Love Warrior

by Glennon Doyle Melton

I am still afraid to trust my children to this institution, so I request a meeting with the children’s minister, Nancy. She sits with me in her office as I share my fears about what my kids might learn and then have to unlearn about God. I tell her that we need a church that will help us practice loving ourselves without shame, loving others without agenda, and loving God without fear. A church that will give my children and me room to breathe and grow, and will never silence our dissent, doubt, or questions. Nancy listens without judgment. She opens her whole heart and mind to me. When I am done, she says, “Would you help me teach our children? Will you help me teach them the kind of love you just explained to me?” I am shocked, so I just stare at her for a long minute, contemplating her invitation. Finally I say, “Yes. Yes, I will.” And that’s how I become a minister of the Gospel of love.

  Every week, I sit with the children of our congregation and I tell them about the God of the bathroom floor. I tell them that Jesus’ way is love and that there are plenty of folks screaming his name who aren’t following the way, and that there are plenty of people who’ve never uttered Jesus’ name who are following the way of love beautifully. I teach them that faith is not a club to belong to, but a current to surrender to. I teach them that they’ll know they’re in the current when they are becoming kinder and gentler and more open and grateful and when they feel constantly carried toward people they fear so they can fall in love and stop being afraid. I teach them that the two most repeated phrases in the Bible are “Do Not Be Afraid” and “Remember.” Our human family is dismembered because we have been taught to fear each other. To have peace, we must allow love to bring us back to each other. To Re-member. I promise them that we are just scattered pieces of the same puzzle, so when we hurt each other, we hurt ourselves. I explain that my idea of heaven is the completion of the scattered puzzle—but I ask them not to wait for some otherworldly reunion. I ask them to bring heaven to earth here and now—to invite the Kingdom of God today—by treating every last one of God’s people like kin. I tell each of them, Be brave because you are a child of God. Be kind because everyone else is, too. We belong to each other.

  I teach them that they are loved by God—wildly, fiercely, gently, completely, without reservation. I promise that there is nothing inside of them that they need to be ashamed of. I become a megaphone for the still, small voice that was drowned out so early for me—the voice that says to each of us, You! You are my beloved! I made you and everything you have ever been or are or will become is already approved. Nothing you can ever do will make me love you more, and nothing you can ever do will make me love you less. That is finished. So stop hiding, stop waiting, and come now! Just get up and dance with me! Every time I look into a ten-year-old’s eyes and promise her that she is good and loved so she never needs to go underneath to breathe, I know I am also speaking to my ten-year-old self. Don’t hide. You are safe here. You belong, precious one, after all. Do not be afraid. Remember.

  * * *

  Months pass. The kids are in school and suddenly it’s fall again, a year since I got the News. I can feel the current softening me and trying to lead me toward Craig. I’m resisting that current hard. I’m afraid to surrender to it. One day, I go to see Ann and I say, “So, I’ve been thinking. It turns out I’m not Gandhi. Not Elsa either. I’m not a helper and I’m not a canary. I’m actually a Warrior.”

  She smiles and raises her eyebrows into a question.

  I explain: “I’ve started to think of myself as a triangle—body, mind, spirit.” Ann nods, indicating for me to go on. “I’m a trinity, right? So I’m looking at this triangle the other day and thinking of the scriptures about loving God with all our strength, soul, and mind. I feel like I know how to love with my mind and soul. I love with my mind when I write, read, and think. That’s my intellectual life. I love with my soul when I pray, meditate, care for others. That’s my spiritual life. I’ve created those lives. They’re forged on my terms, not terms that have been given to me by anyone else. But I’ve been issued this body along with my mind and soul. It makes sense that I should be living and loving with it, too. The problem is that ‘loving with my body’ makes me think of sex. I’m paralyzed by that thought. I can’t imagine ever trusting Craig enough to have sex with him again. Sex has done nothing but hurt me. Why would I go there again? It makes no sense.”

  Ann thinks about this. “Trust takes time,” she replies. “Intimacy between two people is a mountain. Sex is the top and you and Craig are at the base. You can’t start by leaping to the top, you two have already tried that once. You missed the climb, and the climb is when you bond. You’ve got to climb together. One step at a time. First things first. Let’s talk about hugging and kissing.”

