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“But she did.”
“Yeah. And here we are.” Him with the problem of what to do about Sondra, and this feeling that what he was doing with Alaska was exactly right, coupled with the nerves that clenched and unclenched his stomach.
“Do you still feel like this is what God wants you to do?”
“I do.” He knew that without a shadow of a doubt. It was so out of line for him, so unusual, that it almost could only be from the Lord. He certainly had thought that. He was almost forty years old and had yet to even have a serious enough relationship to be engaged, other than Sondra, and he wouldn’t have termed their relationship serious. They’d only been out a couple of times. They mostly saw each other at church and community functions where she came over and hung out at his side. It...was a relationship that didn’t feel right to him.
It was crazy, because Sondra was the “right” kind of girl, at least according to the way anyone would see it, looking at them. She was like him. Had been raised the way he had, although not in as big of a family, but in a small town, with most of his values and morals.
Alaska... She was as different from him as night was from day.
“Are you sure that you’re not just attracted to her because she’s different than you are?”
“I can’t say that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind. But I’ve met a lot of people who are different than me. And I’ve never felt drawn to them before. I’ve never felt like I needed to ask them to marry me before.”
“They’ve never been in this situation before.”
“That’s true.”
“But, if you are still certain that this is what the Lord wants you do, then I think you need to go through with it.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” He paused for a moment, and then he said, humbly, “Can I ask you something?”
She lifted her head to the breeze, cooler now that the sun was down, although it wasn’t fully dark. The sky was ablaze with orangeand reds and pinks, and they had shifted to stand shoulder to shoulder, looking at the colors blaze overhead.
“Sure. Ask away.”
“I’m going to probably sound weird, but I’m serious. I... I know I need to break up with Sondra, like you said. And I really would appreciate any advice or help that you can give me. I... I’m not good at this type of thing. And it will be tempting for me to say, I never really agreed to marry her in the first place, but that doesn’t seem like the best way to go about doing it. But at the same time, I don’t want to hurt Sondra’s feelings, but I want to balance that with the fact that Alaska is going to be my wife, and I don’t want her to feel like I catered to Sondra and didn’t care about how she felt. That I put more thought into making sure Sondra didn’t get upset than I did about how Alaska might feel about me being so considerate to Sondra, when she’s the one I’m marrying. If that makes sense.”
“You want to make sure that she knows that she is the most important one to you.”
“Exactly. Sondra I care about, but Alaska... She’s going to be my wife.”
“Just because she’s going to be your wife doesn’t mean you have any special feelings for her. You seem to be struggling about that.”
“Well, our society sometimes has a twisted view of what love is. If I say that I love her, people might get the idea that I’m infatuated with her or that I have feelings that...I really don’t have. But if we’re talking about love the way God commanded us to love someone, where we do it with our actions, or love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, love does not boast, it’s long-suffering, not proud... I mean, I can say that I love her now.”
“Yeah. I understand that, but I can see how you would hesitate. You wouldn’t want anyone to get a mistaken idea.”
“Yeah. Including Alaska. I... I can promise to love her, but I can’t promise to have feelings that may or may not ever come.”
“Do you think that’s fair to her?”
“Dad told me once that you have feelings sometimes, especially when you’re a teenager, that’s where I was. I was probably fifteen. He said they feel strong, but feelings lie. He said that marriage isn’t supposed to be about feelings. It’s supposed to be about treating someone else the way God wants you to treat them, even when you don’t feel like it. Especially when you don’t feel like it.”
“You know, sometimes I think we were really blessed to have so much time with Mom and Dad. I feel a little bit bad for the younger kids, who didn’t get to spend as many years with them as we did. But they have you.”
She smiled at him, looking over, like she admired him. He supposed it was a pretty big deal, considering that she was his sister and had grown up with him, and knew him almost as well as anyone did. She knew his faults and foibles, and she admired him anyway. That made him feel pretty good.
“So, to answer your question, I suppose there aren’t supposed to be feelings, if I asked the right way.”
“Maybe. But I do think that there’s some kind of feeling, something that makes one person special, more than another person, and makes you think to yourself, ‘I really want to spend more time with this person. I enjoy them.’”
“I always thought that was because they made you better. That you should want to spend time with someone who makes you a better person. Who challenges you to grow, who encourages you, who believes in you. Who can see the potential that God put in you and wants to help you touch the world with it.”
“That’s a pretty tall order.”
“You don’t agree?” Maybe he was pie-in-the-sky. He usually had both feet planted firmly on the ground, but sometimes he could have some lofty ambitions. He always thought that his wife would be someone... Even if she wasn’t quite the wind beneath his wings, as the cliché went, someone who was wind to him, the same way he would be wind to her. Maybe that was asking too much of someone.
