I drive the speed limit.

And I don’t like opening a package of crackers in the supermarket to feed my kids.  There is something in me that needs to pay for them first.

I’m a rule follower. I think it was bred into me.  Which is why my three years of breaking all the rules were so out of character for me.  At least for my personality.

I’d begun to press against the rules that I’d been raised with and in my blindness, seeing no immediate consequences, I questioned the validity of the rules.

Don’t drink.

Don’t flirt with men who aren’t my husband.

Don’t lie.

Don’t…

Nothing horrible was happening (yet) so what was the big deal?

The rule follower in me didn’t become a rule-breaker; she became a rule-questioner.  I wasn’t breaking anything if there wasn’t anything real to break because the rule only seemed real if their was a consequence.  My Evangelical upbringing had taught me that doing things like drugs or having sex before I was married would land me somewhere between hell and a really crappy life.  Here I was married and having an adulterous affair and nothing really bad was happening.  The consequences I thought would fall like an executioner’s axe weren’t falling.

What I’d failed to realize was that I shouldn’t do those things NOT because of the consequences (because in all truth, much of our life is lived without physical consequences) but because doing what was wrong would break relationship with God, and then eventually others.

It was about relationship.  Not about the rules. Because in the right relationship a person doesn’t really need rules.

Let’s just call it the rule of Love.  Jesus called it the Greatest Commandment.

If I love God and if I’m concerned about my intimacy with Him, then the more I want to please Him.  The more my life will look like a person who is in Love with their Creator.  And the more I will live in ways that are righteous and are in line with what we consider “rules”.  I’ll need the rules less as a rigid law because I’m focused on pleasing Him (and running everything through that filter). I will begin to do those things naturally that bring me closer to Him.

The same goes with my husband.  The more I love him, the more I want to be the right kind of wife and all the rules of submission and boundaries we’ve put in place (although important) begin to fade in light of my love for him. They aren’t nearly as important as how much I want to show him how much I love him today.

Rules? All of the other rules hang like a hat on a hook of the rule of Love.

What do you think? Are you a rule follower or a rule breaker?

I have at least six of my daughter’s toy horses in a bag with broken legs and hooves.

I have a sewing basket for needles, thread and homeless buttons.  I have a place on my desk for tape to mend unintentionally ripped coloring pages.  I have boxes of batteries to fix electronic toys that have made their last sounds.

I fix broken things.

I put bandages on three-year-old knees and use words to bind up little spirits who’ve been wounded.  [I do the best I can to fix those].

As a mother, I’m a fixer of the broken.

But today, tonight, I need a broken heart. In fact I’m looking for one.  And I don’t want to fix it.

I need a heart that breaks for the world: a heart that hurts for the lost, for the less than, and for the needy. I need a heart that is broken for the hungry, for the ones without homes and for the fatherless.

I want eyes that well up when I witness oppression or slavery, for war-torn families and famine-ridden land.  I want to break in half for the ones who are dying, who are starving, who’ve been victimized.

I need a broken heart.

I want to feel for the unloved, the unwanted, and the unneeded.  I even want to break for those that hurt and abuse, because they’ve been abused [and You love them].

I want You to ravage me, ruin me and destroy me for normal life.

I need a broken heart, one that

glue,

tape,

or words can’t fix.

Because only with a broken heart can I learn how to love.

Do you?

I just have to give it up that no one is going to love my kid as much as I do.

Not any teacher.

Not a sister.

Not even a grandmother or an aunt.

It’s just that way. I tell my oldest that I love her. And she asks, maybe testing, How much?

To the moon and back at least, Mama?

Yes, to the moon and back.  How about to Pluto and back?

That’s far.  How about to heaven and back, she asks.

(but she doesn’t know that heaven is closer than she knows).

And then I say to her, You won’t understand how much I love you until you have a little girl yourself.  And then you will see just what I mean when I tell you that I love you. Pluto, the moon, heaven…all of it is too close.

God gives a special heart to mothers and fathers.  One that looks past dirty diapers, flu symptoms in the middle of the night and possible H1N1 infection.  This heart doesn’t care about three-year-old morning breath or fingernails so dirty they should be clipped instead of scrubbed.  A parent’s love doesn’t worry about sweaty soccer shin guards or tantrums in the preschool classroom. They kiss the dirt in skinned knees and the picks up pieces of shattered hearts.

Love covers these. And makes up for them.  Love lives in the chasm between selfishness and selflessness.

When kids are loved like this, they are free to run and make mistakes and ask hard questions. They can cry and hurt and open little hearts to be healed.  My girls know that they are loved, they know that they are prized and they know that even if everyone else in life is against them, I will stand up for them. In this kind of love, there is a freedom.

This protect-at-all-cost love is the same that God has for us.

