The Fellowship and the Ring, part 3: The Finale

Here's the third and last installment of my "Trilogy of the Ring." If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here are links to the rest of the story:

The Fellowship and the Ring, part 1
The Fellowship and the Ring, part 2

All three parts in one place: Trilogy of the Ring

All the way out to the car, which was a lot shorter than it sounds, I was praying hard. Please let him buy that ring for me. Please let it be for me! Praying variations on PLEASE while Hubby opened my door, let me in, shut my door, walked around the car, opened his door, got in, started the engine, put his hand on the shift lever.

And then he stopped and looked at me. "Let's talk," he said.

My heart stopped, and then jumped. "About what?"

"You really want that ring, don't you?"

I nodded, imploring with the biggest beagle eyes I could manage. And then caught myself. Be an adult, I told myself, not a begging child. I swallowed.

"Yes," I said. "I really do. It would be like getting my old rings back, and you know how much I've missed them, even though it's been all these years. It just seems right. It's my size-- and you know how unlikely that is. It's the exact size and shape of my diamond, the one we picked out together. It's cheap!"

He sat thinking. "Then I think that ring needs to go home with us. Sound good?"

I think I could hear angels singing. I resisted the urge to scream, and jump up and down. "Yeah. I think so."

Later Hubby told me that he honestly did not get it. He had no intimation that there was any significance to this incident, until we were in the car, and suddenly realization hit him in his midriff. If it was important to his wife, it was important to him, and even if it ended up costing a thousand dollars, that ring was going home with us! Tell me God doesn't answer prayer.

We went back in, marched up to the jewelry counter, and said we wanted that ring. He sold it to us for $60, instead of $65. I'm not sure why, unless he was just thrilled to finally get anything at all for it. I mean, really, who wants somebody else's wedding ring. Why did they sell it? What story is behind it?

Plus, the ring has some wear on it-- somebody else's wear. It's not shiny and new anymore. But for me? Perfect. The ring had the wear on it that my original ring would have had on it by now if I'd had it all these years. And my ring would have had stories of its own. No-- this was just right.

I walked out feeling like a newlywed. I had a wedding ring again. Nevermind where I got it from-- it felt like I had MY ring back, only better.

We even decided to extend our day and go out to eat to celebrate. Nothing expensive, because that's how we started our married life-- frugal, inexpensive; counting relationships and people more important than money.

It was February 10, 2005. We announced our engagement on February 12, 1981.

The Fellowship Group had grown into meetings that had been nicknamed "The Barn" because we were using our barn/garage/workshop. We were no longer a group of half a dozen adults and as many children, but a group of twenty to thirty.

At a "Barn" meeting soon after I got my ring I found myself talking to a young woman, showing off my ring and telling her all about it. At the end of my story I told her, "It just seems interesting to me, that I got my new ring in February, which is the same month I got engaged all those years ago. But if God wanted to make such a coincidence, why didn't he have us buy the ring on February 12? Then it would have been a REALLY cool coincidence. Instead, we got it on the tenth; which is sort of cool, because we got married on October 10...."

The young woman stopped me and said, "That's easy: you got it in February, to commemorate your engagement, and on the tenth to commemorate your wedding. February for the diamond engagement ring; the tenth for the wedding band. Simple."

Fast forward a few months. (Months in which I wore my ring with great joy, and showed it off to anyone I thought might be interested.) See me sitting in a Barn meeting. GuitarGeek is playing his guitar. People are praying. I have my eyes open (don't tell my mom), staring at my hands, thinking hard about God, and listening, asking God to speak to me. Then I focus on my ring. Ah...such a beautiful ring. God is so good to restore to me my rings, even if I do end up watching the light twinkle and flash from the diamond during a prayer meeting.

The whole story went through my mind, as I sat admiring the ring in general, and the diamond in particular, and thanking God. Then the thought came to me. Why did God do that? I had prayed many times over the years for either a replacement ring, or for the longing for one to go away. (After all, what's a ring, really?) But God had done neither. And now, out of the blue, here it was. Why?

And quick as a wink, in that quiet prayer meeting, listening for God's voice, I heard the answer: It's your reward. You held fast. You conquered in the battle for your marriage. The ring is now tangible evidence of victory, and your reward. And see the diamond on the wedding band? You didn't have a diamond there before. Just a little something extra to say, "Well done."

