I have been acutely aware, our whole marriage, that at some point, it would be Dave and me stuck with one another, all alone.  Honestly, there were times I couldn’t imagine what that might be like–or that I would enjoy it.  When kids were little, them being big enough to leave home seemed far, far away.  When they were in high school and sports and I was running the retreat center, there was little time to consider the fast approaching reality.  As one after another married or moved out of our home, reality begin to dawn, but there was always someone returning or around.  Of course, Joel has been at home all along, but even he, now is mostly independent of us, even living in a house together.

Sticking with the idea that we married for the long haul has been a silently agreed on nonnegotiable.  As I branched out professionally, as Dave created and led, as we changed and moved and changed again and moved again and travelled and discovered more of who we are, we have invested in one another and in our marriage.  We have always agreed that we are one, even as we have explored and grown as individuals.

Sticking together for appearance is a reason to stay married, for a while.  Sticking together to accomplish certain milestones is a reason to stay married, for a time.  Sticking together out of habit or from the lack of energy or creativity to do anything else will work, until it doesn’t.  Staying married for the kids’ sakes, or for the convenience, or to pay lower taxes, or to avoid the stress of moving are all reasons that will be too thin, eventually.

Making one another a  better person by listening and trying ideas and dreams is a reason to stay married.  Setting the example of working through hurts and disappointments is a gift to our children and a fine reason to stay married.  Recognizing that the vows we made were before God and carry mutual responsibility with eternal weight is a reason we have stayed married.  Believing that this person is worth sticking with because he has proved he loves me, even if he (and I) is imperfect, is a wonderful reason to overlook the annoyances, the disappointments, the inconsiderations, the stresses, and to stay married.

I’m grateful that we managed to find reasons to stick with it.  Some years, I would not have bet on us.  We had our times of seeming far apart emotionally and intellectually.  But we had good reasons to stay together.  In consciously staying together, we were investing in the longevity of our marriage.  Now, we are benefitting from the comfort and familiarity that comes from sticking with it.

Now, we are back in east central Illinois.  Never would have though it, but it has proved to be an excellent decision.  I was especially surprised to find that moving back here felt like coming home.

So, we are settled into a small bungalow, considering Joel’s desire to become independent (another blog on Joel’s valiant life in PA).  Dave took some time off to faciliate the sell of our condo in Bucks County and the move back to IL.  He has become a marketing work horse, both with his Authentic Copper Canyon guide business and my Real Estate business.  He has also taken on a new hobby of cooking (mainly Nortneo food).  He and Joel do most of the shopping while I focus on becoming one of the best examples of a Buyer’s Agent possible and continuing to use my talents in coaching.

2010 did not start off easily.  We moved.  I started a new career/job/life in sales as a Realtor in the office I once was in charge of.  Dave needed to back up a bit with Mexico travel to see what becomes the political situation that falsely stirs up fear of travel there.  We sold most of our furniture.  I lived with Anne and Zac for 8 weeks, waiting  for the remodel and sale of the condo in Doylestown.  Finally, though, I flew to PA, we loaded the trucks, we drove 13 hours, we unloaded the truck…..and I broke my arm.

Now, a broken arm is not the end of the world.  It was actually pretty interesting.  I fell, knocked myself out (tripped over just-moved-in “stuff”, landing on a mop handle), and then came to with a floppy arm.  Since I was running to the phone to keep from waking Dave, I tried to figure out what was wrong with my arm…..my hand worked, but my arm didn’t.  Finally, I woke Dave and told him I thought I had hurt my arm. 

“Maybe it’s out of socket…..pull on it to get it back in.”  Dave did pull—heard a crunch and said, “Ewwww.  Put some pants on, we’re going to the hospital.”  (This from a man who was hard to convince to take me to the hospital when I was in labor.) 

Sigh.  Fractured humerus.  Appointment with surgeon 4 days later.  Surgery 2 days after that.  Another sigh.  Then awake to “radial nerve palsy” and limited use of my left hand and wrist.  Welcome to your next new life.

So now, 2.5 months later, the surgeon has proclaimed my fracture (plated and screwed back together) healed.  I am typing with aid of a device made of plastic and metal and rubber bands that I am thankful for, but a little unnerved by.  I have learned to hide my limitations when prudent.  There are 6 real estate transactions to my credit.  We had our first lead from the new website Dave has made for me.  And we are enjoying rediscovering ChamBana.  And The Woods. 

So, lots to blog about.  Joel’s adventures in PA.  Our little piece of Vermilion County heaven.  Enjoying having Wilson and Anne stop in.  Dave’s profound sense of joy.  My own reflections on the past 2 years.  Returning to a place you thought you had left forever. 

