my careless contagion

Can we try? Can we wade into this together, holding on to one another? This is such a beautiful thing. Please don't worry. Let's enjoy the journey. We don't have to see the whole way. We can trade knowing the future for knowing we're in this together. You and me and yours and mine. Let's do it. Let this thing we don't know what to do with grow from uncertainty to something we can't imagine living without. Please take my hand. I don't want to do this with anyone else.  This thing. It grows. It can take over our hearts silently. We wake and feel something undeniable blossoming within. Let's do this together and call it what we want. No one says it has to look a certain way or progress along a certain path. It's ours. We can take our time. We can press pause. We can jump ahead. Just as long as we do it together. We can meet. Talk. Lay in silence, you in my arms, and me keeping time to the sound of your gentle breathing and the sweet rhythm of your h...

I wrote these as separate posts but decided to combine them. Neither of them were finished. An explanation at the end.  This is an exploratory post. And a prayer. Bear with me. This post involves someone near and dear. I may or may not be correct about anything I write, but my intention is to understand her. She has been through so much. Our past experiences color reality and expectations for the future. It is with great tenderness that I explore this sensitive subject. The girl I write about is a survivor of domestic abuse. How many different ways she was mistreated I will never know, as she holds these things out of sight. My heart feels some of those things, though, because a part of her is in me. I understand, I think, a little of what she went through. I pray God helps me understand her completely. Truly, when I prayed to understand her years ago, the Lord gave me two books to read (one I read twice), which led me to fall further in love with her. I feel like I understand her ...