A New Year for Little Wife

Little Wife set her empty wine glass on the kitchen table and gazed sadly out the window at the falling snow.  The weak mid-January sunlight filtered through the cold clouds barely reaching the ground before dissolving into another gray afternoon.  “Well,” she thought to herself, “If I’ve had one glass and broke my new year resolution, I might as well pour another one just to make sure.”  

She didn’t always drink alone, and she didn’t always overdrink.  But sometimes just one glass wasn’t enough to numb her pain and hide her shame and quench the desperation of her life.  So just one more and then she would be feeling better and could cope with the rest of the long winter day…and long winter night…the long winter night of her life, actually.

Little Wife walked slowly to the refrigerator where the open bottle of St. Margarita was waiting for her eventual return.  She smiled at her old friend with the familiar label, the comfort of knowing that soon she would feel a little better.  Big Man would be home from his workout time at the gym pretty soon, so this was a really good way to spend a few minutes, peace and quiet and personal reflection, gazing out that window for some sign of hope, some sign of spring.

“Nope, no spring for a long while, Little Wife,” she spoke quietly to herself, feeling a little dizzy and mesmerized by the falling snowflakes.  “We might as well just get all cozy here for a few more weeks.”  

Little Wife was always very diligent about her New Year’s Resolutions.  She liked to set goals for herself and challenge herself.  There was the year that she vowed to quit smoking cigarettes and never had another after January 30th of that year.  There was the year Little Wife decided that she would train to run a 5K race on April Fool’s Day — and finished it within 49 minutes, start to finish.  Little Wife could remember the year she decided to lose a few pounds because of her smallish size and lived on salads and cooked beets for several weeks, dropping the desired weight and feeling pretty good about herself.  Little Wife also made annual new year promises to pray more, study her Bible more and trust God more.  She always tried so hard to be better.

This recent New Year’s Eve had been a CRAZY night for Little Wife.  Big Man had made reservations for them at a local club because he really liked to dance the new year into existence.  He liked to dance so much and loved to show off his Little Wife on the dance floor.  Because it was a very special night, he insisted that she switch from her usual glass of wine to his favorite drink, Pirate’s rum on the rocks.  Little Wife was very concerned about this because she knew that Big Man wanted her to keep up with him dancing and drinking.  Big Man was VERY big and could drink a lot of rum, and Little Wife, well … Little Wife was getting so small.

Little Wife tried as hard as she could to keep up, knowing that Big Man would be pleased with her.  Unfortunately for Little Wife, she was trying to dance to the loud music and hold her rum at the same time.  Imagine Little Wife dancing with a drink in her hand on a crowded New Year’s Eve dance floor, surrounded by and bumping into other oblivious tall dancers.  She spilled her drink and then dropped her drink even before it got close to midnight.  Big Man laughed and laughed at her silliness.  And then an important person in a suit asked Little Wife to please take herself off the dance floor and out the door before anyone stepped on the broken glass all over the floor.

And then on the way to the wonderful hotel room where they would spend the night, Little Wife suddenly became very sick and lost her delicious New Year’s Eve supper in the backseat of the cab they were riding in.  And that was all she remembered until she woke up on New Year’s Day with a vicious headache and the need to maybe throw up again in the bathroom sink.

So Little Wife gladly and easily made her resolution to stop drinking and was able to keep it for a pretty good two weeks. She told Big Man that she would never drink again and dumped all of her wine bottles down the drain.  She couldn’t help but notice the angry scowl on his big face.

The next day, he brought home two brand new bottles of wine for her.  He showed them to Little Wife, smiled and set them in the fridge.  He walked out of the kitchen, grinning broadly because of his great love for Little Wife.

And she tried so hard to ignore the bottles of wine.

But how could she cope with the stress of life married to a Big Man?  She decided it would be best to just get it over with and have a small glass of wine, and then maybe just one more little glass of wine.  Maybe she would quit drinking another day… 

 

Chaplain’s note:  many women in destructive, abusive relationships turn to alcohol, drugs, pornography, uncontrolled shopping, or adultery in an attempt to cope with their living situations.  If you can relate to this story, please reach out for help.  Jesus wants to help you.  FOCUS Ministries can provide counseling and resources.  We understand all about that.

 

 

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