Last weekend we celebrated thanksgiving in Canada. As a Jamaican, the concept of a thanksgiving day is still new to me but one I deeply appreciate. Gratitude is one of the things I speak about perhaps ad nauseum. It is a command (1 Thess 5:18) but more important is how much thankfulness is an awesome perspective shifter, emotional balancer and mental stress reliever. My point is thanksgiving made me pause to reflect on my marriage and how the shift from a long distance marriage to living in the same space was worth the wait. Lest I lose you because you don’t have context let me backtrack a bit and give you the Cliff Notes version.
In 2015, I lost my first husband and the biological father of my boys. In 2017, I officially started dating Carlton who I married in 2018, 6 months after I migrated to Canada. The filing process took us another two and half years which meant a long distance marriage and very little physical connections in between, exacerbated by all the stresses related to a pandemic. In January of this year (2021) he was able to join the boys and I. We have been navigating this new phase since then and can I tell you it’s been a school girl giggly, old soul deep kind of wonderful. Caught up? Good. Now to my thanksgiving reflection.
Our three years apart took us through a wide gamut of human emotions. We were happy to connect daily on video chat, angry that the process felt as slow as cold molasses dripping from the mouth of a jar too small for a spoon. We were sexually frustrated, annoyed that we couldn’t be in the same space physically and exhausted from having to be painstakingly intentional about connecting because we truthfully had to lead different lives. The interesting side effect though, is that we deepened our friendship in ways we would not have imagined we needed. We only had our words, so we had to learn to fight fair, to communicate, encourage, joke around and laugh hard. We learned to trust our intentions for each other and that we were doing what we said we were. We learned in the distance that love is a choice and to remain together we had to choose each other every day.
I think crucially though, we needed space to heal from our individual grief and traumas. I can only admit this in retrospect because we all have blind spots and neither of us saw it that way. I listened to a sermon recently that pointed out God loves me enough to say no. Ultimately, His goal is my growth into the image of Himself that I already am but haven’t discovered yet. Carlton and I each needed to discover things about ourselves and our relationship with God. God knew it and we didn’t.
As I reflected on this thanksgiving, I was grateful for this new phase in our relationship. I felt blessed for the steadiness of our vessel on the sea of marriage. I am grateful for the giddy waves and what feels like a trip to the beach most days. I am overjoyed by how we coordinate and work like a team. But what gives me the urge to scream hallelujah? The time when God said no and allowed us to be apart for three years because He knew we needed it. Selah.
I want to encourage someone today who is absolutely frustrated by the “no or not yet” season. I know you have heard it a dozen times and maybe right now if we were in the same space you would throw something at me. I get it. God loves you enough to say no. ‘For the Lord God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The Lord will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.’ (Psalms 84:11). So if it is withheld there is a greater, more important good that He is working out in our lives. Trust Him and don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. (Prov. 3:5 -6). God will reveal your “greater good” when you least expect it.
Write Fully Yours
Lady Kavan
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