A Three-Word Prayer

My bff Barb tragically lost her son last week - but in a way I'm envious of her.  She and her husband are so close and this tragedy has brought them even closer.  It wasn't always this way.  They were separated for close to five years.  Living in separate homes, living separate lives.  I often lost patience with Barb for just waiting for him, praying for him to change.  After all, we all know that men don't change, right?!

During that time Barb was (still is) a Young Life leader.  She came up with the concept of a "three-word prayer" for her YL girls.  The idea was to think of something you really wanted, needed, felt led to pray about, and try to shorten it to three words.  Barb's three-word prayer during that time was "under one roof."  She believed.  And two, or was it three, Christmas's ago, when her husband asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she told him that she wanted to have Christmas, at his house, with the family, "under one roof."  She has been there ever since.

And the death of their son has brought them so much closer.  They are crying together, laughing together, praying together, talking together, staying up all night together.  They are together.

My husband and I are not together.  Oh sure, we live in the same house and sleep in the same bed but we don't talk together, we don't pray together, we rarely laugh together, and we rarely cry together.  A tragedy like the one Barb and Ron have been living through would tear us apart.  There would be blame.  There would be bitter accusations.  There would be no cleaving together. Now, remember, this is my p.o.v. and my side of the story and my feelings.  I don't know how my husband would feel.  But if I were left to my own devices, our marriage would crumble.  We are having problems with our son (see last post) and it's driving us apart.  I can't even imagine what would happen to us if we lost him.

I'm unhappy.  I don't know that we'll ever have the emotional intimacy that my therapist keeps talking about.  But my three-word prayer is this:  "Keep us together."  Please send it up when you think of me.