This past Saturday was our 5th wedding anniversary. I have been really excited about it. I figured, what the heck, I'll be mushy and write a post about it! After all, 5 years is really the first "big" land mark of a marriage (If you can survive the first couple years! :P) This is the story about how God saved our marriage and by his grace, how we made it to our 5th anniversary!
Five years a go......Trevor and I were a couple of kids, with a kid. We thought we were really mature, had everything figured out, and our wedding day was just the start to our "happily ever after". Boy were we wrong.
The first couple years were rough. We fought about everything. Yes, everything. The dishes, his parents, my parents, whose turn it was to change the latest poopy diaper, who's turn it was to feed the dog.. You know, EVERYTHING! We were two very selfish kids putting our needs only second to our sons. We did not care to put our spouse first. Neither of us ever wanted to buck up and be the bigger person.
Suddenly all those "charming traits" we had both possessed prior to saying "I do" were not so charming anymore. Him not putting his dishes in the dishwasher, my "cute" quick temper, all suddenly not so cute. Realizing that we had a life time to have to deal with all these traits made them seem unbearable.
Eventually all the little day to day stresses led to bigger and bigger fights. Less communication led to more distance and more distance led to less and less love. We had now reached our breaking point. Who wanted to be 21 and 22 and stuck in a cold, loveless marriage? The years began to stretch on and on before us. So, we did what the world perceives to be "normal". If you are unhappy at a job, you quit. If you don't like a situation, you remove yourself. If your unhappy in a relationship.....you break it off.
That was it. Our marriage was over. He didn't love me, not the way you love someone your going to spend forever with and I didn't love him like that either. With this choice made things only got worse. He had his friends and his life and I had mine. If we were not talking about our son, we were not talking. As soon as we got our living situation figured out, we were going out separate ways.
That was our plan, but it wasn't Gods. It was a very normal day, we had to go to file our income tax, and on the drive we did something highly unusual for us during that time. We started to talk. No fighting, just talking. Not really about anything important at first. Then slowly the conversation led to us. Before too long we both began to talk about where we were at in our marriage and how we had gotten there. Something shifted in our hearts. Little stirrings of the love that use to be there. We decided right then and there that we were not going to be another statistic. We were not going to do this the worlds way, we were going to do it Gods way.
I'm not going to lie to you and claim that from that moment forward everything was perfect. That is not what happened next. What DID happen next could only be the work of God. We slowly began to rediscover what we loved about the other person. We started to put the other person first, their needs and wants above our own. We fell in love all over again, but a very different kind of love. This was not a love that wanted to change the other person. Not a selfish love. Not a conditional love. This was a love that could have only come from God.
It's been three years since God restored our marriage. Every day has not been perfect. All our memories are not sunshine and roses. Our happily ever after is NOT what we imagined it to be. It's better. You see, I'm not a perfect person. My husband is not a perfect person. Two imperfect people cannot have a perfect marriage. However, if said two people have God, the perfect being, at the center of their union, their marriage can be beautiful, loving, strong and blessed.
As long as we keep God at the center of our marriage we can overcome ANYTHING and EVERYTHING that comes our way. God wants our marriage to work. He took something very broken and turned it into something beautiful. He loves us and wants to bless us. I am very thankful that he loves us and very thankful for what he has done in our marriage, and in our lives.
I pray that you all remember to put him front and center in your lives, and in your relationships. I promise you will not be disappointed.
