Learning to be led

I was the last of four kids of a military chaotic like-named people. My dad was successful as a community leader and was given unprecedented opportunities to lead all manners of military life unfettered by the typical army red-tape. He  impressed upon me to do what needed to be done and to expect folks to "lead or get out of my way."*

Explains a lot of offended people in my life. 

Even as a bleeding heart, stray-saving, look-a-chicken optimist, I recognize that someone has to be in charge and traditionally – if no one steps up – I'll jump in and do my best. This has produced mixed results.

Today, I realize that I am no longer a single mum, marketing/development director, etc. I am Howard's wife. And we have the next 70-ish years to figure out how to be married, work together, love and respect one another; share the load, train the dog, and do life in a mostly healthy manner.

Which means that I am in a position to learn to be led.

If you know Howard, you know that he is funny, strong, intelligent, concise, engineer-wise, patient, and kind – very kind.

If you know me, you know that I tend to think that I am right, have a particular and hard-to-follow process of thinking and evaluating what I encounter in life, and that my brain works at both poles – conservative/liberal, introvert/extrovert, over-think & analyze/spontaneous, geek/creative…ad nauseam.

So we don't easily or always agree. He swears that I read only the Huffington Post and I wonder if he and Matt Drudge are secret pen pals.

When he asked me to marry him and I said "alrighty" and then we said, "I do", we did not agree to cease being our unique autonomous selves.

We did make a covenant to value God more than ourselves and one another more than any other. And I am so glad we did this thing. I cannot imagine my life without the surprise of Howard Price at its new heart.

And in this process of weaving our lives together – merging rather than just tacking one another onto the lives we were already carving out – I've been challenged to learn to follow. Not by Howard. Not by a person, but in the still solid core of my soul, I've sensed a gentle, but relentless call to trust and follow Howard.

This is hard.

It makes me gulp.

To follow means to trust who leads.

To follow means that I hand over the right to final authority.

To follow means to respect the one leading and to trust that the one leading has the best of everyone at heart regardless of how a given situation appears.

To follow means to say what is on my mind or heart and then let it rest.

Part of me hopes that learning to follow will make me a better leader, but that, too, adds motivation that may not be part of the best plan.

Most of me hopes that by learning to trust and follow Howard, I will be learning to respect and love him more, encourage him at a deepest level of love, and to follow the heart of a God I cannot see.

I'm like most folks. I've mis-invested my hopes and trust – chosen to follow folks who have led me into imperfect or desperate places. I've followed people out of duty, love, naiveté, and fear. I've been used, hurt, thrown under the bus, and left bloody.

And now, I get to plunge into a whole new level of living – no toes in the water – diving into a good soaking of the unknown! All in or not in.

We talked about this idea of my learning to trust and follow Howard this weekend. I initiated the conversation. I'm not ceasing my brain nor my wonderings or work ethic. I'm just taking Howard into a different account. Waiting longer before my impulse arrives at "get out of my way" mode.

As a woman who strongly believes in equal pay for equal work, life parity, and autonomy, I've got a chorus of detractors in my own head.

But my heart is towards Howard. 

More importantly, my heart is towards a God I cannot see who I think has called me to learn to follow Howard so that possibly I can learn to be led by Himself.

Oy. I am that wild ass that kicks against the goad.

Grandiose. Whimiscal. Intense. And not as smart as I think I am.

And this blog is an admission; an act of accountability.

I don't think Howard is interested in me to be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. He has said that he married me for me; Speedy Gonzalez brains, chutzpah, and creative all-in-one.

But wouldn't it be great if our married life – our lives as friends – inspired us to grow up a little more, to be less self-referential and more thoughtful; to love without fettering foolishness?

I hope so. And that's why I said "yes" to this persistent, gentle, strong voice in my heart that invited me to step out of the lead dog harness for now. 

That's potentially a lot of pressure for both of us.

Or a lot of seeking life and growth and love together.

Either way, Howard gets a few more breaths between my verbalized thoughts and a few more prayers silently uttered in those thoughts. It seems that perhaps I get to step into more of who I was created to be – more strength, less bravado, more trust, less desperado.

And we'll see how it goes.

Lead Me, by Sanctus Real.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLr6G8Xy5uc)

*turns out General Patton and a few others are also credited with this quote