So I couldn’t sleep because of all the crazy and hurt and stressed-out feelings I was feeling inside. They were churning within me like a frustrated hurricane, and there were tears and snot and sadness.
I didn’t know how rough things would be in General Surgery this month and next. I don’t know where we’re heading for missions. I don’t know how much longer I can cope with work and doing chores at home and working on my research projects. I don’t know if we’ll get the chance to go on a mission trip together this year. I don’t know when our parents will say okay to us getting married. We were both facing a lot of pressures from adjustments and events that had happend of late. And I’ve been too tired from work, with too many thoughts in my head.
Sometimes, there were conflicts. But we never resolved them without growing closer to each other and to God.
As a woman, being allowed to be tender and open is a precious, beuatiful thing. But that can be a scary thing, something that some men are afraid of because it means facing a woman who is authentic and honest. Someone who may seem too sensitive, too fickle, too sentimental, too tearful. But few things are more beautiful than a woman who is truly tender, open and vulnerable, I think. A woman whose man allows her to be truly intimate and truthful on a deeply spiritual level. And I guess, I’m just so thankful, for you always listening, so patiently. So thankful, for someone who understands the value of and does not fear conflict, someone who is brave and man enough to want to understand tears and ask the loaded question, “Do you want to talk about it?”, someone who isn’t afraid of wading through the marshy swamps of disagreement to come to the dry land of resolution.
And on a sleepless night such as this, I get the sweetest picture and message from you saying, ” I hope when we get married, I can be that brown bear.”
Thank you, Brown Bear.
‘When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn’t make the darkness go away.
The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking.
When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better.
“It’s all right” we whisper, “I’m here, I love you.”
and we lie: “I’ll never leave you.”
For just a moment or two the darkness doesn’t seem so bad.’
– Neil Gaiman