...best song about marriage ever...

I’ve been a little behind in blogging this week because our world sort of got turned upside down last Wednesday night when my new sister-in-law fell and broke her leg in two places.  Bless her heart, she’s a trooper.  We all rallied to make sure she was taken care of, and things are slowly returning back to normal….for the rest of us anyway. 

I have been impatiently waiting for my new Macbook to arrive, figuring I would want a thousand reasons to sit in front of it for hours when it finally arrived.  Little did I know, DG picked it up last night after work.  He randomly pulled it out of the closet after dinner.  I was so excited, I could hardly contain myself!

So this morning, anxious to put my pretty new iTouch to good use, I downloaded this album I had been wanting to purchase.  As a long time fan of Andrew Peterson, I knew to expect it to get to me.  He is a storyteller like none other, and I’ve never made it through an entire album of his without breaking down into tears.  It just happens that way.  Today was no exception.  I happily plugged my iPod into the car stereo on my way to work, and two tracks in, I was met with this song. 

It’s the kind of song you wish you’d written because it says everything you’ve been wanting to say but didn’t know how.  To some degree, I know it spoke to me so profoundly because of my situation.  And here’s the moment of honesty….I was prepared for nothing other than sheer bliss in the first months of our marriage…convinced that we would experience only utter joy and satisfaction.  Maybe I was just that naïve.  Or maybe DG and I have just come up against something more difficult than we expected.  Whatever the case, the last three months have been consumed with some very challenging, private struggles.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the struggle has been productive.  I think we’ve navigated it very well, and our love and the depth of our commitment are literally strengthened by the day.  I can say without a doubt that I love DG more and have a greater appreciation for and understanding of him today than I did on May 1^st.   But that being said, it has been HARD.  We have encountered moments of complete desperation, difficult misunderstandings, and painful insecurity.  Often times I really have felt like we are “dancing in the minefield.”  And really, at present, there is no relief in sight.  No real promise of when things will get better and we’ll arrive at the resolution we’ve been praying for. 

But here’s what I know…I love him.  To the depth of my soul, I love him….and at its most basic form, that love is dangerous.  There are risks.  It means giving up myself.  Putting his needs, his dreams, his desires in front of my own.  It means being more invested in his happiness than even he is…than I am in my own.  It means saying the truth even when the truth is hard, when I can’t predict his response.  It means that I keep talking when I feel like shutting down and I keep listening when I’d rather say, “Enough already.”  Love is by no means safe.  Adventurous and exciting and worth it?  Absolutely.  But it is not safe.  He holds my heart, which means he has the power to absolutely obliterate me….but he has earned my trust.   And he has demonstrated his love time and time again. 

This road is not easy.  We are clumsy, but we are making it.  And I know we are growing closer and stronger and there will come a day when we will look back with gratitude and point to this time as the thing that built our foundation.  The Ever After is unknown, and I am confident that this is not the last season of life that will push us.  Still, there is only one person I would want to travel alongside in the uncertain and sometimes heartbreaking circumstances of this life.  It just so happens I’m lucky enough to be his wife.  For me, that knowledge is enough.

For you wives who are doing your best to love your husband rightly in the midst of less than perfect circumstances…for those of you who are engaged and looking forward to the reality of marriage….for the girls who have yet to meet the man they dream of….I encourage you to really pay attention to this song.  It’s a striking portrait of the way love works in real life, on the ground.  Take it to heart.