Sunday was Tony’s birthday, and we took our usual sea glass stroll at Fort Monroe Beach. Tony found something we’d never seen before—a piece of lavender glass, delicate and rare among the typical whites and browns. As if sensing the celebratory mood, dolphins joined us in the bay. We walked with toes in the sand while I played my ukulele, trying to hold onto the last heartbeats of summer.

When he found that lavender glass, I told him it was the Lord’s favor smiling down on him. When the dolphins appeared, I said, “Look, more birthday blessings.” It’s just how I see the world—through the lens of a God who delights in small gifts and perfect timing.

Tony believes in God too, but he’s not a Christian in the way I am. He attends church with me on Sundays, has coffee with our pastor, and respects that faith is integral to my everyday life. When he describes the divine, it sounds like the same Creator I know—just without the theological framework that shapes my days.

The Warning We Ignored

During our premarital counseling, a pastor warned us about being “unequally yoked”—the biblical term for believers partnering with non-believers. It was either sheer defiance or what I now recognize as a bipolar delusion of certainty that led me to marry Tony anyway. I was so sure he was the answer to my prayers.

There’s a verse that says unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. It leaves me wondering: can God build my house with a partner who doesn’t share my faith language? Do we, perhaps, labor in vain?

I love Tony deeply, yet I see the restlessness in him, the never-ending series of questions that I believe only the Spirit can truly satisfy. When I wake, I want the first song I hear to be worship music. When I can’t sleep, I recite scripture. When I’m hurting, I pray for comfort.

But where does Tony go when he needs justification, forgiveness, or peace?

The Mind’s Power to Reframe

I was reading something recently about therapy and how the mind processes guilt. When we mess up, both shame and acceptance might say the same words—”I messed up”—but our internal experience is completely different. Shame condemns; acceptance acknowledges and moves forward.

For me, when I mess up, I go to God. I find forgiveness there, always. Freedom from the crushing weight of shame. I believe in grace that covers not just past mistakes but future ones too. But Tony doesn’t have that same framework for processing guilt or failure.

The question that gnaws in uncertain moments: where does he go to find that same peace?

When Night and Day Coexist

Yesterday morning, the day after Tony’s birthday, I sat in my normal spot at Yorktown Pier watching the sunrise. That’s when I noticed something I’d somehow missed in hundreds of previous dawns: the sun and moon were sharing the sky.

It seemed impossible. I’d always separated night and day in my mind, as if they were opposing forces. Yet there they were, coexisting in those first moments of dawn—the crescent moon hanging high while the sun crested low, until gradually the greater light won. That was inevitable.

I wanted to call Tony immediately to tell him about this epiphany, but he was working on base in a dead zone without cell reception.

When the Phone Rings

A couple hours later, I was at a professional development session in Williamsburg when I saw a missed call from my husband. My stomach dropped immediately.

“There was an incident at work,” Tony began when I called back, and I remember exactly how those words landed—confirming my intuition that something was wrong. “I fell off the building.”

Questions tumbled out. Panic rose in my stomach, sweat pricked my palms. The answers came in fragments: trying to close a roof hatch, rain on the steps, a fifteen to twenty-foot drop, ankle twisted, back injured. My imagination filled in blanks that painted a far worse picture than reality.

Forty minutes later, I was hugging him in a hospital bed—but not before calling my mother to pray. I’d completely forgotten about the sun and moon juxtaposed at dawn.

With explanatory hand gestures and vivid descriptions, Tony helped me piece together what had happened. The truth was frightening enough, but it could have been catastrophic. When the doctor showed us X-rays with no broken bones, I thanked God out loud. I told Tony, “See? There’s a hand of protection over your life.”

Different Languages, Same Love

I’m never going to stop pointing out what I see as divine intervention in our lives—the blessings, the answered prayers, the protection I’ve felt since childhood from a Creator who calls me daughter. I pray that same protection extends to my husband and stepdaughter.

I could be writing a very different post today, one of grief instead of relief.

Tony doesn’t always use my language for these moments. He might call it luck, coincidence, or simply being grateful for good outcomes; nevertheless, I’m beginning to see that different vocabulary doesn’t necessarily mean different experience.

Yesterday’s morning revelation about the sun and moon feels prophetic now. I used to think faith and doubt, belief and skepticism, had to be in opposition. That a marriage cannot work if both partners didn’t speak the same spiritual language.

But maybe, like dawn, there’s a space where different ways of seeing coexist. Where my certainty and his questions can share the same sky until understanding emerges naturally, without force.

The Road Less Traveled

It’s been nice to type tonight around a different topic. Lately, I’ve been writing openly about living with mental illness, and every time I worry I’ve left myself too exposed, someone reaches out to say they needed to hear exactly what I shared. It reminds me I’m on the path I’m supposed to be walking, even if it’s been less traveled by others.

Maybe the same is true for this marriage. Maybe God isn’t waiting for Tony to adopt my theological vocabulary before blessing our union. Maybe divine love is bigger than our human categories of “equally yoked” and “unequally yoked” and my prayers for protection cover Tony, too.

Perhaps the most ordained moments happen not when everything matches perfectly, but when different lights learn to share the same sky.

That lavender sea glass Tony found on his birthday? It’s sitting on our kitchen on the windowsill, catching morning light. Rare, beautiful, and completely unexpected—just like the love we’ve built together, one sunrise at a time.

What assumptions about faith, love, or compatibility have you had to reconsider?