An Iris in November

Sixteen months ago, my marriage nearly ended. Things came to light that had been long rotting in the dark, and all hell broke loose upon my husband and me. Actual hell. As in, fallen angels with a singular focus on destroying me, my husband, our marriage.

Yesterday, Ken and I attended a Silver and Gold Jubilee Mass at our diocese’s cathedral. We joined hands, and renewed our commitment to one another and our marriage. During it, I felt the weight of grace and glory on us, almost unbearable in its weight. After it, I felt peace in a way I’ve only experienced a handful of times.

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I was so angry for so long.

If I had to, I’d place the genesis of that anger on Palm Sunday, 2020. Every parish in Connecticut had shuttered by command of the state; our shepherds so willing to bend the knee to Caesar that the faithful went without the Sacraments for over half a year. During that exile, the Vatican’s report on McCarrick’s crimes and coverups was released, further driving home the betrayal of Church leaders. Liquor stores and Dollar Generals remained open, the Church continued to cover up for predators and villains, and my family celebrated Holy Week watching a tv screen, a Mass celebrated by weak men in a locked and empty parish.

Meanwhile, in my domestic church, darkness was finding footholds in the form of unresolved traumas, addictions, breakdowns of communication and trust. I was walking into a vicious spiritual battle, and I was so blinded by anger that I didn’t see the armies amassing.

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I have to laugh at the language I’m using to describe this. It’s florid and overwrought. My kids would tell me it’s cringe. So cringe. They would assure me that if you could gather up all the cringe in the universe, it still wouldn’t be enough to cover what I’ve written so far.

They wouldn’t be wrong.

In the trenches of the daily, what life looked like was this: constant doom scrolling. Diminished prayer life. Long stretches of silence between my husband and I, whole days where we’d communicate only the bare minimum with one another. Nursing every slight, sucking the marrow out of each argument, hoarding generosity of spirit like some emotional Ebenezer Scrooge. Secrets. Lies. All of it so persistent and monotonous that you couldn’t rouse up energy for anything other than a seething resentment.

I was never going to be the one to call it quits. That was where I’d make my stand. I would never never put my children through the pain of divorce, so I’d grit my teeth and playact my way through the days for them, and at night I’d dream about a time when the kids were on their own and I could finally bury this dead marriage. If my husband wanted to pursue divorce before then, I would smugly take up the role of martyr, the saintly spouse who had valiantly tried to save the family.

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Looking back now, I see that the day the battle was won was the day all the secrets came to light. Once I knew what had been going on in the darkness of my marriage, the enemy had overplayed his hand, and the tide, as they say, turned. But man, I can only just now see that. In the midst of it, every second felt like I was dying.

And even though I am a bad Catholic, even though I was absolutely full of resentment toward the clergy, even though I had stopped seeing God as a friend and mainly just as a duty, in those moments I threw myself at Jesus’ feet. For the first time in my arrogant, self centered life, I understood with total certainty that I can do absolutely nothing without Christ. I knew I wasn’t going to live for one moment longer without Him literally pulling the damn air into my lungs because I was so crushed by everything I couldn’t even draw a breath on my own.

I have never experienced such a radical, complete reliance on God. And He didn’t let me down. He didn’t betray me. He didn’t abandon me. He pulled the air into my stupid lungs and kept me alive for another moment. And another. And another. I’m still here, so I know He’s still here too.

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My husband and I got help. Priests, therapists, friends, family. Two steps towards reconciliation, one step back. A month of solid healing and peace, two weeks of wounds reopening and bleeding out. Days where I could see God bringing a wholeness to our marriage, nights where I embraced the unforgiveness the enemy offered.

Sometimes, I didn’t want to do it anymore. I’d slip into the old daydreams of riding it out until the kids were grown, then going off on my own. I’d harden my heart against my husband. I’d harden my heart toward God.

In the shower one day about a month ago, feeling so old and tired and broken down. I was so tired of all of it. I got down on my knees (which is no small feat, as my tub is slick with soap scum and my body not as flexible as it once was), and gave my heart to Jesus. I gave my marriage to Him, and my heart to Him and said with a clarity I’ve never had, “This is yours.” And not with the snotty “take this pile of garbage, God” attitude I usually have, but with a trust in Jesus that was totally new.

Not just a trust in His ability to make all things new, but a trust in His desire to do it. I had a sense that Jesus wanted to heal my heart and my marriage even more than I did. I understood that I wasn’t flinging some broken, junky thing at Christ’s feet, but instead offering Him something precious and lovely and trusting that He wanted to make it even more beautiful.

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God can do whatever He wants. He’s God. He could nerve staple us all into submission in an instant, but He values our free will above all. He values our relationships with Him and with each other.

My marriage is where it is right now because of Christ, yes, but because both my husband and I desired to cooperate with His grace. No matter how much I sometimes yearn for the divine nerve stapling, God has shown us He won’t pull that trigger, and so relationships need to be a team effort. If my husband had been unwilling to put in the hard work of reconciliation, if he hadn’t surrendered to Christ’s love, this story would have a different ending. Jesus would still be with me, He would still be making me whole and holy, but on a different path.

And I’m so grateful my husband and I are still walking this path together.

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The day before the Silver and Gold Jubilee Mass was cold and windy. Mid November in New England. I walked out to the compost pile to throw out some day old scraps, and passing the barn, I saw something astounding.

An iris bud. Pale and tightly closed, coming from a rhizome that I had divided and planted in June. It was still much too small to let flower, lest it use up all its energy and not have enough stored up for winter, so I broke the stalk off at the base and took it inside. I put it in a little bud vase on the window sill.

The next morning, as we got ready to head to the cathedral to renew our commitment to our marriage, I saw that the bud had fully opened overnight. A pale lilac and pink flower waited for me in the kitchen.

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I don’t know a lot, but I know that I am loved by a God who yearns to make me whole, and who gives me irises in November.