I finished watching a movie called The Dark Knight Rises and was reminded that in all things, hope is a powerful tool. Misplaced, that hope is nothing more than an intention, and at best, a wish for a change in others. Faith, on the other hand, is putting my trust in someone that has made a difference in my life--. Christ is my rock, and the source of a power I will never understand in this life, or in His work in the lives of others. It is not my goal to undermine His will, and so I choose to renew my faith in Him, so He can continue to work in me. It is not so strange that I understand the struggles I'm going through, if only to build me up, strengthen my resolve to be a better me.
There is no denying that for a while now, I lost sight of my faith, choosing to circumvent Christ by offering my love to my wife, as a gift from God. As marriages are sacred, the love between a man and woman bound as one, the mystery remains, and I will always cherish the love I have for her. However, sometimes that isn't enough, not nearly, and shouldn't be confused with Christ's love, moreover, God's love. We don't see it until some tragedy befalls us, and then we turn our inner emotions on God, seeking blame, or praying for something. Instead, I will accept what I cannot change, that which I can, and understand the difference. To this end, I'm working, though still the old habits of bargaining with this rationale exist, I choose to see it for what it is--denial. It's a strange force that moves us from one state of mind to another, like a paradigm I built around an ideal, an earthly ideal at that. It was I could do for my wife, what God could do, but without God in the equation. Still, I tried and for all my suffering, I am stronger and wiser. To take away from His design, my own choices must accept what is, and make better choices than before WITH God in control. After all, control is an illusion. I learned that so many years ago in the military, that control is a paradigm of input and output, with the processor in the middle--individual free will. My wife made her choices and her output is not my fault, nor my responsibility. Sounds like I'm trying to intellectualize this, and you'd be correct. I see this entire fiasco, my attempt to manipulate my input to design an output of stability. It's not possible. The equation, itself, is not of my design. For had it been, I think I would have been able to make choices much sooner than now, instead of banging my head against a wall in a futile attempt to change her output.
My head hurts.