3 posts tagged “anniversary”
So, because my brother and his family are enjoying a vacation at Disneyworld, these two weeks have been filled with James working no less than 12 hours a day picking up the typical responsibilities of three people. I, too, have been helping out in ways that I normally would not.
It just so happened that yesterday, our anniversary, was the busiest day of all. It started with James leaving the house around 6am and me leaving around 6:45 am. We both had early morning pick-ups to do. I was able to be home by 11am. After a brief respite, I left the house at 3pm and headed back out to do deliveries. James was already doing deliveries for the 2nd van. Once mine was loaded and I had already started, James when he was done with his van, came and relieved me and finished my route.
I was wondering what I could do to set our day apart just a little bit. So, I decided it might be fun to revisit our wedding feast, Campbell's Chunky Sirloin Burger Soup. I mean, who wouldn't want to come home to that meal after a 14 hour day, right?
The great thing was that the kids had cleaned up the whole house without me requesting it. Jordyn and I were already on the same page when I asked her to take the kids to bed as soon as they were able to say goodnight to James and to KEEP them up there so we could have a home date.
When James came home at 8:30pm, the soup was ready:
And, then I made him take a picture of us even though he was super exhausted:
I know he looks tired in this pic. But just so you feel better and don't think that he is too tired to be himself:
The Buck's will be back on Friday, so don't feel too sorry for us and they have offered to take our kids overnight so we can properly celebrate. But, James wants to do a covenant anniversary celebration this weekend with our kids. So, I think the Buck's are off the hook. But, you guys....probably not. You will undoubtedly be subjected to more anniverary related posts. I think the kids have come up with something special for us. You know, all that whispering and stuff makes it a little obvious. And, then there is the part where Jonah said, "We are making a stage for you guys." I have a feeling the best is yet to come. I'll keep you posted.
I once knew a 19-year-old couple that had a baby girl shortly out of high school. Sitting on the couch planning a trip to Tahoe, there was a flicker in the girl’s eyes and a smile bloomed across her face. In a phrase, a mere moment, Providence (which neither believed in at the time) intervened with His hidden hand. This was the phrase:
“Hey! Since we’re going to Tahoe…you wanna get married?”
Dumbfounded, but smitten with the idea, the boy answered with the typical manly response when one’s future wife has just, in effect, proposed:
“Are you serious? Yeah! Dude, did you just propose to me?”
They immediately raced for Sears at the local shopping mall to buy their wedding bands with their plastic money. Having no job to speak of, the boy was happy that his girlfriend’s job afforded them such luxuries as credit cards. How sophisticated and grown-uppish it seemed then.
With nothing more than a weekend’s worth of time (Friday wedding, Saturday “honeymoon”?), a few cans of soup (Campbell’s Chunky Sirloin Burger, to be precise), a rickety Hyundai Excel (which had a moon roof, CD player, and manual shift…and a clutch when they embarked on said journey) and a fool’s hope (centering on “Pappy and Grandma did it, why can’t we?”), the new parents set off without the blessing of anyone in particular but a foreboding warning from certain members of the boy’s family. That last bit went something like, “Don’t you dare even think about it, you need a real wedding. Besides, how can you provide for your family? You have no means.” Ah! Details, schmetails!
After arriving late to their own wedding—some habits die hard—and meeting with the inebriated owner of the Love-Shack-ish cottage (thinking B-52’s off-kilter crooning), being wed by a female minister, unashamedly overcharged for blurry wedding pictures that were taken by said inebriated cottage-owner, and blubbering their way through their very own sentimental vows written in typical “cramming-for-the-test” script, they were wed. That night a display of lightning declared war against the gloom, bathing the landscape in flashes of violet light. Their hearts were full of the unknown, full of the terror of what would happen upon their return. Would they, could they outlive the odds against them? Would Providence, Fate or Chance smile upon them? Would Mother Nature, Mother Earth or Mother Goose take them into her warm embrace? Certainly their good intentions and well-crafted vows accounted for something on the cosmic scales?
They had no belief but the oddly naïve and yet true statement: love would establish their house. Love would see them through. Love was enough, and all they had.
During the 2-hour drive home, as the clutch threatened suicide and slowly burned away on the mountain roads, their fears loomed on the horizon. The only thing that was certain was their promised eviction upon their return. Knowing this fact didn’t change that a wedding was the right thing to do. They were incurably in love, and incurably parents.
…..
Our only comfort at the time was that Larry and Kitty, Tasha’s grandparents, were the products of elopement. They were married for 57 years before Larry returned to our Father. Their marriage was proof enough that marriage transcends the wedding, extends beyond the ceremony and the paper license. Marriage is not merely the romantic climax to a Jane Austen novel; married life only begins there. So, it didn’t matter to us then if we eloped or if we were married at St. Peter’s basilica. Even a village idiot could take a 3-second glance at Hollywood headlines and see the folly of big-bang weddings producing meaningless and empty marriages, more often than not ending in divorce. Larry and Kitty were a hope against that. At the time, they were our only hope.
