Newlywed Musings

I’ve been married for seven months now. I can remember the day when I could only dream of sharing a life with someone who loved me.  Now I wake up to him every morning.  I eat beside him, work beside him, play beside him.  He is an integral part of my every day life.  I probably annoy him by my insistence that we do things together.  He dares to put on his shoes, and I’m asking him where he’s going.

Why?  Am I helpless without him?  Am I scared to be alone?

No.

But when I stood beside him on January 10^th and pledged my life to him, a desire to be with him constantly integrated my sense of being.  It’s not that I can’t be without him. It’s just that I can’t imagine why I would want to.

Not to say that it’s perfect.  I laugh when I say we have a very three-dimensional relationship.  You see, he is my husband, my best friend, and my brother.  These are three hats that he can throw on and off at his every whim.

He is my husband.  He kisses me goodnight before we fall asleep each night.  He prays with me when I’m scared of what life is going to throw at me next.  He holds me close and listens when I share my dreams. He defends me when others make me feel insecure.  He constantly tells me I’m beautiful.  He surprises me with random acts that show how much he loves me. He is the answer to the dreams I didn’t know I had.  He’s my hubby.

He is my best friend.  He often knows what I’m thinking before I can even formulate it into a sentence.  He makes me laugh like no other.  He knows what to say to turn my bad day around.  He’s the first one I tell when I have good news, and he celebrates victories with me.  He is the one I most want to hang out with.  He accompanies me to movies he’d rather not see, and shopping trips he’d rather not be a part of.  He listens to me give the gory details of a story, and even manages to appear interested half the time. We laugh at the same things, and have inside jokes nobody else understands. He’s my bestie.

He is my brother.  He makes weird noises that gross me out.  He leaves dirty dishes in his bedroom.  He irritates me with his off center jokes.  He wears the same clothes over and over. He purposefully says and does things to annoy me.  He likes to listen to music that I can’t understand.  He trims his beard and leaves the hair on the counter. We have petty fights over chores and responsibilities.  He’s just like another brother.

We have our moments of romantic marital bliss.

We have our moments of frustrated marital discord.

But all in all…

It’s perfect.  Because it’s how God planned it.  He put us together for a reason, and we’re slowly figuring it out.

It’s kind of funny, because I remember when we got engaged.  At that moment, we thought we knew why God had brought us into the other’s life.  We thought we knew the plan.

Personally, I think that was God’s way of lulling us into a false sense of security.  Now don’t think I’m accusing God of being cruel!  On the contrary, I think Him to be rather genius.

 

Jeremy and I got together because we thought we’d make a good team.  Our dreams seemed to work together side by side, and we could just envision how God was going to use us.  We thought that ours was a “deep love”.

 

Then we got married, and we began to see just how shallow our emotions really were. 

As the months passed, God began to peel back our layers, and forgive the Shrek metaphor; the onion inside each of us kind of surprised the other. It stung our eyes a bit, and stunk up our house.  All of the sudden, we didn’t understand each other at all.

Believe it or not, this was a good thing.

  

God, being the generous fellow that He is, let us think what we wanted while we planned our nuptials.

While all along, He knew that the reasons we were together went deeper than we could have imagined.

I’ve only been married seven months.  I wish I could write and say that I now know exactly why Jeremy and I are together. I wish I could say that God has mailed me a postcard with everything written out in vivid detail.  I wish I could tell you that I understand what God is doing with Jeremy and me.  But I can’t.

And for now…I’m okay with that.