Today is our 10th wedding anniversary and this year Jesse gifted me with the best gift- an anniversary band to compliment my engagement and wedding rings.
This addition is so meaningful because it perfectly symbolizes our past decade together and the way our marriage has grown into a cord of three strands. (Ecclesiastes 4:12)
You see, these kids that were married 1o years ago had absolutely no idea what they were getting into. Sure we had marriage counseling and were serious about making a lifetime commitment but what we didn’t understand is that marriage would require a lot more selflessness and sacrifice than we were capable of. It became quickly apparent in those early years, that we couldn’t survive marriage alone. It required something more. Someone more.
If I could share one piece of hard earned advice with my newlywed self it would be this-
The key to discovering true intimacy in marriage is to experience genuine intimacy with Christ first.
Discovering this kind of intimacy with God and each other didn’t fully happen until grief brought us to the end of our rope. As we began to crave time alone with God, getting to know him through his word, and desiring to bring him pleasure by walking in his will, things began to change. Suddenly we weren’t just living for us. We were living with an eternal perspective that shaped how we viewed our time together on earth. I was able to see Jesse in all his flaws as a man dearly loved by God instead of a man failing to meet my prince charming expectations. I began to see him as a valuable brother in Christ who I would spend all eternity in friendship with and less as someone I was bound to love til death do us part. The more we grew in the knowledge of Christ, the more we began to live and love like him.
I believe the key to a marriage that thrives for decades is getting so tangled up in a love for God that you are not easily unraveled by the world. The enemy will pull and twist on the cord of your marriage. He’ll make you believe you deserve better, that you’ve made a mistake with the cord you chose, or even dangle another cord in front of you that seems a smoother fit. Marriages crumble, not just for affairs and abuses but because they succumb to selfishness, pride, a struggle for control, lack of vulnerability and ignorance towards what authentic intimacy looks like. I’m no expert on marriage but I’ve struggled through and fought hard to learn and make sense of it all. This is why I can tell you the strongest thing to bind us together during the past decade has been discovering our identity in Him. This identity allows us to serve and sacrifice for each other not because of what we’ll get in return but because of what He’ll give in return.
Over the past 10 years it hasn’t been the greatest gifts or the most romantic dates that have proven Jesse’s love for me. It’s not the moments I would quickly jump on social media to share. If you asked when I’ve felt the most loved in our marriage it’s this;
When I’ve yelled and spoke ugly and paused waiting for him to sling it right back but instead he came close, pulled me tight and said “I’m sorry you had a rough day, what can I do to make it better?”
Or the time he quietly disappeared and I found him unloading the dishwasher because he “knows I feel stressed out at the sight of dirty dishes stacked on the counter.”
It’s watching me gain weight with pregnancies and struggle to loose it after and then hear him thanking God for the beautiful transformation he sees in his wife’s heart.
It’s moments like these, he reminds me who we are serving and what our marriage is ultimately about. It’s the entangling of our strands that fuels the desire to love as Christ loved. We still have so much to learn and so far to grow but hopefully we are starting this decade off stronger than the first.
We were meant to live in intimate companionship with God and our spouse. If you’ve struggled through marriage like we have, then I encourage you to seek Christ and discover authentic intimacy. You are not alone in your marriage. His word promises a cord of three strands is not easily broken. Invite Christ in. Remember there is nothing new under the sun. We’ve all been there and dealt with something. Sometimes we’ve struggled successfully and sometimes not. Each morning Jesse and I pray over the marriages of friends and family members. We pray for specific requests they’ve shared and other times for general protection. We do this not only because we believe in prayer but because we know how encouraging it is to have the support of others. If this is something you would like us to do for you, we would be honored.
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10