sliding doors, I guess.

So my friend Mandy asked me a question in the comments section that I thought about answering in the comments section.

I know, novel idea.

But then I didn’t want any of your computers to blow up because I had surpassed the amount of words allowed in one comment box. And it’s a doozy of a question (which I totally welcome; I guess by now you’ve figured out that I live my life on the more open side of things. Although I don’t know how I could have pretended that there wasn’t an explosion–not when everyone heard the sirens and saw the smoke and the burning building, anyway. And wow, but that’s a long parenthetical statement. Let’s make it just a little bit longer by saying that I had cheesecake tonight, too. And nope, that’s not relevant at all but it did make the parenthetical statement longer, so check).

Deep breath.

Now what was I even saying?

Oh right.

I was talking about this question, asked by my dear friend Mandy Hornbuckle:

I do wonder that sometimes, Jess – If you had it to do over, knowing what happened, would you have still married him?

And I have two answers for this, I guess. I have the clear and obvious choice. That is, if someone told me that this person would end up not at all being the person he presented himself to be; that he would lead a double life which would finally culminate in a devastating affair–not just devastating to me, but to others that I love as well–and then this person proceeded to be like, So…whaddaya think?

I think I’d be like, hahahahaha good one, but thanks anyway.

But then I think there might be a deeper answer, less obvious, but no less true. I think about how my brother and sister-in-law miscarried a child and how sad that was and how we all wept for the life that was lost to our family. I think about how wrong it felt, how nobody could tell us that his little life was better spent far from the arms of his parents.

But then I see my nephew Ollie and I cannot begin to describe the kind of brilliance he is. He is a light and I love him fiercely. When I was out there with Latshaw-WEST during my darkest night of the soul, so to speak, he was the earth and sun and moon to me. He woke me up one night, just to give me midnight kitheth and I cannot begin to tell you how special that was. He wrote a report about me in which he told his teacher that he loves everything about [me]–and after the words I’d heard from another source, those were healing, to say the least. He is a beautiful boy and my point is that I cannot imagine life without him and the greater point is that if Jason and Darby had not miscarried, there would be no Ollie to give me midnight kitheth or to light my world.

And this blows my mind. I don’t understand how to reconcile it, but I do know that I am grateful for Ollie. I also don’t believe in living in a world of what if’s; rather, I think reality has a grace and redemption that is full enough so I’d rather just look around and see it for myself right in front of me, if that’s alright.

I recently told a dear friend that I am not going to apologize for my life. Because see, I’ve thought about doing just that for a while now–well, ever since it’s changed so drastically. I suddenly was constantly feeling like the nervous host whose guests drop in unexpectedly and look, there’s the dirty laundry piling up and over the clothes basket; there’s the carpet faded and dingy and the blinds covered in dust. And here I am apologizing the whole time and nobody can get a word in edge-wise.

But see, my life–it’s complicated, maybe. Surprising, definitely. But it’s not dirty. I think I can see that now. And I am pretty sure–positive, actually–that someday I will tell people my story and I will talk about the indelible threads that connect this pain with the beauty that has sprung forth since.

And so maybe if that same someone who I quoted earlier as saying that Drew would end up not at all being the person he presented himself to be; that he would lead a double life which would finally culminate in a devastating affair–not just devastating to me, but to others that I love as well–and then went on to say that afterwards I would experience a life that I never could have imagined, a beauty of which I never could have conceived…Well, that would probably change my answer considerably.

And no, I don’t think that it’s God’s design to make marriages suffer and people do terrible things to each other. But I do think that God brings beauty out of ugliness, joy out of pain; and that maybe someday I will say this beauty is so great and this joy so much better than I’d hoped, that all the terrible stuff was worth it to get here.

Though I am not sure I would have had the strength to choose what happened–it was that terrible. But at the same time–it did. All of it. And like I said, I cannot change it–but I am not sure that I even would now, because what if that changed some of the truly great things that have happened–and shall continue to–in the wake of the storm?

So, like I said–a doozy.

And so very hard to understand or even reconcile within my own mind.

But here’s to trying, I suppose.