Married for Eternity

Tonight I was at the Watson’s house, helping my best friend in Colorado’s family begin wedding planning for their beautiful Catherine. Tine, my best friend here, came home towards the end of it, and we are having breakfast at 9 tomorrow morning. Seeing as how it was 10 p.m. at that time, a thought I’ve had many times through the years passed through my mind… “I might as well just spend the night here since we’re getting together so soon anyway.” It very quickly dawned on me that I couldn’t do that…I have a husband, and he was even sitting at the table with me! ☺ Strange what the contexts of life’s histories thrust one back into.

It’s been a year since I was in Catherine’s current shoes. I remember a year ago so clearly…being on the beach in Santa Barbara as John proposed…the following hours and days from then in joyfully celebrating with many people, starting the wedding planning process and our last year of college. It is such an understatement to say how much has happened in a year and how quickly it has gone by.

I am here. In Colorado. A college graduate. But most significantly…

I am now married for life. Such a simple statement, but so much depth and meaning within it.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this ritual while in bed at night trying to fall asleep. I have since found out it’s a good sleep tactic, but that’s a bit beside the point right now. I would focus my thoughts and always think about the same thing…and it was that thought that would bring me to sleep. For the last several years, it has been of a wedding day and being married. For the last couple of years, it has been visions of John’s and my wedding day and us being married. It was always a vision, almost always far off, a desired reality but not a tangible one at the present. Yet, in those last conscious moments before sleep, it brought rest and peace.

Now there’s a man in my bed when I go to sleep. It’s a funny statement, but a reality with so much depth and meaning in it…

There have been a lot of quiet moments at night when we are falling asleep when I remember the moments I used to have. The thoughts that were always a far off reality are now real, living and breathing moments. This man that I have hoped and dreamed for now rests beside me. In these present moments, I wonder how this came to be.

I remember the process very well, but it is still surreal that we are actually married now. Still surreal that this man loves me and has chosen to spend the rest of my life with me. It still seems like yesterday we were sitting in each other’s dorm rooms, having long conversations about life and the Lord with the thought of marrying each other beginning to creep into each other’s minds unbeknownst to the other. Somehow five years have passed and what was so long awaited for has come to fruition.

In marriage, we grow more and more comfortable with each other and the depths of who we are continue to be cracked open, he finds the quirks and other things endearing in some way. It is strange to feel such a freedom with another person. This is saying a lot for me as I am generally a very open book and person with the people in my life. But, I am realizing that I am a very self-controlled person too.

Marriage breaks that down. There is freedom and acceptance found in the bounding of a covenant made to each other before the Lord.

I often marvel at what I have been given through John. But through it, I’ve been convicted in that I need to marvel more at what the Lord is showing me through John about Himself…

I don’t always understand why I am chosen. What about myself makes me lovable, to the point that one would lay his life before me and down for me. I don’t always understand the unwavering commitment given to me in the midst of my emotions and falling short. I can’t comprehend the depth that will develop over a lifetime. I can shirk away from acceptance to be safe alone.

I ask John these questions sometimes. He never really gives me a specific answer. That is a good thing.

I don’t need to be justified with reasons why. I simply need to know that I am, and to live fully in that.

I don’t always understand why I am chosen by the Lord. What about myself is loveable to the point that He would give His life up on the cross for me. I don’t always understand His unwavering commitment given to me when I continually fall short. I can’t comprehend the depth that will build upon what has already been built, and that it will continue for a lifetime. I can shirk away from His acceptance because I don’t understand it, but I can understand myself when I am alone.

I need to ask the Lord these questions. These questions that have been pressed upon my heart in the beginning of marriage--that I may venture deeper into the depths of Himself. I need to ask these questions not out of seeking a justification of reasons why about myself, but to know the reasoning of His heart and His character. To understand more about the fact that somehow I am, so I may live fully in that.

I recently read a wedding photographer’s blog about a wedding he shot, and the pastor presenting the new husband and wife as “a brand new creation, something that has never existed before in the history of the world.” That is profound. Its meaning is not at risk to get lost with me in John’s and my marriage right now.

