Marriage: Fifteen Years In

Well, today is my fifteenth wedding anniversary. I am thankful to God for having so greatly blessed me, and today I find myself quite predictably thinking a lot about marriage.

Fifteen years in, has marriage been what I expected? In one sense, yes. I had a pretty good idea what it would be like because Erin and I already knew each other so well. We had dated since high school, so we had already overcome some of the hurdles that newlyweds less familiar with each other often face.

That being said, the fact that we knew each other so well coupled with the fact that (like most people right out of college) I thought I knew far more about everything than I actually did, presented peculiar difficulties. We were typical of most couples getting married, thinking our life together would be perfect. And even though we knew it wasn’t that way for many (most/any) folks, we were confident that we would be the exception.

So have these fifteen years been perfect? Honestly, no. Like any couple outside of the storybooks, in addition to the many fantastic ups, we’ve also had our downs. Most of these have resulted from a single factor: I’m a part of this marriage.

But from my perspective, and I am fairly confident Erin would tell you the same, our marriage has been wonderful. At times it has been difficult, but marriage has been the vehicle of God’s great blessing to me. Through it I have grown both emotionally and spiritually. I have been blessed with two amazing children who have the most loving and devoted mother I could ever want for them. Year by year I’ve grown closer to my best friend in the entire world.

And I have learned a lot about love.

Usually when we talk about love we are referring to a romantic feeling in the heart, a feeling that causes our knees to go weak and the butterflies to flutter in the pit of our stomach. Or perhaps what we mean is simply that when I am with that person they make me so happy. Maybe it’s just the sense someone gives us that, as Jerry Maguire put it, “You...complete...me.”

These are decidedly not what I am talking about when I say that I’ve learned a lot about love. Oh yes. They are all present too. And that’s another area in which I am enormously blessed by God. But when I say I’ve learned a lot about love, what I mean is that I’ve learned about true love, the kind of love that Christ has for his bride (the Church). And in seeing this love, I’ve also learned how very far short I fall of his example.

Bryan Chapell writes in Each for the Other, "God loves us as a consequence of the relationship he has established with us, not because of any beauty we possess or any service we could offer. Nothing better communicates this grace than unconditional love. A husband who cherishes his wife to honor the divine covenant that binds them, rather than any good she does for him, honors both his God and his wife."

This is the kind of love that I have tried to have for my wife (though I regularly fail). Love that is neither dependent on what she can do for me, nor on how I feel about her at any given moment. Rather it is love that is dependent on the commitment I made to her fifteen years ago today. A commitment to honor her and to cherish her. And yes, a commitment to love her.

Quite frankly, it’s something my wife has probably done a better job of than I have. Of course, it’s not really a fair comparison; there’s a lot more beauty in her to love than there is in me. If she’s going to love me, it can’t be for anything I possess! But in loving me in spite of all the messiness I bring to the party, she has shown me how to love her.

You see, I find her more attractive in every way than I did on the day we married. She is more beautiful in character, in spirit and in appearance. She still simultaneously makes my heart melt and race. But when I say I love her, I’m not talking about how I feel. I’m talking about a commitment to her well-being. A commitment to be a blessing to her. A commitment that I am honored to have the opportunity to keep.

I do this because Christ made a commitment to his bride, a commitment to be about her well-being. A commitment to be a blessing to her. A commitment that he was honored to keep. And in so keeping that commitment, he makes his bride lovely.

Make no mistake. I find my lovely bride to be completely worthy of my love (and far more for that matter). But that is not why I love her. I love her because Christ loved his bride even though she was completely unworthy.

A couple months ago Andrew Peterson released an album entitled Counting Stars. When he did, I posted this entry which included the video below to the song Dancing in the Minefields. Given the nature of the date today and the beauty of the truths contained in the song, I figured it was worth posting again.

Listen. Enjoy. And I pray that you might personally know the joy spoken of in this song, the joy that I’ve been so blessed to know for these fifteen years.