  “Okay. Well, I don’t like hugging and kissing. Craig’s hugs feel stifling to me. I’ll be busy doing something and he’ll stop me in the middle of the kitchen, grab me, and hold on too tight and too long. His hugs feel more like control or fear to me than love. His hugs feel so needy.”

  “All right. What about kissing? In the past, what have you been thinking when you and Craig are kissing?”

  “What have I been thinking? I’ve been thinking, Who decided this was a thing? Who was the first person to say ‘Oh! I have an idea! Let’s put our tongues inside each other’s mouths now!’ Probably some guy who wanted a woman to stop talking so he could have sex with her. That’s what kissing feels like to me: silencing and suspicious. Sex is the end and kissing is the means. Kissing is just a stepping-stone to the next thing a guy wants. I resent it.” Ann looks at me, her eyebrows raised again. I add, “I know. I’m a hopeless romantic.”

  “So while all of this is going on inside of you,” Ann says, “what are you communicating? Do you tell Craig how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking?”

  “Of course not. I just wait it out.”

  “Right. Your feelings and thoughts are valid, Glennon. You’re allowed to have them. They make sense and you shouldn’t be ashamed of them. But you need to share them with Craig or whomever you’re being intimate with. Right then. In the moment. You have to trust your feelings and speak them. When your mind says one thing but your body says another—that’s miscommunication, dismemberment. This is about reunion, Glennon. This is where we get your thoughts and actions—your mind and body—to work together. When you feel angry, used, afraid, don’t pretend to be otherwise. Tell the truth with all parts of you. There’s nothing wrong with how you feel, but there is something wrong with pretending otherwise. Marriage should be a lifetime of learning about each other and developing intimacy minute by minute, not becoming more cut off and alone with each passing day.

  “Craig’s working hard on this, too. He’s practicing using words to speak his needs and feelings instead of just his body. The way you learned sex—dark, shameful, impersonal—that’s how Craig learned it, too. You both learned it as a way to use people to get your needs met instead of as a way to give and receive love. You both learned it in dark basements with too much alcohol and shame. That’s why there’s so much shame involved now. That’s why it all feels so wrong to you. There is so much for you two to unlearn. You have had plenty of sex, but neither of you has ever had intimacy with each other—nor have you been intimate with anyone else, for that matter. You are both at the very, very beginning. At the base of the mountain.

  “You’ve told Craig it’s all right for him to hug you again. Let’s stay at that spot on the mountain for as long as it takes. We’ll go slow, so you feel safe. This week I want you to work on hugging. When Craig hugs you, I want you to trust yourself enough to check in with your feelings and thoughts and then share them honestly with Craig.”

  * * *

  The next afternoon I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of my house, holding my dog’s leash. A garbage truck stops across the street and a man hops off the back of the truck, walks over to my neighbor’s trash can, and then stops to look at me. The aggressiveness of his eye contact feels both intimate and threatening. I hold
my breath. I tell myself to stop being ridiculous, I’m safe. Of course I’m safe. We are twelve feet apart and we are looking right at each other, so I nod to acknowledge him. He looks away from me and back into the cab of the truck. He makes eye contact with the driver, and they smirk at each other. My body stiffens. The man’s eyes glisten and he brings his thumb and index finger to his mouth, preparing to wolf whistle at me. He is looking right at me again, but what he’s about to do has nothing to do with me. It’s not personal. I am just an inside joke between him and the driver. My insides catch fire. I am furious. I’m on my own quiet street, early in the morning, and this man is about to pierce the air at me. I brace myself for the shrill noise about to come, but then I say to myself: Tell the story of your insides with your voice. I remember that what I think I should or should not feel doesn’t matter. What matters is how I actually feel and that I don’t pretend otherwise. How I feel is afraid and angry. How I feel is that this is utter horseshit; a woman should be able to walk her damn dog without being harassed by a stranger. How I feel is tired of being afraid of men. So right there on the sidewalk in front of my home, I host a reunion. Instead of turning away, I look as intently as I can into the man’s eyes and I point at him with my free hand and I say loudly, “No. Don’t. Don’t do that. Don’t do that to me.”

