The day before my wife ran the Bass Pro Marathon, we went down to Branson and spent part of the day at Silver Dollar City. For those of you who don’t know, Silver Dollar City is a theme park based on the late 1800’s. It features a variety of roller coasters and water rides, but is mostly known for its old time shows, craftsman shops, food and atmosphere.
Shortly after my parents retired to Springfield, Missouri, we visited the area for a family vacation. We never thought at the time that we’d ever live here, but we had a great vacation, and Silver Dollar City was our favorite part of it. When we did, in fact, move to the Ozarks, we bought season passes and visited the park about once a month. As time went by, we visited less, but at the beginning of 2010, we bought season passes one more time.
While we were having our marriage difficulties, we made two or three visits to the theme park. I suppose it was an escape from reality and a way to pretend that things were still good. We didn’t have very many good days last Spring and Summer, but the ones we spent at Silver Dollar City were always fun. I could spoil my sweetheart and she would let me, and we could laugh and play together like the best of friends, not a couple who were nearing the end of their marriage.
During that same time period, I began the practice of taking a lot of pictures of my wife while we were out going places and doing things together. I took them on my phone, so they were always at my fingertips to look at. Naturally, I took quite a few pictures during the several visits we made to Silver Dollar City. Since we had so few good times together during that part of last year, I wanted to hold on to whatever positives I could.
I also proudly displayed the pictures as backgrounds on my phone, on Facebook, and anywhere else that I could show my wife that I was truly devoted to her, and that she was the one I was in love with and thinking of. She always seemed a bit uncomfortable with it, but I believed that deep down, she liked knowing that I was that proud of her and wanted to be her man that much.
After we got back together, and after the initial joy of reuniting, I went through a period where I struggled with regret about the past and the things that we had gone through. I would obsess over the pictures at times, looking at the dates they were taken, and thinking about the way things were then and how I wished they had been instead. It was rather unhealthy and was dragging me down quite a bit for a period of time.
One day, I was looking for a different picture to set as my background on my phone. The one I had used for several months was taken at Silver Dollar City while we were separated. My wife would always ask me, “Why do you like that picture?” I just told her that I liked the way she looked in it, which was true. I also liked the memories of the day we had spent, and I liked that she was wearing my favorite shirt in the picture.
As I scanned my phone for a new picture, I noticed something. In the new pictures from Silver Dollar City, taken after we had gotten back together, my wife had a different look about her. There was a happiness in her eyes and a purity in her smile that wasn’t there in the earlier ones. I began to look further. I found the same thing in the other, older photos taken in other places.
As I began to put it all together, it suddenly became clear. In all of the pictures taken before we got back together, there was a sadness and a distance in her eyes. In all of the pictures taken after we reunited, that look was gone, and had been replaced by one of happiness and freedom. That realization set me free from being stuck obsessing over the pictures of the past, and gave me a visible sign of how much everything was now changed.
Seeing isn’t necessarily believing, and I was experiencing the changes happening in our marriage for myself, but those pictures existed as proof that the way things had been were no longer the way they were. Not only that, they showed that it was putting our marriage back together that had brought about the healing. We were one again in heart and mind, and the difference was undeniable.
The Restoration Tour 