the easiest person to forgive. *g* Hindsight is killer.

It seems somewhat unfair to have to go seek out prodigality, instead of having it handed to me, but then again, how many wives/mothers are in a wasteland of abundance? All of us must strive for the balance.

[ladymercury_10]

Oooh, Perelandra. I just read that for the first time this winter. I love C.S. Lewis a bunch. :)