I am getting married next week.
Even as I type those words, the reality still has not hit me. We have done everything from making thousands of lists to painting vases, tying ribbons, calling vendors, triple checking times and locations…pretty much everything you can think of. We have been preparing for this wedding for 11 months.
But the wedding is not what I am excited about.
Don’t get me wrong-the wedding day is going to be beautiful. It will be so wonderful to celebrate with family and friends; to publicly declare our love for one another before God and those we care about. It will be a day of laughing and dancing and music. A great day. But still, it is not what I am most excited about.
I am excited for my marriage. Those moments that are only ours. Getting to wake up every day for the rest of my life next to a man who loves me for reasons I will never understand. I am excited to exist with someone who knows me well enough not to talk to me in the morning until I have had my coffee. I cannot wait for the days where we will do nothing together at all, yet it will mean everything to me because we are together. I have always loved the simple things…like looking out the window and watching as he mows the lawn, or doing our own thing but still being together, comfortable in the silence.
Aaron and I tend to be opposites. I am known to be quite impulsive. I jump right into things with everything I have, never stopping to think about what this could mean for the future. Aaron is thoughtful and conscious of what the decisions he makes could mean for his life. We balance each other out well, but at times it can also cause conflict.
I know that marriage is hard, not from my own experiences but from the experiences of others. I am not delusional. I know that it will take work, and compromise, and patience, and lots and lots of love. It will require sacrifice, it will require prayer. A lot of prayer. We must remember to place God first and each other second. To honor and respect, even when we feel like yelling or screaming. I know that I will probably not be good at it at first. But I will try. I will never give up on being someone that my husband deserves.
Aaron and I have had a lot of talks about life and what we want out of it. What we feel we need and what we could let go of. The most important conclusion we have come to is that we do not need each other. Most of you will read this and think “Well maybe you shouldn’t be getting married then.” But it’s true. We need Jesus and Jesus alone. If God were to call one of us home at an unexpected time…our hearts would be broken. Being left behind would be awful. I really cannot even imagine and I hope I never have to. But still, life would go on. We would wake up the next day breathing…even if we didn’t want to. Our hearts would continue to beat. We would learn to stand through the pain and continue the walk of life God has placed us on.
To me, marriage is not about needing someone. It is about wanting them. And making a commitment to wake up every single day and decide to want them all over again. My commitment to my soon-to-be husband is to decide through the good, the bad, the hard and the sad…that I still want you. Through the days when life is fun and the days where it literally feels unbearable;
I will wake up every day of my life and choose you.
