How The Alchemist Taught Me to be a Better Wife

How The Alchemist Taught Me to be a Better Wife

I really am astonished at the changes the ideas in this book encouraged in my life!  Here I will write about how it showed me, by example, how to better love Sid, my husband.

The main character in The Alchemist is a shepherd boy.  When we meet him we learn of a woman who he has been thinking about ever since he had a good, long conversation with her a year earlier.  He is looking forward to arriving in her village again in just a few days.  Before he gets there, he decides to sell his sheep and pursue his treasure, his “Personal Legend” in Egypt, rather than continue on in the life he knows.

A couple of years into his journey, he meets another woman, his twin soul.  I don’t think he would have recognized her as such, at least we (the reader) might not have, had he/we not had the first woman to contrast her by.  The twin soul lives in an oasis town in the middle of the desert in Egypt.  She is “a woman of the desert.”  Her name is Fatima.  She and the shepherd boy know from the first time they look at each other that they love each other, that they are twin souls.  Care to have your socks knocked off?  No sooner than they express their love for one another, does Fatima bid him farewell as he embarks on the next leg of his journey!   Neither of them sought to satisfy their own self through their love.  They don’t spend hours talking, they don’t kiss, they don’t fish for the other to point out their own wonderful qualities or describe their physical beauty.  

This is altogether a foreign concept to us modern day Americans, isn’t it?  Loving someone without seeking to have our own needs met through them?  That does not compute, don’t we seek to have love in our lives so that we won’t be alone, so that we feel loved, so that we receive validation for the way we live our lives?  I’m ashamed of myself!  I feel that I have not truly expressed my love for Sid!  I have verbally, but I now realize how little that really means.

Okay, back on track, each lover has faith that they will be together again, but the shepherd’s treasure (which is the symbol of God’s will for his life) takes priority not only in his own life, but in Fatima’s life, as well.  She sends him off on his journey without burdening him in any way, besides the burden he may feel just wanting to be with her.  She wants to support his mission, above her desire to be near him.  Wow.  Here’s a quote from my favorite poet, Rainer Maria Rilke:

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest of human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.” 

If I truly love Sid, then why do I live as though my needs are more important than his mission?  Okay, so maybe I could argue that out-of-town tattoo conventions (. . . with buddies . . . in OUR motorhome . . . leaving me behind with three young children and a flat tire), don’t seem to get him one iota of a millimeter closer to God’s will for his life!  But who am I to even attempt to guess at how God works in Sid’s life?  Or how He might use Sid in the lives of others?  I have to let him go.  I have to let him go.  

So, lately I have been longing and striving to live out my love for Sid.  To love the distance between us, to succeed in seeing his whole against the sky.  To encourage his pursuits, to assist him in all the ways that I can.  Of course, I have already blown it!  But the life-giving thing that has happened is that in trying to be Sid’s “woman of the desert,” striving to view his distant, whole individual, I have begun to feel my love for him in new ways.  He’s so beautiful!!

Why did it take me 11 years of marriage to get to this point?!  Because I’m selfish.  I wanted our love to serve me, to meet my needs.  I refuse to blame that entirely on our culture, but I do think it played a role.

Can I really do this?  Here’s a breakdown of my goals for how I want to be as a wife.

• one who encourages and adores Sid’s Sid-ness.
• one who does not seek to consume Sid’s gifts, but rather seeks to find ways to nurture them, to multiply them, that they may bless others.
• one who responsibly holds things together at home, loving and teaching our children to the best of my understanding and ability, with a good attitude.
• one who spends Sid’s earnings in a manner that expresses my acknowledgment and appreciation of the effort and sacrifice required of him to bring home those earnings.
• one who releases her desire and attempts to own Sid, hopefully eliminating destructive jealousy.
• one who gives Sid liberty to carry out his life as he pleases without giving unnecessary, burdensome questioning, judgment or criticism.
• one who praises God for the man that Sid is, thanking Him for His gift of Sid in my life as a sign of His unconditional and eternal love for me.
• one who prays and encourages that the good in Sid be preserved, while accepting, yet never dwelling on what might not be good.
• one who is committed to seeking the Lord in continuing to learn and practice being a better wife, companion, friend, mother . . . ah, what the heck?  Better housekeeper and cook, too!

I still can’t believe that I got so much from that darn book!!  Are you convinced, yet?  You need to read The Alchemist.  Anyone up for a reading club?