I think I am ready for a return to transparency.

He made a place for himself.  It required building shelves and renting a storage unit, but he fits.  While he was gone, I commented that I have too many clothes.  He, very considerately, responded, “You always look very nice.”  When he was here, fitting into the limited closet space we have in a two-bedroom condo, he, more in character, said, “You have too many clothes.”  Perspective is everything.

Dave has been in Mexico now for two weeks.  He will return tomorrow for a long stay….until the first of the year when he has trips to guide to Copper Canyon.  Yesterday, I was on the phone to Mexico, contacting a new friend and possible guide for Dave’s business.  That was really fun!  I can’t wait to go south for a trip.

So, beginning Wednesday, we have to figure out how to live together again.  This time it is more than doing a bunch of tasks in a limited amount of time.  Now, we are ready to settle in and find our way. 

We are ready to be together again.  There is lots of building to do–a kitchen and two bathrooms, new relationships, new memories, our businesses.  And, building further on the 35+ years we have spent together.

One of the younger of the crowd pulled me aside and, very seriously, asked me to tell him what “really happened” in Champaign to make Dave resign from pastoring.  I was glad to disappoint him by not having any juicy, “real” story.  The story hasn’t changed.  We were ready to go, we were free to go, and we went.  So simple that it must be complex. 

So here it is again.  Dave did not burn out and I did not burn out on ministry.  Dave did not have an affair nor did I  have an affair.  Neither of us is seriously ill.  We are not running away from debt or scandal or fears or relationships or responsibility or flat, corn-filled landscapes.  We simply were ready to move.  Now, we are in a new environment to continue growing into all God created us to be. 

I have no question about the wisdom of my move to Bucks County.  I have no secrets from my time alone here.  Dave is happy today in the mountains of Colorado, he just told me, but ready to leave there.  I don’t think he has any secrets, either.  And no question about his decision to spend the summer at Bear Basin Ranch.

So, the real story is that we are still, very simply, who we are–committed to sticking with our promises to God and to one another.  Committed to not assuming that the way things are is the way they will stay.  Committed to learning and laughing and leading while being sanctified.  That’s the real story, no lie.

A few mornings ago, I was getting dressed and looking around the closet in our bedroom, and it dawned on me that there is not much room to squeeze another person into our condo.  It actually did go through my head, “Where will we put him?” 

Joel and I are doing great in our small but adequate condo.  We have an unspoken schedule that works for us.  We see one another every evening…I get home around 5:30 – 6:30 and we either grill out or comment on what the other is thinking of eating.  We always check the Cubs score online.  Sometimes, we walk up town to eat or to get water ice.  I tolerate Joel’s television watching that involves a lot of Power Rangers and Avatar.  He tolerates my internet and freecell focus and doesn’t mind me disappearing out on our balcony to read.  On the weekends, we go somewhere.  Yesterday, it was the shore.  We have been trying restaurants around Doylestown once a week or so.  We still have the Philly zoo and a train ride we are talking about. 

I need to begin to consider just how we are going to assimilate Dave into this low-key and simple existence we have settled into.  Of course, Dave will only be here a week or so before he heads out to Mexico wtih Bob Strong and a group of his, so he will probably feel like he is just visiting us! 

It’ll be good to have Dave home here in Pennsylvania.  There are PA license plates on my car and I have a PA car title and inspection completed.  This is home, now.  And, after 35 years, that means I will need to not just find a place to put him, but to welcome him here and absorb him into life as I have come to know it and adjust to life here with him.  Things will change and that is good. 

Wow.  There is a lot that I have experienced apart from Dave.  People I know who he doesn’t.  Ways to get places that he will have to figure out.  Habits I have settled into and preferences I have formed.  A connection and at-home-ness that I feel in Doylestown and all of Bucks County.  It hasn’t even been four months, but I have made the adjustment.  If we could remember the vows we made to one another back there in Austin, Texas in August of 1973, I imagine something we promised would cover meshing into a new life here.  Just like it covered allowing the separate pull to Colorado. 

We’ll find a place to put him!

I went to Colorado and saw the mountains and rode the horses with Dave for our 35th celebration.  (Actually, I rode horses once with Dave and once with others….strangers…..and I think Dave owes me for that one!  He probably doesn’t, though.)  We took a long walk up a mountain and sat in the steambath and and planned and considered and weighed options.  After three days, we settled in on plan.  Now, Dave is free to enjoy the mountains and the horses without distraction from opportunities.

