It’s been a rough year. I hate that. I think back to last year, how I felt like life was just bubbling out of me, overflowing. This year has been harder. While there are many amazing things happening in my life. Lots of things have gotten harder too. Money has been difficult. Money that I had been counting on is no longer there. I don’t do well with financial insecurity. Everything feels balanced on a thin ledge. I feel afraid a lot.

Having Josh in my life has been amazing. He constantly proves to me what it’s like to be wholly loved. Loved because of my flaws, not despite them. I have a hard time getting used to it because I’ve never had THIS before. There are a lot of things that being in a relationship has triggered. And I keep finding damage that I didn’t know was there. Here I thought I was all healed and there’s a whole new layer to work through. I’m tired of working through things.

I’ve been panicking a lot. I don’t know exactly what’s happened between last year and now, but I’m not as good at trusting God as I used to be. I’ve lost my way a little bit. Maybe because really hard things have happened between then and now and I keep finding myself brace for impact, again and again. I feel so broken. I feel so afraid. I don’t have the luxury of the naivety that comes with doing a relationship for the first time. I’ve already done all of this and I know exactly how bad it hurts when everything falls apart. I know exactly what I’m getting into. I know exactly what I’m risking. That scares the hell out of me.

I don’t think I knew exactly how hurt and damaged my marriage left me. I was so fragile and hurt that all I could really focus on was surviving. With that survival came a newfound sense of independence and freedom and the euphoria that comes with it. I think there was also this sense of hope for the future that kept me going. Hope that I could do it again, but with someone who was willing to be as IN as I was. Hope that maybe being with that person would fix all of the external things that seemed broken. And really all I wanted, all I hoped for, was to get married again. I think I was looking to replace what I lost, fill the holes. Pick up where I left off. I was looking so desperately for redemption to make sense of all of that heartache and loss.

Now that I’m experiencing a bit of that longed-for redemption, I’m seeing that being in another relationship (even a healthy one) isn’t the saving that I needed. Josh isn’t here to save me. And Josh isn’t THE story. He’s just part of it. Being with him doesn’t suddenly fix the financial problems I was left to deal with. Being with him doesn’t cover over all the ways I was damaged. Being with him doesn’t replace what I lost, but instead gives me something different. Good, but different. I have what I so desperately hoped for for so long and, SURPRISE!, it doesn’t fix everything. Excuse me while I adjust my world view. But what being with Josh does do is slowly, surely prove to me that things can be different and better. That maybe, with him anyway, I don’t have to brace for impact all the time. Maybe, a few years in – like at year seven, things won’t go to hell. Maybe things will always be as good as they are now. Maybe, even when he doesn’t really feel it, he will always choose to love me. Maybe this is what redemption really is, slow and steady, proving and steadfast, patient and always, always there.

Maybe, like I’ve been telling myself all this time, Love really, actually is worth the risk?