I've read a number of marriage blogs over the years – often searching them out when I believe I'm in the right and DH in the wrong and wanting to prove to myself how hard done by I am. Those that have been the most helpful (and often challenging) are those where the author has been real and authentic.
I can try to follow that example today as I write about my own marriage. Today we celebrate an incredible thirty-five years. It seems like a lifetime when I write or say the words. But looking back to the beginning, when we stood beside one another in a tiny sandstone church that had been built by the hands of convicts and pledged our love to one another, it doesn't seem that long ago.
Over the years there have been times when I have joyfully wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary, times when I felt that I deserved a medal for making it so far, times when DH obviously deserved a medal, times when just to have survived another year was a reason to mark the occasion, times when I would have rather pretended that it wasn't our anniversary at all, times when stress or concern or health or being heavily pregnant (twice) or sick children or even just the feeling of the post-Christmas slump made celebrating awkward or inconvenient or even impossible.
Since that day thirty-five years ago there have been joys and pains that we could never have imagined. Since that day we have lost all four of my grandparents, DH's father and DH's sister, as well as several aunts and uncles between us (including my big-sister-aunt who was only six years my senior). Since that day we have added five sons, three daughter-in-laws have bravely joined the family, and seven beautiful granddaughters have been welcomed. Nowadays we deal with aging parents and their concerns and are a little more aware of our own mortality while enjoying the men our sons have grown into, being thankful for our hand-chosen daughters, and loving on The Most Adorable Granddaughters.
Thirty-five years ago we were starry eyed, and believing ourselves deeply in love – more in love than any other couple who had ever married and therefore unlikely to ever have the problems others did – we believed ourselves amply prepared for marriage. When we said “forever” we didn't think in terms of years or growing old. It was more of a romantic notion and we had no idea what it meant. Not at the time.
It's interesting the way doing life alongside another person – someone who has quirks and beliefs and traditions different to your own – changes and challenges your thinking and causese the rose-coloured lens to fall away.
We haven't survived thirty-five years as a married couple because we just somehow managed to find the perfect match (our “soulmate” which seems to be the popular term at the moment and which I cringe everytime I hear a new couple say as part of their vows – as if it is ever possible that another person can fully complete us – only God can do that). No, it's only by God's grace and goodness that we have made it this far.
And because of the vows we made.
Without those vows I think I would have walked years ago. Living with another person whose needs and wants have to be taken into consideration, whose family background is not so similar after all when the rose-coloured lens are removed; struggling with the worry and stress of insufficient income in our early years alongside constantly rising mortgage rates; trying to establish traditions when there have been vastly different ways of celebrating significant events in each family of origin and each person believes theirs to be the right way; discovering that in the day to day of living and survivng that sometimes that lovin' feeling' isn't always present; juggling parenting, and working, and parenting styles, and study, and children's needs; the reality of all day morning sickness, and PMT, and health concerns, and trips to the emergency department.
Those vows are far more than just a piece of paper – they represent a level of commitment that cannot be achieved or which would not exist without them. Those vows are a sacred convenant – binding and permanent – even if at times I have been tempted to look for loopholes.
But at these times God has reminded me that it was a convenant entered into by His power and might. His Spirit gently prods and exposes and convicts and shows me where I need to change. Not DH but me. And it is His Spirit that gives me the strength to do what is right whether it's showing love when I'd rather fight tooth and nail, or forgiving or seeking forgiveness when I've been wronged or have wronged (and especially the former when I believe I have every right to hang onto a grudge), or showing patience when I'm frustrated, or whatever else is required.
No, we haven't survived thirty-five years because I am perfect. Or even DH. But because God is. Because, as the Bible says, a strand of three cords is not easily broken. So even though this is one of the years I want to celebrate (and I've been working on a gift for the occasion for over a year and which isn't finished and which everyone but DH seems to like!), in the years when I don't feel like it I can remember God's goodness and that He has brought us this far and celebrate the three-stranded-cord that is not easily broken.
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