devotion

Between the covers of these five books are a total of forty chapters. One chapter for each day of Lent. They’re all books I’ve been meaning to read, books that have been sitting in stacks or on shelves. Each day of Lent, I hope to read one chapter. I probably haven’t read five books in one month since I was on maternity leave, so we’ll see if I can keep up with that ambitious schedule. But I thought that, rather than giving up practices or habits I should not have to begin with and calling that a sacrifice, I might instead feed my mind and soul with devotional readings, memoir/history, science and religion debates, and Bible study. That, in addition to my daily readings (they’re snippets, really) from C. S. Lewis’s classic works.

I’m putting writing on the back burner during Lent. Perhaps a poem or two or three may materialize, but likely little else. And I’ll put off my research reading until after Easter — though I suppose the grim realities of World War I would be in keeping with this somber season. For now I’ll set my mind on things above and hope that it positively affects my world below.

For those of you who begin the observance of Lent tomorrow, may it be a time of fruitful self-examination that brings you to the joy of Easter in the proper mental and spiritual state.

Today I’ve been married for fourteen years to a man I’ve been in love with for nearly twenty.

Judging by the length of my hair and nails, this photo was taken Christmas 2000, five years after we started dating, and just a few days before we got married. I was twenty, he was twenty-two.

Life is still like this for us. Still full of joy and laughter. We are rarely at odds. And while I appreciate the sentiment that “marriage is hard work,” I have not found it to be so. That’s not because we’re super special people. We’ve been incredibly blessed in life to avoid some of the tough situations that tend to put couples at odds. But it’s also because we still strive to put one another first, to honor the other above ourselves. And the reason we do that is because the first will be last and the greatest of all is the servant of all. And the times we have quarreled? Usually it amounts to one or both of us being a little self-centered.

We have many challenges ahead of us raising a sweet son who will eventually be a surly teenager who makes some poor choices. We both have dreams we are working toward that may or may not pan out as we’d hoped. There are mounting sorrows the longer you live as people close to you experience financial or marital distress, suffer failing health, and eventually die. But we walk the road of life together, hand in hand, one pulling the other back up onto his or her feet when we stumble, always looking for the path that is laid out for us together rather than focusing solely on our own ambition.

I’m so thankful to have Zachary in my life, and if I try to imagine what my life might have been like without him, it is a dark and lonely place indeed.

Erin Bartels

40 Days, 40 Chapters

Some Thoughts Upon 14 Years of Marriage