  I am stunned by the ferocity and steadiness of my own voice. I am the one who has pierced the air and now he is the one who is frozen. He drops his fingers. We look at each other for a moment and play a game of chicken. I do not look away. He does. Then he says, “I’m sorry, ma’am.” I breathe and nod again. He turns away from me, dumps my neighbor’s can into his truck, climbs onto the back, and hits the truck’s metal side with his fist. This is the driver’s signal to drive away. I watch them go. The air is quiet again.

  I look around and I am still on my own street in front of my own house walking my own dog. I did not abandon myself. Instead, I announced and honored myself. In honoring myself, I also honored the man and the space between us. I reminded him that we were both human. I looked into his eyes and said, Here I am. I am in here. I am more than you can see. I am a soul and a mind, as well as a body—and all of me is saying no. Don’t do that to me. I looked into a man’s eyes and introduced myself. And in that introduction, he remembered, too. He saw himself in me, and that is why he dropped his fingers. His eyes said, Pardon me. I did not realize you were in there. I stood on the street in the quiet and I wondered, If I can do this with a stranger, can I also do this with my husband?

  * * *

  Later that evening, while I am doing the dishes, Craig comes up behind me, puts his arms around me, and holds me still. I feel hope and fear in his arms. I wait it out for a few moments but he doesn’t let go and I don’t like it. It’s too much, too fast. I didn’t ask for this hug. My insides are speaking to me, so I speak them to Craig. While his arms are wrapped around me I say into the sink, “I know you are trying to be loving, but this doesn’t feel like love to me. I want to be invited to affection, not ambushed by it. When you grab me I feel resentful and annoyed and then I feel like a bitch for feeling that way. This cycle isn’t good for either of us. I need you to understand and respect the way I’m wired. You can’t just pounce on me. Also, I need you to stop holding me so tight. I feel like you’re trapping me so I can’t decide to end this. I feel like you are taking my power. I’m smaller than you and I don’t want to think about that every time we hug.”

  I stand and stare out the window and wait for the world to crumble because I’ve just admitted out loud that I have ice running through my veins. I’ve just disturbed all the unspoken rules of the universe about how peace depends upon a woman’s agreement to suffer small and large indignities with a smile. I have broken the code that insists I just be grateful for whatever I get and pretend to need love more than I need freedom. But as I stand there, I feel a thrill mixed with my fear. I’ve wanted to say these words since I was fifteen years old. And there I am. I’ve just introduced myself. I might be a bitch, but I’m free. I’ve gotten my insides out and I allow myself to consider that maybe my inside feelings are valid, simply because they are mine.

  I wonder if there’s nothing horribly wrong with me after all. Maybe I’m just a woman who, because of her wiring, likes to be hugged a certain way. Maybe it makes sense for her husband to know that about her. Maybe he’d want to know because he’d want her to feel safe and loved and happy. Or maybe not. Maybe he already knows and has decided that his needs are more important. He could resent me for everything I’ve just said. But as Craig removes his arms from my waist I think, I’d rather lose him forever than lose myself ever again. I will never abandon myself again. That is all I know. This thought surprises and scares and comforts me. Here I am, Craig. This is the real me. The real me doesn’t like the way you’ve been hugging me. I’d rather you resent me for who I really am than love me for who I’m not.

  I’m still facing the sink when Craig says, “It makes sense that you feel all that. Right before I hugged you I saw you there and felt scared. I’m so afraid of losing you. Every day, I’m afraid you’re going to leave. I just want to hold on to you. I should have told you how I was feeling instead of grabbing you.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Craig slips a note onto my desk that says: “Hi! Meet me in the kitchen at 1:00 for a lunch hug?” At first I feel humiliated that our relationship has come to this. Index-card hug invitations? But then I feel relief that our relationship has come to this. I feel safe. I feel like what I want and need matters. At 1:00 I go to the kitchen and Craig looks at me and says, “Thanks. I won’t ask anything else from you. Just be here with me for a minute.” He opens his arms and I snuggle into him. He holds me loosely, so I have plenty of room to breathe. After a moment he lets go completely so that I can decide when the hug will end. I let go, too. The whole process is awkward, but safe. We are being careful with each other.

