To Carry a Wild Wolf

I love this photo.

It is lovely and wild and sensual and suggestive.  I especially love the look of determination and almost defiance on her face, the deep scratch marks on her stomach and thighs, and the feeling they and every other thing about this pose are perfectly normal. Sometimes I wish I could stand so bravely and show off to the world how very amazing, and natural, and right my relationship is with a wild Wolf.

My Wolf, my Shepherd, is an incredible man.  His life is changing, though.  He has worked very hard to build a family, a pack, and to make it strong, loved, and safe for all who belong. In the past few weeks, His primary female partner has made choices that led to the end of their relationship.  He is standing strong in the rightness of His convictions about love and commitment, and treating others with human decency and compassion.  He has fought to reconcile, and He has stood his ground about what He needs and deserves. I have never been more proud to belong -- to Him, and to His pack, to my pack.

On this path into His woods, I have lost others.  I have grieved two lost relationships and nursed another back to health. He has held my hand, and heard my heartbroken cries.  He has been my strength when I had none.  Now, the world has shifted, and He is wounded, He is grieving.

I love the way, in this photo, she carries the wolf. She is very much a girl - filled with youth and wonder and perhaps even a lingering bit of innocence. Yet she has in her the strength and will to shoulder and support him. Her back is not bowed, her face is not drawn with the effort.  Though her body is marked with the wounds of the struggle, she holds him steady and gently.  I look again at the face of this wild animal, into his predator eyes, and at the drape of his legs, his tail, even his tongue.  He trusts her enough to rest and allow her to bear him up.

I listened last night while my wild Wolf cried.

It was an odd mixture I felt, of strength and helplessness.  My heart aches for His pain. Whether He reveals it to me or not I feel it -- I know it is there.  I know He did not like crying on the phone with me.  He apologized for it, repeatedly.  He wants to be so strong, and not mark me with His brokenness.  I understand that.  But I tried to explain that I see strength in His willingness to be honest, to hurt in front of me, to let me bear it with Him for a while.  It was an amazing gift of trust He gave me.

His pain stings and marks me. I hate seeing and feeling Him hurt.  It's not the fact that I can feel it, but the fact that He is hurting, that I resist. I wish He were happy and whole.  But even the happiest life is filled with pain.  I'm not unused to it, but I wish it didn't hurt Him so. I can't take it away from Him, but what an amazing thing to bear Him up, if only for a few moments, and let Him rest in me. Even these marks I will cherish, I will treasure, for the depth of trust and love they represent.

They are my Wolf, and for me they paint an incredible image of who He is.

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