Big day yesterday. Came clean to Mrs. VoW before going to church at the aforementioned PCA church. She had to pry it out of me; apparently my poker face is not everything I thought it was.

She was justifiably upset, but handled it well. Coolly. She's doing the give-me-rope thing. "I gave up on raising our children with shared liberal values a long time ago, so it's not like I'm so disappointed about that. I'm just upset that you lied to me."

Now we get to my favorite part of the cycle: I will attempt to be a real live full-blooded Christian for as long as it lasts, all the while fighting a sense of... wait for it... GUILT. GUILT? GUILT?! Of all the stuff that's supposed to come with the "repent and come to Jesus" package, I thought guilt was the ONE thing we got to see the back of?! "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus," right?

Am I doing this wrong? Well of course I would be, but it's God supposed to be doing it. So is He not really doing it?

Am I (once again) ruining everything for a mirage?

Lord Jesus strengthen my faith. Don't let me be a jerk, and don't let me backslide, and don't let all this be for nothing. Bring us home, really home.

Bad work day today. I've been taken away from what I'm supposed to be doing by worrying, by coffee shops, by blogging. Note to self: follow the above link as many times as as necessary tomorrow, but don't blog. Just work. Get the project done. OK? OK.

She calls from Target to ask if I need anything. She is bright and cheery. Friendly. She is confident we are on the same side. No clue she has been lied to.

The revelation of the lie will be bad enough. What the lie was hiding will be poison to her. She will still call from Target. But the tone behind her words will be resentment. I am raising your daughters, it will say, to be good people, in spite of you. You cannot be trusted. You are on the wrong side.

Question: why on earth would somebody blog about this stuff? It's so private. I would be absolutely mortified (as would my wife, I'm sure) if anyone I knew ever found this blog and put two and two together. So why risk it?

Answer: I'm lonely. Really, really lonely. There is NO ONE I trust to discuss this with, NO ONE I can ask for counsel. I am in the quantum space between two absolutely opposed worldviews. I know and love people on either side of the divide, but nobody who's floating in the dark chasm between.

I don't need advice. I need the blood of Christ. Or else psychiatric help. See? There it is again: total quantum separation.

Well I know which one makes for better songs, better stories.

I should just own up. I need to. It's the right thing to do.

But my faith is weak. It's a silly child's faith. She'll cry her hurt, then speak in her reasonable voice, and I will search my heart, and I will realize that I am hurting her for a mirage, a Freudian grasp at immortality or some such thing, and the whole beautiful Narnian dream will evaporate, and I'll be left with nothing but the self-loathing.

That's right: I'm not firmly-enough convicted to risk hurting my wife's feelings even in obedience to the commandment of God. But I am firmly-enough convicted to complain about it in a blog. I hold on to the pretense because it's the pretense or simple nihilism, I guess. I once heard John Piper say, "Until you realize that life is a war, and the stakes are your soul, you will probably play at Christianity." Indeed. Or until you can somehow stop doubting that you have a soul.

It was an interesting weekend. I went to a PCA church a few miles from my house. Big church, maybe not quite "mega". I went to the early service, but it was still pretty full.

The circumstances that got me there were a bit odd. I'd been thinking of going for a while, but I didn't (and still don't) want to have the fight with my wife. I thought about going clandestinely; since the early service at the PCA church is only a half hour later than the service I usually attend at the nearby Episcopal church, I could "get away" with that, but didn't like the hypocrisy and dishonesty involved. So by Sunday morning, showered, dressed and running late for early service at my usual spot, I had talked myself out of adventuring elsewhere.

But for some reason no one was at my usual spot. No one. Not a car.

So I kept driving. Why not, right? Weighed my options. Turn around, go home. Surpise hon, no church today, let's just hang out; OK. Or I could pick up the cell phone; looks like they cancelled, gonna try the PCA church, we'll fight when I get home, OK? OK. Well, why do that? Just go check it out. Maybe it's not for me. Maybe no more will need to be said about it. Because it's only the deepest longing of my heart to go there, right? (Well, the deepest longing besides avoiding ANY ACTUAL IN-DEPTH CONVERSATION WITH THE PERSON I'M MARRIED TO. But let's move on.)

Predictably, the service was moving and hit home. Predictably, it would be the Sunday they served communion so it would run long and I'd have to sit there and think about whether I was "supposed" to take communion here. Unpredictably, I sat there in my khakis and sweater amongst the suburban Republicans while they passed the bread and wine around and I had to work hard not to actually sob and I wished the girl up front would just stop playing that damn violin so I could just catch my breath for a second. I let the body and blood pass me by because I couldn't face them. I felt that if I took that step I couldn't hold on to maybes and what-ifs anymore. Couldn't lie to Mrs. VoW and to myself about what I really want to be. (Or am I lying to myself about that now? Oh, it's slippery, it is...) Most of all I'd be forced to tell her where I'd been and what I'd been doing.

I had this crazy idea of going up to the deacons after the service and asking them to hide me there in the church. "Call my wife and tell her where I am and that I love Jesus and I won't come home unless she's nice about it!" A theoretically grown man with children, having thoughts like this about his family. This is a nice woman. She's not an ogre. But her tears, her disappointment, are a miserable scourge to me. I see her pain and I just hate myself.

So of course I didn't hang around to talk to deacons or anyone else. I didn't quite run over anyone getting to my car and drove home as quick as I could, trying unsuccessfully to prepare myself to discuss my visit to the church with Mrs. VoW. She called my cell as I was driving up our street to inquire what was taking so long and that broke any nerve I might have worked up during the drive home, so I made up some story about a long-running service and socializing afterwards and looked her in the eye and told myself I was being a nice guy.

Well, in a word, oops. And then Tim Challies goes and publishes something like this. And I realize the nature of the problem, vividly, unmistakably: sinful disbelief. I think it's fair to say I don't trust God to take care of Mrs. VoW and the little Vessels.

I know! I'll just start trusting God more! Here goes! NNNNGGGGGHHHH.......