Recently, a new friend quizzed me a bit about Dave.  Out here in PA, no one knows Dave and just have to take my word that I have a husband.  It was nice to have someone ask questions about my husband and our relationship.  Sitting on the deck with roasted chicken and a glass of wine, it was good to consider how I would describe our marriage to someone who told me she “doesn’t know much about evangelical Christianity.” 

Dave and I are comfortable with one another.  We have deep respect and trust for one another.  We are truly connected and going forward together to a future that is full of hope…and reality.  I like having someone know me so well that when I describe something that happens to me, Dave puts it into a perspective that knows what else I have experienced.  Though we are able to be apart right now, we miss each other.  Though no one should describe our relationship as romantic, we love each other.  Though we have weathered much challenge and disappointment in the past 35 years, we are committed to one another and our marriage and are happy to be together.

Sticking together is the point.  My mother-in-law, Aletha, used to write us letters and describe evenings when she and Paul would sit by the fire with their cat, Big Sur, in their laps.  No one in the family really believed her, since no one had ever seen her sit still for more than 5 minutes.  I don’t ever remember seeing her and Paul being affectionate with one another.  But, I understand that with kids out of the house, with farm responsibilties lessened, and with many years of sticking together, they had a familiarity that afforded some nice nights in front of the fire.

I’m glad to have gone to Colorado, even though it was expensive and I don’t really get that Rocky Mountain high from the mountains like my husband does.  I’m glad to have been a good sport and to have worked hard and gotten dusty participating in my husband’s cowboy job.  I’m glad we have stuck together and have another who knows all the experiences of the past 35 years so that we can go together strong into the 36th.

Postscript:  I don’t have photos of the trip.  Just like on our backpacking honeymoon to the mountains, Dave takes pictures of mountains, not people. 

I was not sure I was going to go to Colorado.  It is a long trip.  Four hours on a plane and then at least two hours in a rental car.  I mentioned the conveniences that will be missing.  If I was concerned about the expense before, now that I planned it only two weeks in advance, the cost is even more.  I am in a relatively new position and taking a long weekend away could seem frivolous.  And, most important, while Joel is more than willing to have me go, I have to be concerned about leaving him alone in a new place.  But, bottom line, this is a way to express to my husband of many years that he is still the most important human relationship I have. 

I feel like I have less time in Pennsylvania than I had in Illinois.  I keep the same basic schedule, but it feels like less.  I think I feel like I have less time because I have to do more stuff.  There is no shared burden here….I pay the bills, I hang the pictures, I install the blinds and choose the drapes, I take the garbage out, I do the laundry, I fill the car up, I manage the bank accounts, I do the paperwork for Joel’s benefits, I replace the lightbulbs, in the house and for the headlight of my car, I shop for groceries and prepare meals….There are a lot of menial tasks that I am used to sharing and now, for them to get done, I do them.  I have been aware, in the past, of Dave’s love language of “acts of service.”  He does a lot when he is around.  I will appreciate them more when he returns.  It’s nice to miss my husband in terms of ways he shows love in a daily, practical way. 

Sharing life is what marriage is all about.  Whether it is sharing the work load or sharing experiences, sharing responsibility or sharing our bed, giving and receiving is the crux.  Dave is going to be here in October to share my new life.  He will learn to find his way to lower Bucks on Swamp Road, just like I have.  He will meet the people I have met.  He will come to the shore and try water ice and ride the train to Shea and see the Cubs play at Citizens Bank Park and take Joel to eat at the Other Side and work out at the same YMCA I do. 

I should go and share Dave’s beautiful mountain morning sunrises and horse rides into the Sangres.  I look forward to experiencing West Cliffe’s western flavor and hearing the story one more time of the cowboy on horseback who road into town looking for a shot of whiskey.  I want to share the sadness of the exact spot of the lightening storm and I want to meet the people who wrangle horses and guide packing trips with him.  It is important that Dave get to share his mountains and his cowboy life with me.  I’m going to the mountains next week.

And, if it is really true that we are wired to have personality and behavioral tendencies from conception.

And, if it is really true that God is in control and loves us and gives us exactly the experiences and circumstances that He knows are best for us to be able to bring Him glory with our lives.

Then, there is an amazing internal and eternal work going on in the lives of Dave and Debbie Hensleigh.

I reminds me of a time back in 1977, when we had just confirmed that Luke was in utero and I was understanding spiritual growth in a new and transforming way.  I am very aware of a work of the Spirit in the deepest recesses of my heart.  I look the same on the outside, but on the inside, I am different. 

I think differently.  I know myself in a more defined and clear way.  I see freshly that God has made me and claimed me and designed me for His own specific reasons.  On purpose for a purpose.  Just as I have believed and known up to this point–now I am growing more convinced daily.

From my distant and removed perspective, I see the same happening with Dave.  

