Saturday, May 02, 2009

Thoughts on my husband: Part 2


For Part 1, please go here.
Before I continue, let me make a few clarifying remarks.
Lest you think that my husband had hoodwinked me into marrying him by not disclosing his theological beliefs, please know that he tried at least once before we were married to explain the differences between himself and at the time, my mother. I however, did not see any significance to him carefully explaining that he did not view free will in the same way that our church upbringing taught. My response to his revelation was probably like, "Oh, really, huh. Tell me again how long your mother has been doing home daycare?" Talk about not having a clue and that was me.

As I moved quickly through my reading material, I was eager to learn all I could about this new way of understanding the Bible. My husband patiently explained difficult passages and nuanced words while I came across verses I had never even read. It was an unbelievable time for learning for me. And now I was uniquely tied to my husband since my family and home church were not of the same theological persuasion. Within months of me coming to understand the Bible the way he and his family did, we both became dissatisfied with staying in the church denomination we were raised in. With our son still an infant, we left the Plymouth Brethern denomination and found a church plant that was Reformed Baptist in the city. We stayed there for half a year until the church was disbanded. We immediately found another Reformed Baptist church in the next town and fell in love with the church family. Today it is still the church we consider home, despite having moved away three years ago. Shane is held with high regard and appreciation there as he spent time teaching the adult Sunday School class and training as an elder. Our journey together as a married couple has been so closely intertwined with our changes in church life that I feel we have been married much longer than our actual date.
To say that my husband has taught me more in the last almost seven years of our marriage than my parents, church or Christian school is not an exaggeration. We have discussed every theological issue under the sun together and while we both still have a couple of areas we are not completely decided on, we share agreement with every topic. Yet somehow I have never felt the pressure to conform to his views just merely because he was my husband. I see now a definite gift of discernment in him that many other men lack and because of this I trust his opinion on these topics, which brings me to another realization I have made since marrying Shane.
I look to Shane for my sense of what is right and balanced in areas like politics and government, Christianity and science, secular worldviews, the media, etc. When I read or hear something, I have noticed in recent years an involuntary filter that asks, What would Shane think about this issue? I think the reason I have started to do this(and now it's more habit than anything) is because my ability to think logically, rationally and biblically was so stunted and immature that I needed to learn how to think. And when I look back over my growing up years, I see so many marks of immaturity and wrong-headedness that I am both shamed and thankful for being rescued from that state of mind. Not to say that I have arrived, but I can tell that I have learned how to evaluate the truthfulness of what I hear, read and see in the short time since we have been married.

To be continued...

Photo: Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, newlyweds visiting Shane's grandparents

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous8:33 PM

    What a learning experience this is!!!!!

    SB

    ReplyDelete

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