I am sharing this to testify to the unmatchable power of
God, and also as an honor to my husband for loving me and caring for me, for
driving me crazy and making me mad, for giving me adorable children and awkward
drive-thru experiences – he is my favorite.
I think most people know our “how we met” story so I won’t
go into all those mushy details. Let’s just start on wedding day – the day
where two young immature people who don’t really know each other at all get
married and think everything is going to be perfect and blissful.
So yeah, not so much. Are you married? If so, I’m sure you
rolled your eyes just now. It might have just been an emotional rolling of the
eyes, not the actual physical rolling of the eyes. Well how should I know? I
should know? I am not sitting right next to you, am I? Oh, so I should just
know what is going on inside of you – I should just read your mind? No, I didn’t
assume that’s what you were trying to say. I think you might have some issues
you need to work on. No, we are not talking about my issues right now, we are
talking about yours and you need to deal with this. Right now. This way. Here
let me help you (grab person’s neck tightly and shake vigorously).
Sorry about that. Moving on.
We quickly discovered that everything was exactly how we
expected it to be, PERFECT AND BLISSFUL… until year 3 when we couldn’t talk
about ANYTHING without it turning into an enormous, un-resolvable argument and
realized we had been in denial. Well, me – I had been in denial and packed on
some serious emotional pounds. I probably ate an entire ‘whoa is me’ pizza all
by myself every night.
Needless to say our first three years of marriage and
getting to know one another was not a piece of cake. Elijah spent most of his
time frustrated at me, and I spent most of my time ‘hurt’ by him. There was a
Noah’s Ark sized gap of misunderstanding that floated between us, and I had allowed
my expectations of what a good marriage should look like cause me to crawl into
a tiny hole, avoid reality and shut down. Not a good place to be. Toward the
end of year 3, I became angry – angry at Elijah for being a jerk and angry at
myself for not believing in divorce. By this time, I had come to believe some
serious things were screwy in the head of my horrible husband. I remember lying in bed
next to him, scooted over as close to the edge as possible thinking, “I need to
figure out a way to just harden myself over so I can survive the next 60 years.
And we are never going to be able to have children together. That would be terrible.”
I spent many nights emotionally reliving all the ways he had done me wrong. I
despised him.
At this point, I had let go of all of my fantastical
expectations and thrown in the towel on the ideal marriage. This meant
that I no longer kept silent. It was an ugly season for me (imagine HomeStar
Runner voice saying, “The Ugly One!”), and believe me, I have since repented!
But the Lord used that time to do something amazing – I grew a pair. During the
first three years I didn’t know how to stand up to someone who was merely
confident. I was so insecure and afraid of confrontation that I stopped
speaking the moment I felt intimidated. Every conversation ended the same way…
without a good ending. The ugliness of my emotional puberty was me taking the
lid off and letting years of my ‘whoa is me’ pizza spill out. My apologies for
the visual.
As I was pillaging through my ugly season collecting awful
accusations and demerits against Elijah, I had a moment. A God moment. A
parting of the clouds kind of moment.
I was driving home from work and a mental post-it randomly popped
into my head – aren’t good wives usually for
their husbands? Don’t they usually stand up for him and come to his defense
when he is being slandered behind his back? …Oh sweet Jesus, I am the one doing
the slandering. BOOM. My mind immediately started to grab at whatever bits of
self-justification it could find. “But he... But I didn’t… but he shouldn’t have…
If he wasn’t so…” ugh. Pointless. There had to be something off somewhere. So I
collected all my awful accusations, all my prized demerits, and presented them
to God and asked, “God, are all these things I am believing about Elijah true?”
It is possible that all the people driving on the road with
me heard the enormous bolt. It was the first time I heard the Voice of the Lord
in this way, like a roaring Lion, rolling on the thunder, BOOMING through time
and space to break through my existence and set before me the gentle answer
that changed me.
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”
It was almost desperate sounding, as if God himself had been
holding his breath waiting and waiting for me to finally ask the question. It
rocked my world. My world was a lie.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It took some time to release the poison. Even while writing
this the Lord reminded me of some things I had said to myself that I needed to
repent for. I didn’t really understand how to walk through forgiveness
completely back then. I am thankful that the Lord journeys with us and brings
us out of the ‘muck and mire’ as we yield. I YIELD TO YOU JESUS!!!
Year 4 the Lord gave me some assignments – ways that he
wanted me to invest in Elijah. I obeyed, not realizing that what he was really
doing was knitting our hearts together, mending what was broken, and reviving
his intent for our life together. It was a little awkward at first, but then it
started to shift. The Lord showed me the truth about Elijah. He showed me who
he really was, how gentle and pure his heart really was for me. He showed me
the beautiful gift I had been given; certainly an honor I didn’t deserve. He
showed me grace amazing.
Every year when our anniversary comes around I am reminded
again of Gods amazing redemption. In my heart there is an alter built to the
Lord, a mile stone that I pass and stop to see HIM and all HE has done for me,
to give thanks and worship him for being an awesome God, for saving me over and
over again from my own way. It is a sweet time for me.
Fast forward to year 9 with two babies and even more
happiness and joy – I’d say the ideal marriage cannot be defined in time. Wherever
there is covenant, ideal is always Gods intent. From the highest to the lowest
points, the brush strokes of God create the most beautiful picture. …Don’t get me wrong, I still have to forgive the turd for falling asleep by 9 every night, using up all the paper towels and leaving his shoes under the couch…
Happy holiday of happiness my Love! I.AM.SO.HAPPY! XOXO
