He slipped his way into my morning coffee, and accidentally, he said, proceeded to spill onto pages of my morning reading.  Walk.  And now work.

The non-mom-voice keeps taunting me.  He did this when I was single, too.  Idiot.

Why don't you have babies yet? You've been married over a year.
Your clock is ticking. Your womb is wasting away.

At first I tried to ignore it, but somehow that only created deeper and more persistent taunts.

What's wrong with you?  What's wrong with your body?
Everyone else is.  And is wondering why you're not.

Feeling David-sized in my voice, up against a Goliath-sized pack of lies, I decided to attempt a response. 

You are wrong.  Your taunts and arguments are wrong. You clearly do not know my God.

Teary and uncomposed, I continued.

Today is my 20th wedding anniversary.

I married at a beautiful 21 year old girl when I was just 19 and we are still married today. In Hollywood years, we're the equivalent of Methuselah. I've spent more than half my life hitched.

As I look back and reflect, I realize how incredibly blessed I am. I dated a lot of girls and had a completely different version of the "girl I'm going to marry" in my imagination at that time. I think I was aiming for combination of Julie Andrews and the girl from that "Cherry Pie" video...but in a Christian version.

What I wound up with was surprising and beyond my wildest imagination.

I married a girl who twenty years later still surprises and interests me. I married someone with whom we don't need kids or context to talk.  (We know everything there is to know about the other person, and still enjoy each other's company). I married a beautiful girl who loves me. She's gives me unparalleled support, encouragement, and patience.

Time is something we all have in common. We spend it constantly - more than money, emotions, or fuel.  Some use it more wisely, while others throw caution to the wind, throwing it around like it is an inexhaustible resource.

My new year's resolution for 2011 was to let time be time -- to not arrive at the beginning of every month with a worried greeting of, "How in the heck did you get here?" The visitor of next month is one whose impending arrival I always anticipate, but it seems to become a more anxiety-filled journey as the year wanes on.  It feels like sand just slipping through my tightened grip.

This resolution has probably been the only one I have every kept.  As I was slightly caught off guard each month when March 28, July 30 or today rolled around, a gentle nudge caused me to pause and think, "Well, what did you expect? This is time; it's the same time amount you have been given every year and here we are on the precipice of November 2011.  It's happened before; it will happen again."  Okay. And I'm okay, I remind myself as I move through the hours before me.

Dumb question.

If the God of creation--the great Hebrew Yahweh who transcends time and eternity--can redeem my immortal soul from sin, I’m sure he can arrange for you to find a mate from the privacy of your own bedroom while you’re dressed in your 1996 sweat pants. 

Surely he can. 

But does He? 

In order to find out, I might need to examine the issue a bit more. If I were to follow the injudicious punctuation of actual Christian dating sites (It’s fast, fun, and FREE! . . . God’s will is waiting!!! . . . At Christian Date we believe in love before money!), I would surely discover that the ratio of members to actual hook-ups corresponds to the number of exclamation marks in their marketing campaigns. But I don’t think God cares much about punctuation.

Some families function like a slick ad campaign for successful Christian marriages: their histories boast the blessings of longevity and faithfulness. Other families are so speckled with dirt and dysfunction that God is nowhere to be found. But if you’re like me, you might find yourself surrounded by both.

I wish my family could have stuck with one story; it would make my theology so much simpler. If my Christian ancestors were twenty couples deep in 50+ years of happiness, then I could claim God’s promises to be true: that godly people are always blessed with strong, impenetrable marriages. Likewise, if my family boasted nothing but broken, banged-up fairytales, then I could claim without much opposition that the Bible’s mandates were nothing but an idealistic dream. 

But here I am this summer with multiple narratives in my head, none of them showing the kind of cause-and-effect I had expected as a child. 

            Almost twenty-three years ago, my friend Torry pulled me out of a Tijuana gutter. It would be the last gutter I would lay in. The next day was the first in a continuing two-decade journey into my sobriety. I spent that final night of intoxication sleeping at Torry’s parents. It was a place I had been inebriated many times before.

            Even as a self-focused, addicted teen, I knew something was different about Dick and Connie’s place. Whenever there, my life seemed to find more ballast. There was just something about the spirit of their home. There was something special about them together.

            More then anything, when I was there, I knew I was accepted. Conversations were never started with an ulterior motive.

Seven years ago, my wife and I were struggling. Things were dark and getting darker. The dance we had created during the first ten years of our relationship was no longer working.

            Things were magnified by the fact that we had just begun our life as missionaries in Australia. Ministry was thriving. Everyone was counting on us. That was part of the problem.

            That's when my wife hit me with one of the hardest, yet most life giving statements I have ever heard. It is in large part what saved our marriage. Karie said this, “You are my soul mate. You are the man I have committed my life to, I’m just not sure I can live with you.” And with that, Karie began to pack her and Lily our two-year-old for home.

It’s almost June, the month where Bridal magazines fly off the shelf and thousands will show up on our shores, a few friends in tow to have their long dreamed of wedding on the beach in.

I could make a lot of money just by performing wedding ceremonies for these people. After all, I live near the major tourist destination on Kauai and the inherent romantic beauty of the place begs to be enfolded into vows.

In fact, in the twenty years I have been performing weddings (that, I ask no fee for I might add) I have only done two inside of a church building, all the rest were on the beach or in some lush outside location.

To get into the economic gush all I would need to do is to make sure that I was on the list of the hotels and wedding planners, set a “price of paradise” going rate and ba-boom! my kid’s college tuitions would be paid for.

I just watched another marriage blow into pieces. Kids are involved, and I fear that they are at the age where the shrapnel from the explosion in their world will do the most damage.

There was no good reason for the pin to be pulled but pulled it was and the party wanting out of the marriage made sure to do so in a very strident and bloody fashion.

And I know what happens now: craziness.

The abandoned spouse, now temporarily stunned, sooner or later will feel the full weight of remorse, anger, guilt, mourning, emptiness, imbalance, fear and loneliness. The one who pulled the pin will at first feel euphoria mixed with guilt to be followed later by blame, loathing, anger mostly directed toward others.

Emotions will be raw, the hurt palpable, understood only by those who have experienced them.