  A few days later, I find another note on my desk. It’s written on the kids’ construction paper and it’s decorated with Tish’s stickers. It’s an invitation from Craig to a real date. The invite indicates that a babysitter has been arranged and a reservation has been made, but both can be canceled if I’m not ready. Craig has drawn three boxes and asked me to check one. My choices are yes, no, or maybe. I check yes and leave the invitation on Craig’s desk.

  As soon as we sit down to dinner on date night, I can tell that Craig has been learning how to ask better questions. First, he asks me how a specific work relationship is going, and then he asks about an old friend going through chemo. When I answer, he’s listening carefully—like he understands that I’m giving him a gift he should handle with care. We are sitting across from each other at the table and we are both present in the space between us. It feels new. Even so, we’re both relieved to get back home, because the couch is the best part of any date. We let the babysitter go, change into our pajamas, and turn on the TV. I lie next to Craig and he turns his head to look at me. We are close to each other and he is looking right into my eyes and my insides start squirming. Steady eye contact has always felt nosy and controlling to me, like someone is looking a little too hard for my real self whether or not I’m ready to present her. This eye contact with Craig makes me lose my boundaries, it makes me feel woozy and out of control, so I prepare to break it. I decide to pat Craig on the shoulder and look away, back at the television where it’s safer. Then I remember the Journey of the Warrior. Be Still. Don’t jump off your mat. Don’t run out of here. If you can sit with the hot loneliness for 1.6 seconds … I keep looking into Craig’s brown eyes and I feel fluttery and light-headed. It’s like quiet and music used to be, almost unbearable. Until something inside of me shifts.

  All of a sudden I feel the desire to kiss Craig. I can’t believe that this is true, but I check in with my body and find that indeed, it is. My mind starts to panic. I can most certainly not kiss Craig because a kiss is an open door to more. A kiss would be removing all the steel ba
rs that I’ve forged to keep me safe. I feel myself dismembering. I am no longer in my eyes, in Craig’s eyes, nor am I in the space between us. I am back in my own head. But instead of staying lost in there alone, I invite Craig in. I tell the story of my insides with my voice. I say, “I feel like kissing you right now, but I’m afraid to because I don’t want things to go any further. I need to be the one to initiate every new step.”

  “Okay,” he says. “I understand what you’re saying. I won’t try anything new. Never again, unless you tell me different. I want you to feel safe.” And so I kiss Craig. And there on that couch in our pajamas, just for a few moments, we fall into love.

  15

  THE SUN SHINES WARM and the wind blows cold on the first day of spring—my thirty-eighth birthday. It’s been eighteen months since Craig delivered the News, twelve since he moved back home. I squint into the bright morning and try to find Amma’s soccer jersey on the field. There she is, number ten, trying hard to appear involved while skillfully avoiding any actual involvement with the game. Her eyes track the ball and every few moments she yells, “Get it!” But the permanent twenty-foot span between her and the ball makes it clear to her teammates that she will not be the one getting it. During breakfast that morning, Amma admitted what we already knew: She doesn’t like soccer after all. She explained that there was just too much kicking. I asked Amma if she’d like to stop playing and she said no, she would continue on valiantly because of the snacks. I thought this made for a pretty decent philosophy. Life: lots of scary kicking made bearable by snacks. Perhaps Craig is right, valuable life lessons can be learned from sports.

  Coach Craig paces the sideline while studying his elf-size players. He stands taller and more confidently on the soccer field than he does anywhere else. He laughs and offers a thumbs-up to one of his players who just scored a goal for the other team. He runs onto the field to retie three sets of muddy shoelaces. He calls out, “Drew! The game is happening! No climbing the goal now!” And, “Play now, Sophia! Hug later!” I watch the faces of the clapping parents and note that they seem relaxed and entertained. The kids on the field are ecstatic, proud—not a sign of stress on any of their faces. I turn back toward Craig and see his tan arms crossed over his chest and his whistle swinging easily around his neck. I think, He’s like a conductor. All of this running, kicking, shouting, and interrupting should feel like chaos, but under Craig’s kind, skillful leadership it all seems to work together, like a symphony. And for the love of God, Coach Craig is gorgeous over there.