Ode to Marriage...10 years.

I have had a fabulous day. Nothing big has happened, no fancy presents, swanky dinners, diamonds or cards. Simply being with the one I love. We ate, standing up around our unfinished teeny tiny island, Full Moon BBQ that he brought me home for lunch. Still in my PJ's, shocking I know, I turned him down to going to lunch and we had BBQ right smack dab in our 1980's teeny tiny kitchen as the rain pattered on the sky lights (sounds like a country song minus the beer and double wide :)). We topped it off with a family dinner of pork chops and veggies and then all ran, literally, out of the house to Hud's basketball evaluations. We sat on hard bleachers, laughed at and scolded the baby banshee for scaling the bleachers, and cuddled and talked about how thankful we were.

Glamorous, I know right?! This is no "keeping up with the Kardashins". Thank the Lord, although our story plot WAS headed more that direction at some points in our marriage. SCARY.

But today it's the little things. Deep connection. Deep honesty. Intimacy. Selflessness. Listening. Showing up. Checking in. Affirmation. Forgiving. Kind words. Humbleness. These all have been intentionally, and with great support with mentors and friends, part of our vocabulary these past two years. The Lord is giving us back the years the locust have eaten. We tell our kids the reality of our marriage and where we could be today, how they could've been affected, BUT God chose to give us new life. A new marriage and that is what it is! Tonight we celebrated our family's life together. Tonight I felt the Gospel pounding through my veins. I have joy, deep joy today and it is flowing out of a heart that is humbled by the reality of sin and redemption. What having a teeny, tiny mustard seed of faith can produce!! (Faith is trusting in advance what will only make sense in reverse-Phillip Yancey)

Through my marriage and grasping my own depravity....I really, really get what it means to be redeemed. I read His word now with new eyes and a changed heart. It all seems so real, so hopeful, so close to home. I am grateful beyond words.

Tomorrow we leave and will do all the swanky things a couple should do in celebrating making it to year 10 (That is swanky in a radical way). We are headed North to Gorham's Bluff and staying in the Inn. There will be a lot of reading, laying around, and maybe some hiking. I.can't.wait.

To sum up the last 10 years, Dan Allender writes this about marriage. It nails it on the head.

" Marriage is the moist soil that grows both the weeds of sin and the roses of redemption. No other relationship requires more, gives so little and so much, and exposes both the best and worst of our souls. Every weakness in one's character- a lack of patience, a fear of intimacy, an unnatural clinging to grudges will be magnified. Wonderfully, the most hidden and unformed depths of sacrifice and perseverance also rise at the most unexpected moments in a good marriage."