There are just some things my husband cannot understand.  Like shoes.  Why in the world do you need so many shoes?  Well…that’s understandable I suppose.  No one needs this many shoes.  However…I don’t always understand why he needs so many tools!  Ah-ha!  Finally a correlation!  For every project great or small a run to the hardware to get some sort of gadget or gizmo or tool inevitably follows.  Thus is the same with every outfit situation…formal, semi-formal, business, business-casual, casual, wedding, funeral, party…I could go on forever.  I think I might be onto something here. 

This is just one way in which my husband and I have trouble understanding each other sometimes.  There are mostly small misunderstandings on the scale of importance…like shoes vs. tools.  I wish I could say they all have been however.  Sometimes I look at my love and think Why are we not on the same page?  It hasn’t happened often…but when it has the Lord reminds me of something.  My husband cannot fulfill me.

I always think of that line from the movie Jerry McGuire.  You complete me.  What a crock!  I’m sorry but if any man or woman thinks their spouse will totally and completely fulfill them they have another thing coming.  Mere human beings disappoint…they fail…miserably!  If we put our total and complete trust…our whole life…dependent on a human being we are setting ourselves up for disaster.  And if I believe what I say I believe then there is only one Person that can truly heal and complete me…my Lord.  In the same way my children, my career, my clothes, my shoes, my house cannot fill the God-shaped hole in my heart, neither can my husband fill it.

It’s hard to understand how the closest person on this planet to me…the one with whom I am one in the flesh…the one I’m living something better than a fairytale with…sometimes just doesn’t get it.   He tries really hard and does his best to put himself in all of my many shoes…yet still he can’t understand.  He would take this burden on pain in a heartbeat if only he could.  But then I remember there is One who always understands.   Even when I feel so alone…I am not.  He has been in my shoes…all of them…and He carries me in this life of pain I’ve been given to bear.  He holds my every tear and I take great comfort in that.  Knowing that makes me feel as though there is purpose in all of those tears of pain, sorrow…and even tears of joy and triumph…though I cannot see it.  I might be onto something here…

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.  Psalm 56:8 NLT