and it was July the twelfth in two thousand and three and all the things in between

Like You never ignore those who cry out to you for help. Like You hold together oil and water for eleven plus years. Like you heal the misguided thinking of a very very young wife and mother. Like a running joke. Like a story too haphazard and disconnected to be cohesive and true. Like night and day. Still trying to mold and mix and shape them together to make one beautiful song. Like never quite finding balance. Like the fear that forces me back down the ladder to the high dive. Freezes me on solid branch perched above river. Like being an alien wanting to love a human. But trying. Always trying. Being thrust out and away to figure things out alone and with the still small voice. Like the pain of only being able to be held naked and vulnerable by a pure God embrace. Then moving on. Still moving on. Though wounds of slights still sting. Though the loneliness still separates. Though nothing, no not one thing, has come to us easily. And it's difficult grueling hard work. Though every minute is filled with a one with a need and sleeping alone beside you is a heavy weight on chest. Still there will be an effort to grow, somehow, to be one. One whole life out of two alien lovers. Dealt difficult hands. Pushing on to be okay with being okay. Pushing past the doubt and the worry. Like one small step forward and three steps back. Eleven years of working. Trying to talk though we speak each a unique and unintelligible  language. Like pushing to have an identity though all I am at times is wrapped up in you. Like not shutting out myself just to satisfy a shallow you. Like not shutting you out to protect a defiant me. But the hope of the good parts and the fruit of hard labors of love. The hope of one day fitting together as others enraptured in decades of love. That hope pushes walk forward to better times. Better times of you being you and me looking at you with all love and affection where staunch defensive me simply lets in you. And maybe that though all things feel at times a loss, that all things feel at times too daunting a thing to conquer, that maybe the three-fold cord will prove to bear fruit and bring apparently joined two into one. For smiling eyes and loving friendship. To unmentionable intimacy. To live beside, between, and together. To accept lightheartedly the oddity of us three. Unique beyond the minds of the reasonable. Confused and confounded at the socially acceptable. But standing still. Growing still. Developing on and maturing to grace. To be deeply in love. His perfect encompassing I AM. That we stand still unbroken in pieces, a miracle I marvel at. Over a decade of persistence in accomplishment to marvel at. Doing everything to do nothing but to allow generous Creator to take the fault and the blame. Leave to Him to be Himself. Mediating frustration code red. Stubbornly not to quit. Stubbornly not to walk out and away and out of. Though defenses push me there. Him to fix it. Him to smooth over. Miraculously answer deep calls in the night from depth of my deep. To answer and speak and move because He hears. He cares and He counts me worthy of all of Him. That I see, still in doubt and still unbelieving, that to fall deep into perfect Love's deep is to soften up to you and mend human slights. That I see that to allow You to love a broken pitiful me is to open up, yet again, to love with full power my also broken other half. That piece crucial and fractured. Just acceptable enough. To see Holy One's love and acceptance of heart. To sit in sweet peace of all that is ours out of control. That crazy life lived, began, and started too young might yet be a marvel to cherish and defend. And I blink and eleven years and four children have built us a kingdom. And willing unwilling we thrive, and unrestricted to thrive. And simple we two become a magical holy. And that you live daily at my side and me to sit daily in your presence transforms into a miraculous thing. And to sit and hold gaze with you a cutting force moving. That those years sit between us. That those children wander under foot and now almost at height. A wonder in speckled green alien eyes.