The whole world, including my heart, stopped for one eternal moment. I thought I would weep. But instead, I laughed.





Epilogue: October 10, 2007, we celebrated our twenty-fifth anniversary. We made it to the plate!

The Fellowship and the Ring, part 2

When we got in the house, we found the guys from the Fellowship Group gathered taking their noon hours. They asked us what was up, and we said, frankly, that it was one of the worst days yet.

They immediately surrounded us in a circle and began praying for us. God came very near to us, and soon several of us were in tears, me especially.

Suddenly, one of the guys stopped praying and said that God was going to send an angel to help us, to help me, to preserve our marriage. I was excited and apprehensive about that, wondering what it could mean.

I must interject something here. I had another reason for wanting to hang on and not give in to the invisible pressure to abandon my marriage. When we got married, back in 1981, I got an unusual wedding gift. One of my uncles gave us a decorative plate that said "Silver Wedding" in German on it. It was white with real silver lettering and decorations. He had picked it up at a flea market in Germany. At the time, I thought it was a wonderful token of good faith, because the silver anniversary is the twenty-fifth. He was assuming our marriage would last at least twenty-five years!

Well, at this point in my story, we had been married about twenty-four years. I kept telling myself, "I have to make it to the plate, I have to make it to the plate." Uncle Jon believed in us, lots of other people did too. Our kids were trusting us. We promised. What was I thinking? I had to make it to the plate.

But the fight wasn't over yet. I still had the pressure, the thoughts, the irritation, the restlessness, the frustration.

And then I had a dream.

I dreamed I was talking with a young man in a leather uniform jacket of some sort. He was very nice, and friendly, and smiled at me a lot. I had the sense that I had just had an encounter of some sort, and this was the end of it-- as if he had just brought me back, but the memory of it was being erased.

And then I saw two bridges. One was very old, and appeared rickety, but in fact, it was solid and usable. The other was brand new, with a wide highway running over it. I knew I had to get over to the other side one way or another, but I was having a terrible time choosing which bridge to use. Finally the man stepped up, smiling, and said it didn't matter. Both were fine, and I could go whichever way I wanted. The main thing was to cross over. So I made a decision.

At this point, I woke up. I can't remember which bridge I chose (I have a sense that it was the old one), but I had a great feeling of relief and accomplishment the next day, and oddly, whatever was pushing me and driving me to despise my husband had gone.

Things began to improve from that day on. Our relationship regained its old footing, and we were friends again. It was such a relief!

About a year later, Hubby and I took a day to go shopping and running errands. One of the things on our list was to stop at a pawn shop to look at tools. Of course, my attention span for tools isn't as long as Hubby's, so soon I began looking around for something more interesting, and I found a counter full of jewelry, mostly rings. In fact, mostly wedding rings.

I was enjoying browsing the rings, letting the salesman get out different ones for me to try on. Then suddenly I saw it. A ring almost exactly like the one I had lost: a medium wide gold band with a marquis diamond that looked to be the exact size of mine. It was soldered to a matching wedding band that had a teeny diamond chip in the center of it, which my original band did not have, and both had a carved split that added interest and dimensionality, which my rings had not had, but the general shape, size, and feel was like deja vu.

I felt like I couldn't breathe. The person behind the counter asked if I'd like to try any others, and I asked if I could try on that one. I put it on and it fit exactly!

By this time Hubby had come to see what I was doing. I held out my hand and showed him. At first, he didn't quite get it. "Oh, that's nice. It looks kinda like yours, doesn't it?"

Yes! Yes, it does! That means something! Can we get it? Can we get it? Please, please, please, please, please, please, please? Please?

Well, that's what I was thinking. What I said was something like, "Yeah. Isn't that kinda cool? I wonder what they want for it?" I checked the tag, reality setting in. We really didn't have money for rings, any more then than fifteen years earlier. There were so many things of higher priority than replacement wedding rings. Think of all the starving children in Africa. Think of the homeless. Think of our kids, our business.

$65. Sixty-five dollars? That's it? I looked inside the rings. Maybe they were cheap imitation. No, 14 karat gold. Size 5. My size.