Now here we are, 6 kids and 14 years later, still bucking the odds and at long last finding the reason for our longevity: Christ alone. It was through our messed-up union, destined to failure at every turn, that the megaphone of God was in our pain (as C.S. Lewis eloquently put it elsewhere), screaming truth into our foolish ears. Through the folly of falling down, constantly getting everything wrong, Christ found us and said “I am that I am! And I am enough.”
In Christ alone is our hope wrought, and through our sinful choices He decided to satisfy our longings and appetites, even replacing our appetites and longings with a holy variety. When we were downcast, He lifted us up, and introduced us to our Father. When we despaired of hope, He sent the Comforter, and breathed life into the carcass of what I left of my marriage.
As tenaciously as I evaded my duties, as tenaciously as I clung to a sinful boyhood, God was there, undaunted, seeking me all the more. If I was tireless in my pursuit of carnal desires, there He was with the endless endurance of the Ancient of Days. I could but relent, defeated before this ageless foe who would not be denied. When I dashed my marriage and my wife’s heart to pieces, He remade the whole thing, and we are stronger for the wounds.
Through the road most travelled, the path well-trod from Adam, Cain, Hitler and men like myself, I discovered the God from Whom I was running. He was the reason my beloved bride was (is) such a Proverbs 31 soul. His craft was behind her magnanimous heart. His hand set the beauty into her hazel eyes, painted the freckles that I’ve been counting the past 14 years, set her frame, made her such a fruitful woman (dude, half a dozen ain’t bad for a start). Through Tasha’s love, even her well-deserved hatred, I discovered my need for Christ and fell before him, vanquished.
He pursued us with a vicious grace: His is a love with a vengeance.
If the Spirit is the wind, He made Tasha to be my sail.
We were naïve when we thought it as 19-year-old agnostics, nonetheless we were spot-on:
Love established our house. Love has seen us through. Love is enough, and He’s all we have.
I John 4:10, 16: “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
--JMH
Tomorrow is my 14th anniversary. I am writing this knowing that my husband has already finished an anniversary post that he has forbade me from reading, while simultaneously telling me that he hopes I won't be disappointed with it. I won't be. Unless he is telling me that he wishes our 14th to be our last, which of course he won't because we have too many kids for that sort of talk. You may think I am trying to steal his thunder by posting one day early. But, the truth is that once he posts, anything that I have written will pale in comparison. So, for the sake of not being overshadowed by my favorite author, here I am attempting to say a few words (well, maybe not a few) about marriage, specifically mine.
When we got married, I am sure that the random woman who married us in Reno must have said a few words, but I really can't remember. And, even though our witness was some other random woman who happened to be drunk and called me Trish, I think she still counts as a witness. Said "minister" must have mentioned, and said "witness" must have heard, "for better or worse" in there somewhere.
Whether it was said or not, that has sort of been the theme of the past 14 years, better or worse. I can look back at the years and place each in one of the two catagories. Within each catagory, of course there are levels of better and worseness (yes, editor, I know that is not a word) that we have walked through. The better is, well, better. We are in the better currently. I like it much better than the worse because the worse is...worse.
Remember when your parents shook their head at you, and said, "Well, you are just going to have to learn the hard way"? See, through Christ we have grown up...the hard way, mind you. While we hope that our kids don't have to make the same mistakes we have (please God), I do know that they will experience "better and worse". And, I don't mean contrived "worse". I mean the foibles and sins, the selfishness and folly, the unexpected loss that comes with the life of two people that Christ won't let go of each other. It is through suffering that the Father taught His perfect Son obedience. And it has been through the deep waters of suffering we have learned, (not perfectly) obedience to God for the sake of our marriage. Coming undone with the one that God has bound you to, while He holds you up and brings you through it hand in hand, is one of Providence's rare treasures and a mystery to be sure.
I have been married longer than any of my parent's marriages. I mean no dishonor to them, but it has always been a particular fear of mine that I would end up being the parent instead of the child in my childhood experience. To surpass them has relieved some of that. But more than the length it has been the depth of trials that have eased my fears oddly enough. Knowing that you have tripped, fallen, been dragged leaped over the hurdles of fears that have paralyzed you since childhood, is a comfort. A comfort that only is conquered strangely, when you experience them.
Why the focus on the "worse" in the equation? Because the worst of times have brought out the best in us. They have shown us what we have to lose and have caused us to hold on all the tighter. They have, from the start, caused us to look towards Christ. When we have been near drowning in the deep pools of our own folly and weakness, it has been Christ's strength that has overcome it. Because it is easy when life is always "better" to look at your spouse and say, "Yes, I would do it all again." But, it is something altogether different when you really understand and have lived "for better or worse". I will gladly admit this marriage to be one filled with sin, one in which we have hurt each other worse than any enemy could hope to, but we have also loved each other more fiercely than any other earthly friend could claim to.
So, on the eve of my 14th anniversary, I say to my beloved best friend: I would do it all again, I would. For better or for worse.
