Ben and I will be celebrating our 3 year anniversary being a married couple in just 4 days. Life has been a crazy whirlwind these past few months. It has been so much so that when I realized it was already june 20th (what? Its June?) just a few days ago, I was caught by surprise.
But since that realization, I keep remembering that in just a few days I get to tack on another year. One, Two, Three years. Its such a short amount of time and yet so much is held within those 1095 days. Ireland. Minnesota. The first year of marriage. Chicago. Hawaii. Florida. The Second year. . Eowyn Being Born.Colorado. Arizona. So many trips back and forth from Wisconsin. So many conversations. So much laundry and dishes and God doing his own housekeeping in our hearts.
And here we are three years later.
The mountains we've faced have seemed unclimbable. Looming defeat has been at our heals through so many instances of our marriage. So many tense jokes of "are we gonna make it?" have been asked. The answer has always been the same-even if hesitantly said. There's only one answer to that question. So many moments of heartache and struggle. "Are we good?" Our language has been shaped to be our own. Confidence has been built as these past years have tested us. Great is the resolve of a covenant. Great is the strength of our Jesus. Yet, we'd both agree marriage is hard.
So many moments of indescribable beauty. So many belly laughs and pillow talks. So much heart growth and character building. So much wit coming out of your mouth. So much appreciation and learning to love each other well. Grace Grace Grace. Intertwining itself in our marriage. Surprises for the other. Birthdays. Celebrations. Small gifts of words and acts of service. Time spent dreaming. Birth of our babe. Celebrating successes. Discovering what we're passionate about. Discovering each other. Marriage is so much Joy.
Ridiculous sunsets. Quiet Walks. Dairy Queen runs. Movie Dates. Ireland. Pajama runs. Drive in movies. Grocery shopping. Board Games. Cleaning dishes together. Praying together. Playing. Lego building. Stepping out in faith. A baby. IKEA furniture. Marriage is such an adventure.
You know me, John Benjamin Sprague. You know the scariest parts of my heart. You know my fears. You know my issues and my hangups and my struggles with sin. You bring beauty out of me. You call attention to the Jesus living in us. You sing reminders of life and joy. You celebrate. You delight. You love and cherish. You know and love your wife. Three years later I'm still surprised at your love. Its depths I have yet to reach. I'm so proud I belong with you.
Out of our whole stories, I can say these past three years have been my most beautiful ones.
Thank you for these past three years. My respect and admiration for the man you are has grown exponentially through these days. I love being your bride.
And in keeping with the years past here are 10 things I've learned.
1. Seeing your spouse become a parent changes things. For starters, it expands a heart big time, but in one of the most obvious of ways it allows you to see where trust issues lie. Becoming parents have allowed us to figure out how to actually be there for each other in a way that pre-kid life never gave us. and admitting major weakness to one another just does something.
2. We've had to redefine a lot of the ways we see things. What is 'right' for our family, what the biblical view on sex, and gender roles, and parenting are as far as we understand them-SO much of who we are has been challenged this past year and has changed. For the better.
3. Being known in deep down ways is sexy.
4. Forgiveness, and saying sorry is also sexy.
5. Becoming parents doesn't necessarily threaten a marriage. in our case it was the best thing that could have happened to it.
6. It's okay to go to bed in disagreement. Unless you're steaming, then we need to figure out what needs to be done. sometimes sleep does in fact fix it. sometimes it makes it worse.
7. Living life with you through hard stuff makes the idea of living without you seem far more unbearable than the cumulative of all the hard things we faced together.
8. working on our friendship is the best area to put under our focus out of all the other dynamics our marriage has. Becoming better friends makes for better team players in the parenting arena, and makes each other trust one another in areas of finance, time-management, even just with one anothers feelings. You're my friend, you get me-you're for me.
9. Shared sense of humor or lack thereof can make or break moments.
10. It's worth it.
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