Eight Years

"I take you to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part."

Eight years have passed since those words were said. He was 24. I was 22. I was shaking and lightheaded and nauseated, due mostly to the three-month-old baby inside me. Things were shaky. Things were scary.

But we promised.

And we have been true to each other through the good and the bad, through the sickness and the health, through the richer, but mostly through the poorer; and will remain so until death parts us. God has taken this marriage, a second marriage for my husband, and an out of wedlock pregnancy beginning for both of us, and for reasons unbeknownst to us, He has blessed it. He has allowed us to truly love one another. He has given us two children and brought us to a place where we can glorify Him by living a life in a place where according to His law, we never should have been. This is called grace. Not cheap grace, where we excuse the beginning by how good things are as an indication that we must have done something right ourselves, but full out grace, where we have been led to brokenness over our beginnings and our continual sin condition but live knowing that God sustains and blesses us regardless because He loves us. I point this out because a handful of younger people read this blog, and the last thing I want is to be flip or trivialize or romanticize the beginning. It was terribly hard and at times I thought maybe it wouldn't work out. But God intervened. And I am forever thankful.

I wish I could say that on my end of the bargain, I have always been nice, forgiving, tender and obedient, but I haven't. And God has used this marriage to open my eyes more and more every day to the reality of how I fall short in my ability to save myself, and that in turn reminds me that my marriage is to be a picture of Christ and the church. The references to this relationship in scripture refer to a bride that has to be washed by her husband (especially in Ephesians 5 but at other places too), NOT the picture we think of when we think of human brides painstakingly preparing themselves to meet their groom. There have been times (post c-section AND post torn ankle ligament) that my husband has had to physically care for me in ways that I never thought I would have to rely on someone else for. At my very most disgusting, he has loved me and taken care of me. And at my worst emotional and spiritual times, he has persevered with me despite the confusion. And at his worst emotional and spiritual times, I do my best to persevere too. We've had a few instances of minor physical care for him but it has been more me that needed it and I know that if the time ever comes that he needs it, I will do the same without question. I will say though, that he on the whole is more giving than I am in this area.

In all of this is our Father's deep, great love, that while my husband and I were sinners, Christ died for us, (rf. Romans 5:8) and He did not forget to pay for the sins committed that surrounded our marriage. And He paid so completely that He has allowed us to be joyfully united to each other through Him. I pray for eight more years, then another eight, then another, and on and on until hopefully, we meet our Savior together some day when we are very old and worn out (this is ideal, I know -- someone usually has to go first -- but I can still hope, can't I?). I don't know what the future holds but today I am content in what God has given and will remain so.