The salesman asked if I wanted to buy the ring. I looked at Hubby. I felt so much longing I was afraid to say anything. I wanted him to see, to understand, to do this for me. It wouldn't be the same if I did it for myself.

But Hubby said nothing.

I reluctantly put the ring back on the counter.

"Well," Hubby said, "I'm done looking here. Shall we go?"

I nodded dumbly and followed him out to the car....

....to be continued.

The Fellowship and the Ring, part 1

In honor of Valentine's Day

Writing about tattooed wedding rings reminded me of a story I wanted to share about my wedding rings.

February 10 was an anniversary of sorts. In February of 1981, Hubby and I became officially engaged. We had known since the preceding October that we wanted to get married, but since we were freshman at a conservative Bible college we could not announce it, seeing as the college had a rule about freshman not getting engaged their first semester. And even in the second semester, couples had to have permission notes from their parents.

So I had my engagement ring, but we waited till second semester before I wore it publicly, and then, after I'd had my candle-passing. If you don't know, a candle-passing was an informal ceremony, where all the girls in my dorm were invited to gather in the huge attic to sit in a circle and pass around a lighted candle with my engagement ring on it. Every one could admire it, and try to guess whose it was, till it got to me, and I blew out the flame to announce it was mine. There were usually several candle-passings every year announcing engagements.

I loved my ring. It was a plain gold, medium wide band, with a small marquis diamond. I was especially proud of it when I went back home for the summer, before our wedding in October of that year. It was a tangible symbol of my upcoming marriage, and my relationship with Hubby, who was oh so far away, despite frequent phone calls.

At our wedding Hubby added a thin gold plain band to the diamond ring.

A few years later, we were on a visit to Kansas City to see my relatives. We had GuitarGeek by then, as well as LovelyDaughter, who was a baby. I had gotten pretty thin, and my rings were loose, and somehow, somewhere-- probably at gas station-- I lost the diamond engagement ring. We went back and asked if anyone had found them, but of course, no one knew anything. I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing.

I had hoped Hubby would replace them, but he said he bought me a diamond ring once. He didn't see the point in doing it again. (Don't be too hard on him. Five hundred dollars --what we originally paid-- was money we didn't have at that time for a new ring.)

But I felt so lost without my diamond. Once I bought an opal ring to wear as a substitute. I had it soldered to my wedding band, and I was so excited, I couldn't sleep for days, till the ring was ready. It was beautiful.

Then, not long after, I accidentally hit my hand on something, and cracked the opal in the ring. The opal fell to pieces, and I had to retire the ring, but it took my wedding band with it, and I had nothing.

One year, I made a long trip to attend my great-grandmother's funeral. I went alone as far as Kansas City, and met up with relatives there to continue the journey. On the way I made up my mind to buy some sort of ring, just to have a sign on my hand that I was a married woman. That may sound strange, but it was the first major trip I'd taken without Hubby, and somehow it seemed more secure if I had a ring. I wore that ten dollar silver ring for a long time.

Then we hit a time period where several of our friends were getting divorces. It was tough, watching relationships break up, and it was not pretty, easy, or fun for any of them. About that time, something began happening to me, and I found that everything Hubby did irked me. In fact, I didn't like him anymore, at all, and I found myself fantasizing about going off on my own. What kind of job could I get? Where would I live? What would it be like to have my own life, for once, without a husband, without kids, without responsibilities? I know, "without responsibilites" was a total lie, but hey, no one said deception makes sense.

Also about that time, we were part of a group we called our "fellowship group"-- a few families who got together once a week to worship God and pray for each other. In fact, it was a couple of those families who were going through divorce. I began sharing with them what I was feeling, and those guys (literally guys-- the women had bailed out of the group) gathered around and prayed for me many times. Times when I didn't think I could stand the pressure, whatever it was, wherever it came from, to give up on my marriage and my husband and my family. Deep inside, I knew this wasn't what I really wanted, but something was pushing me, hard.

But those guys prayed, and prayed fervently, that our marriage would not suffer the same fate as theirs. One day near Christmas Hubby and I went Christmas shopping. We were miserable; I, because I was miserable, and Hubby, because I was. On the way, we happened to go past Swede's house, who was part of the group, and we saw the cars there of the other guys. On an impulse, we stopped in....

...to be continued.