But, I do think it’s at risk to be lost in my relationship with the Lord right now. I forget I am a brand-new creation in the Lord, forgiven, redeemed, and being sanctified. Some of these things are a one-time deal. Others are a process. I have walked with the Lord for 10 years now…wow. Yet something else that seems to have flown by. The magnitude of truth and change that the Gospel bears needs to remain fresh. If it is not to me, then how can I expect to live it and communicate it to others and have it impact them?


I am humbled by marriage. I am deeply grateful for the reasons God has ordained and blessed it. I am thankful for the ways He uses it as a deeper picture of Himself, and that marriage, the most profound of all human relationships, ultimately points back to the greatest relationship of them all…

With Him. Married for eternity.

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” 1 John 4:9-12

[In]definite

A short snapshot into me:
I am a detail-oriented person. I thrive on learning information and knowing different things. I love to plan and set things in action. I like to always be doing something, and I tend to do better when I have more rather than fewer things to do. I like seeing the big picture and envisioning it if I can then respond by figuring out how to make it a reality or what is practical in it. I am not one to like things up in the air for long. I love questions if I can also seek out the answer.

This is not a conclusive list to who I am, but it does show a large side of my character and how I operate in life…and these are things I would often include when people would ask me to describe myself.

Just like I say in the list above, I love to know different things, and I love to have answers. This is true in how I treat myself as well. Many people have pointed out to me how well I seem to know myself and how self-aware I am. I like to think that as I get older, I figure myself out more and more, as if it were a vast, yet definite answer that I will one day reach.

Yet, in myself, and in my circumstances, God is leading quite a path into the indefinite that I haven’t experienced in this measure before. A time of no concrete circumstances. Of no concrete characteristics. No, instead, they are ambiguous, being remolded and reshifted into whatever He desires them and me to be. Could it be that what eventually happens are things that I may know now? In part, I think that could be very true. But the rest—it’s left unknown to me for what God deems now to be the better good in the meantime.

John and I left SLO a month ago to spend time in Colorado before heading to New York City, where we believe God is leading us. We’ve already been here a bit longer than we had hoped or planned for. Yet, more and more, we realize that God is very purposeful in where He has us in the meantime.

This season is so purposeful but it is also sometimes difficult. It is a simple one. It shines a purer and brighter light on who I really am and causes me to see and evaluate that, and more than ever, surrender to the Lord. A few days ago, I was also at this point where I felt like everything has so many dimensions that the answer is so complicated. I was trying to seek out the answers I want rather than the answer that has been given. But, the reality I am finding is that the more complicated life gets, the simpler the answer to everything becomes. It is that everything comes from, goes to, and goes through the Lord. How Jesus chooses to manifest the results may be complicated and dynamic to us, but it's not up to us, and we need not concern ourselves with that.

It begs the need for quietness of spirit. It begs the discipline of rest and simplicity in our hearts and demeanor. And it comes from trust…do we trust the Lord? Can we wait upon Him? Can we rest in Him?

In a quiet spirit, there our hearts are inclined to listen and hear from the ever gracious Holy Spirit. In a quiet spirit, there is both a surrender of our desires for the present situation, and an acceptance of what the Lord has brought in them instead of what we envisioned. From that, there can be a response of willingness and joyfulness in being where He has placed us.

Here.

Right now.

To be soft for the shaping.

Willing for the changing.

Patient in the waiting.

Steadfast in the hoping.

Passionately living by faith.

He has brought us through before, and He will continue to in the present and future.

He is good to remind us of this…God asked me the question of where my heart is at with waiting on hearing and forsaking my hearing aids about a week or so ago. I was able to respond without a hesitation that I wouldn't trade or change it for anything…

Even though it’s ambiguous and at times more than ever I am walking by faith and not by sight…He has done far more than I ever could have imagined with the lack. He has shown Himself to me over and over again in that process. Still I wait.

It’s much like now. John and I know Who we trust. Yes, it’s indefinite and ambiguous. Yes, it’s hard sometimes. Yes, there is a lack of knowledge and answers we would love to have. But that’s not what God has ordained for this season. Through Him, the answer is simple.

And we will wait. God will shape us indefinitely…but in Him, we are definitely known.