Reconnecting

For once, this post has nothing to do with Tyrus and everything to do with Ben and me. This blog has definitely taken a back seat to life in the last several months, as I've been forced to really hunker down and give all my spare time to finishing my Master's thesis and remaining classes. The good news is that it will all be over soon and life as we know it will fall back into stride.

I have so many updates from that new agency I told you about last fall to adopting to work changes, but tonight, I want to write about a little reconnecting that happened between Ben and me, last week.

The largest sufferer to my one-track school brain has been Ben. For nearly two years, my nights and weekends have been full of homework. So much so that I don't even remember the last time I grocery shopped or made dinner - Ben is super-hubby and does it all! So, when an opportunity came up for us to take an all-expenses-paid trip to Toronto for a long weekend, we jumped on it.

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this, here, before, but Ben plays in an all-Chinese worship band. The group sings in Mandarin and because they're one of only a few Mandarin Christian bands, they travel around to local church venues and hold nights of worship. The full service is in Mandarin.

It has been a really neat way for our whole family to step outside of our comfort and culture and join the Chinese in theirs. Sometimes there's translation available for me, sometimes not. But, worship is worship...in any language.

Well, Ben's band got asked to tour with a very popular Chinese artist, Amy Sand, who currently travels the globe, proclaiming Jesus in Mandarin.  This tour happened to be in Toronto, where Ben and I honeymooned, nine years ago.

We left Ty at home with our best buds and set out for a weekend together. Ben had four evening performances (three of which I stayed back and did homework), but we were able to enjoy our days doing...whatever we wanted! Funny enough, we spent a lot of time sleeping (apparently we don't do much of that back home), but also took in a lot of the city and its life.

It was so good to be away. We talked and laughed and spent hours over dinner, reminiscing. One of our free nights we went to see the hit Broadway show, Billy Elliott (seriously, the best show I've ever seen) and there was a scene where Billy (who's 14) shares a song with his dead mom. He finds himself in a hard place in life and she comes back to encourage him. The song (The Letter) tore us to pieces. The chorus sings:


And I'll have missed you growing,
And I'll have missed you crying,
And I'll have missed you laugh.
Missed your stomping and your shouting,
I'll have missed telling you off,
But please Billy...
Know that I was always there

The little boy that played Billy looked just like Ty should look, twelve years from now. The first time they sang through the chorus all I could think about was how terrible it would be to miss out on Ty's life and then by the second chorus I realized that Rebekah was. Hearing the words through her view was enough to make me cry like a baby.

I was in a week-long state of reflection, while there. The Ben and Rebekah that honeymooned in Toronto nine years ago were so different from the Ben and Rebekah that worshiped with the Chinese, this time. Of course, we feel older, wiser, more mature. But there is something else we felt there.

Bonded.

It was almost like life had come full circle, in a ten-year-kind-of-way. The last time we visited it was via train. I remember stepping outside of the train station and looking Ben straight in the eyes...it felt like we had the whole world hinged on our love and that we were about to take the first step toward our bound-for-perfection future.

It's amazing how much life you live in ten years. How much hurt and devastation can overshadow so many of those years.  But then one shining soul comes along, makes your world right, and allows you to see all the good, again.

When I looked at Ben in front of the train station, last week, I saw less of our future and more of our love. God has guided us through many peaks and valleys in our marriage and I don't know whether it's age or experience, but the longer we're together, the more peace-full I am.

Looking at Ben in the shadows of a big city, this time around, gave me deep admiration for the man he is and the marriage we have. It was so good to reconnect and dream... Our dreams for the next ten years are so different than the first ten. We were selfish then. It was all about us and our plans and our ambitions. Thank you God! for the revolution that's taken place in our hearts. Our family will never be the same.

It's pretty exciting to think about anniversary twenty...I know our story is just getting started.