Love Wins (For Us)

If not for you

My sky would fall,

Rain would gather too.

Without your love I'd be nowhere at all,

I'd be lost if not for you,

And you know it's true.

If Not for You- Bob Dylan

I found that while investigating the salvation of all, my bringing up theology with my husband didn't turn into the wonderful stimulating and edifying conversations we had had in the past. He didn't really want to talk about the finer points of the faith like we used to.  I didn't know it at the time, but he was pretty fed up with trying to figure it out. I felt a bit guilty about keeping my new found belief from him, so I wanted to come clean.






I so hoped he would be excited about what I was learning and that would fix this spiritual slump we seemed to be in. I just naturally assumed that everyone was as upset with this Hell thing as I was and once we could get that ironed out, we could be free to love God, our neighbor and spread the gospel (the REAL gospel) like mad.



I broached the subject of universal salvation gingerly, just dropping hints here and there. When getting a little bolder, I got the distinct impression that he really didn't want to talk about this, seeming almost hostile about it.  All the points I brought up brought counterpoints that I couldn't argue easily. It was almost as if he wanted to defend Hell. I couldn't figure out why, but to keep the peace and my submissive status (the submissive thing was relatively new) I just let it drop and prayed that God would show him as well. After all, it didn't really matter, God would prevail in the end.




My husband had always taken the Sunday school class we taught very seriously, wanting to teach the kids right from the Bible, none of this touchy-feel-y message-y stuff.  He would read the passages that were to be addressed and get the lesson ready usually early on Sunday morning. I would be the one to handle the kids and do the activity or whatever we could do once the teaching was over. But after we realized the Bible was making less and less sense, we abandoned that and just did exactly as the teaching materials we were given said and I became the primary teacher. Of course, I never brought my new ideas to the class or anywhere else. My husband was the only one who knew. We really did get attached to the kids and we were glad to be included in helping out at church. I could tell he was extremely frustrated with the Bible and most times when I would ask him his opinion on something about theology or the Bible he would just say he didn't know.




Several months went by before I brought up Universalism again. I was wondering if he had thought about it. at all since I first mentioned it.  He had and he wasn't on board. It wasn't that he wanted anyone to go to Hell, it was just that...


Basically, as the argument goes, if there is no Hell, what are we being saved from? Why did Jesus have to die? What about the wrath? Why does it even matter how I live? What is the point? The things I brought up like the wages of sin being death, not eternal torture in a lake of fire, was not good news to him. His faith in the scriptures was already shaky and to my horror I think I was making it worse or at least making him think about it when he really didn't want to.



I never intended to do that. The truth is the truth no matter what. I thought we had always agreed on that.




Besides, this was wonderful news. God really does love us, all of us, and all this other stuff just doesn't matter.  It all fits together, you see, I'll find out how. What I was doing again was trying to have it one way while explaining away everything that didn't fit. I had already done that many times.



The next several months were somewhat contentious between us.  We didn't argue, but we didn't communicate much. When I brought up God's love, my husband reminded me of the wrath to come. When I brought up how God wanted all men to be saved, he brought up the smoke of their torment rising up forever and ever. I couldn't tip his view over my way, and I wasn't tipping back the other way for sure.




Then it all finally came to a head and we had a long discussion and got back on the same page-not the same page as Christians, but as husband and wife, soul mates. We had forgotten that somewhere along the way with the six kids and the jobs and the living and the trying to figure out God. Quite frankly, I was tired of the faith getting in the way of everything. We just wanted to live again. We left the discussion of ideologies aside and got back to just loving each other, not trying to be super Christians.  He began to see me as a freestanding person again and not just his wife. I began to see that I didn't have to have him agree with me in order for my opinion to be valid and that he could also think whatever he wanted to about this. We could keep our opinions about God between ourselves and God.





We got back to being in love and started leaving our faith out of it.

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