We test Him all the time, How much do you love me?

What if I do this?  Will you still love me?

And He says, Yes.

He looks past our grimy fingernails and our intentional sins.  His love covers our gossip and our hurtful words and the lies we tell.  He doesn’t take it personally when we forget to thank Him or don’t give our lunch to the hungry.

His love for us is like no other.  No husband or earthly mother can love us the same as He does.  His is fierce and strong and does not waver.  He never thinks twice about the cost of loving us, the people that damage one another and so often forget that we need someone to bridge our gaps.

Between our selfishness and selflessness.

Between bitterness and forgiveness.

Between anger and mercy.

His perfect love lives in the chasm for us.

How has God’s love “lived in the chasm” for you lately?

Because you will be tempted.

Someone will look at you in that way the same morning your husband didn’t thank you for getting up in the middle of the night with the kids.

Somebody will share their heart in a way that tugs at you and you’ll want to respond in kind.

You won’t always be in love with your husband.

You will get distracted with good things like kids and church and blogging.

You will be tempted.

And this title is a little misleading because I don’t really think you can affair-proof your marriage.  Not really.  By now, I hope you all know that we are fallible and vulnerable at times. It’s not like baby-proofing (because we all know babies who can climb over the gate at the bottom of the stairs) or fire-proofing (at a high enough temperature, something will burn or melt).

We all are capable.

All the boundaries are good things. They are what keep you from walking down a path toward someone else or another kind of life you think you want.  But boundaries are merely safeguards, not free rides to fidelity.  It is the heart is that truly matters.

So forgive me if any of you have given sermons or written books about 10 ways to affair-proof your marriage or the 5 things to keep your husband faithful to you. I’m sure there are some beneficial pieces of advice there.  But in all honesty I think it all boils down to one thing.

Follow close to Christ daily.

That’s it.  That’s the mystery.

Both of you. If you both are walking in close relationship to God, you will be in close relationship to each other.  If you are closely following Christ, attempting to allow Him to transform you on a day by day basis, you won’t want to be unfaithful to each other. There will be no need for it because Christ will be filling the needs you have and your spouse will be right there with you.  Daily dying to self and becoming alive in Christ is what does it.

Your desires become God’s desires. And you won’t commit adultery.

You can live your whole life trying to safeguard your marriage. You can do all the good and right things, but there will be someone someday (if it hasn’t already happened) who will think you are attractive and tell you so.  There will be someone who seems to know you better and listen in a different way.  There will be a need that your husband cannot fulfill in you and it will seem like someone else can.

When the boundaries that you’ve carefully placed become habits and the fences you’ve built become the necessary routine of your life, these temptations become easier and easier to combat.

But nothing takes the place of a living, breathing daily relationship with Christ. This relationship, this following hard after Him under girds all the boundaries you’ve put into practice. The boundaries are tools to a healthy marriage; they aren’t the heart of a healthy marriage.  Truly living for Christ is the only way to “affair-proof” your relationship.

All the boundaries, all the rules, are important. But love (for the two biggies: God and others) is the real rule.  Love God and you will do what is right for your marriage.

What do you think?  Do you agree?  Do you disagree? Why?

Let’s have a discussion today.

I think it’s just this stage of life.

Or maybe it’s just me.

We all come home from the places we’ve been.  We come in rough with the world on our hands, our hair and clothes smelling like everywhere else but home.

We each are a little whiny, a little tired, and a little dirty.

The girls throw off their shoes in a heap, pile backpacks in the corner and I unload the car from the day: empty water bottles, purse, phone, empty travel mug.  My husband explodes his keys/wallet/ computer down where ever he chooses and silently begins to go through the mail.

And we’re home.

And sometimes, the chaos doesn’t even stop when we step over the threshold.  It should, I think.  But then the wheel of home begins to turn and almost as quickly as I’ve rushed the girls through their day, it begins here.

Homework.

Laundry.

Dishes.

Pick up the toys on the stairs.

Bath time.

Bed time.

And somehow, even in the middle of the new chaos, the home chaos (because the only difference is that here it’s more familiar chaos than out there), we realize that we are in the only place that it all makes sense.  We understand each other here.  I look over at him with a half-eaten quesadilla in his hand that’s gone cold because he’s helping her with her math homework.  He smiles at me. We recognize the weariness in each other’s eyes.

And because of that the chores and must-do’s aren’t that bad anymore.  My disorganized bedroom becomes the scene of play for two bath-fresh, pajamed little girls.  The dining room table isn’t eaten on tonight but is the backdrop for 2nd grade book report projects.  Bottles of Elmers and child-sized scissors collect in the corner.

If I stop and watch, I can recognize the love through the crazy, the beauty through the hurry, and the familiarity through the mess.