Tonight, after interactions at work, watching Lifechurch’s first movie message, and watching my very first Beth Moore Bible study, several things are crystal clear to me.  Mostly, that God is not done with us.  This time is good for us to see and consider and clarify.  He is in control.  He has the plan.  We want no other.

Pondering is good for the soul.  These are good days of pondering.  Tonight, this is what has floated to the surface of my pondering….”If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

This morning, since I have these extra hours that are wonderful and quiet, I have been online.  I usually just use the internet for basic, quick information.  I’m good with googling words (like frass) that are new to me (carpenter ants at my office).  I have learned to prefer Googlemaps over Mapquest for directions (even in Bucks county).  Finding my way to wordpress and my husband’s blogs and looking up the value of the a house Isaac is looking at in Phoenix on zillow (not really a reliable source of actual value, by the way) are second nature.  This morning with extra time, I have learned that I was probably right last night at a new friends’ garden in my diagnosis of deer eating the tops off their tomato plants (and if the whole family will go out and pee in the yard, it is a good, organic way to ward off the culprits).  

But, with extra time today, I found a friend’s blog I didn’t know existed.  That led me to a podcast by Patrick Lencioni on Catalyst, which I will find more about later.  I’m reading “Death by Meeting”  right now, so was completely interested in the very organic and personal interview.  Lencioni has a new book out and I will read it.  But his sidebar discussion on the Law of Thirds  was succinct and practical….in fact, will be very practical for me to use this next week.  Lencioni’s unbiased perspective on the scariness of the lack of leadership in all (Hillary was included) of the Presidential candidates was chilling.   I have no idea at this point of how to link that podcast with this post (the next time I have surprise extra time, maybe that will be my learning of the day), but you can probably find it.  Try googling “Catalyst” and search for Lencioni?  Let me know if that works!  (thanks, bill for the convenient link at your site.)

So, the thoughts from that podcast and the reading I am doing and the introspection resulting from my post last Sunday have me in a very sound place, mentally, this morning.  I have a purpose, I have goals, I have gifts and skills and a unique ability that I am understanding and defining.  I am in an environment that I am beginning to trust enough to shed insecurities that in the past have held me back from contributing all that I have to offer.  This week has brought offers of relationship, inquiries for service, ideas for contribution to others’ success, opportunities to invest in the eternal nature of people around me.  Mindset is pretty much everything.  Circumstances are thin.  Time passes.  Things change. 

A solid base for world view and reason to live is all I need to make a huge difference right where I am….even though I miss my husband.

What I miss is face-to-face conversation.  I talk to people all day long in my job.  Joel is here when I am at home.  I can talk to Dave, as well as our kids and Bunny and Tamara and Sharon and Sara and others on my phone.  But I have had almost no “let-me-get-to-know-you” conversations here.  I can count them….dinner with one of the men I work for and his wife right after I got here, a meeting with the pastor in his office, coffee with a woman on staff at the church who was responding to my offer to volunteer, one of my coaching appointments where the client (destined to become a friend, I think) asked me direct and interested questions about myself, a good connection with someone at a dinner party.  All this, in two months.

I am a willing and able participant in relationships.  I bring much to the table.  I am interested in learning and growing from hearing others’ journey experiences.  I love to have others learn and grow from knowing me.  I am a generous and kind (and, granted, opinionated) woman with much to offer.  Yet, no one seems to be interested in me as a new potential relationship.  This seems very strange to me. 

Dave and I have always been others-oriented.  Maybe that has, occasionally, held us back in our own personal lives and ambitions, but generously giving other people time and money and a place to be when they need it is a life style we have embraced.  We were trained in hospitality early in our marriage (I could give you lists of books and Bible studies and read to you from years of journals).  Now, I am shocked to find that I feel alone in my quest to know and add value to other people’s lives. 

I have not labeled myself as a <recovering> pastor’s wife here.  I do wonder if I did how things would change?  For some, one way- for others, another maybe.  I’m not interested in finding out.  I’m not hiding it and certainly not ashamed of it.  I told the one person who asked about my husband past “where is he?”  I am just simply interested in being a value to others because they find me to be engaging and encouraging, interested and interesting.  

Patience, I suppose.  People are busy.  People have friends and family already.  But we have been made, created, to be relational.  Not dependent, but interdependent, offering and receiving from one another.  Face-to-face with a bit of time invested.  As I wait for the connections here, I’ll stay thankful for the ease of cell phones and I will keep reading–right now, Steve Brown, John Maxwell, Ken Blanchard, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Seth Godin, Elizabeth Eliot, a good novel now and then–to be sure I will be interesting and have something to contribute when the time comes.