Someone recently asked me if I loved
you more now than when we got married.
Since that was exactly 11
years ago today- Happy Anniversary, babe- I thought I would answer
that here as an anniversary gift to my man, since we can't be together.
When we got married, I had known you for a total of 6
months. 6 months filled with dates where we realized that we may be
the only people attending our conservative Christian school who
shared a mutual appreciation for the new “Lauryn Hill” unplugged
album. You took me to a cool coffee place and sushi on our first
date. I told you funny stories to get you laughing that awkwardly
loud in social spaces laugh you do. I asked you what you thought
about controversial topics just to see how you would answer. I found out that you have a
love for words. Not in the “I am a poet” way but in the “I
think words matter a lot and I think about what a word means for days
on end sometimes.”
I realized during our dating that you were gonna
kill it in Scrabble with that word-love. I found scrabble boring.
I
also realized, during what was almost an ill fated date, that you
didn't love games like Cranium, where you may be asked to hum “Hotel
California” during a humdinger. I, on the other hand, have always
found it enormously entertaining to make a fool of myself in front of
others. We were alike in so many ways, and yet so different.
You, with your Sonic the Hegehog hair spiked all over your head and
me with my pink and purple streaks trailing through my locks. You,
being one of the only males I had ever enjoyed talking to beyond...2
minutes or so. I found you so interesting and yet unlike anyone I had
expected to love forever.
Maybe my favorite
thing about you then..and now…is the way you loved people and
people loved you. It didn't take more than a short conversation with
you to know that you were authentic and sincere and naturally focused
on the person you were talking to. And the best part was that this
quality you had with people was for all people. The ones you knew and
the ones you didn't. The ones you agreed with and the ones you
didn't. You just genuinely like people and like talking with them,
about anything. I have always found people to be the most beautiful
and worthwhile mystery on this earth and well worth the attention
that seeing them takes. And so, when we were together, we could
literally go anywhere and meet anyone...together. I think it's still
the funnest thing we do together.
These and so many other things drew me
to you and had me saying, “Yes” when you proposed in front of our
small group on that summer night in June. And then, on that afternoon
in October, I said yes again...not to an idea but to faith in a
reality. Not because I knew what the future would hold but because I
knew who held our future. It was a glorious day with not a single
regeret (except maybe for how much money I let my parents spend on
me...they are so good to us...sorry mom and dad...I'd go cheaper
today, I swear).
I loved you deeply and hopefully on
that day. But mostly, I really liked you. We had never had any major
conflict. It's not that we didn't disagree. It's just that when you
like someone so much it's easy to be a peacemaker and move on. Remember that, y'all. If you are struggling to make peace in your marriage, what is keeping you from liking your spouse? It's not hard to not argue with a friend. Besides, what did we really have to argue about that mattered?
Now, 11 years later, do I love you more
than I did the day we were married? It's a bit of apples and oranges
if you ask me. The past 11 years we have made and given birth to 5
children together. We have moved so many times I have literally lost
count. We have lived cross culturally multiple times. We have faced
the possible loss of a child and lived in a hospital for months with
him. We have taken home and cared for a special needs child for years
together. We have done many years of draining, at times gut wrenching
ministry, towards God's people together. We have always never made
quite enough money to just sit back and relax. We have disagreed on
how and when we should spend that little bit of money. Or worse, just
not communicated well about it and both spent it only to find out we
didn't have it. Not that that has ever happened...just sayin' it
could. We have seen our different upbringings be exposed in
unexpected moments. Yes, we have lost jobs we thought we would have
and got jobs we thought we had lost. We have made so many beautiful
memories together. 5 times we cried and fought to bring our children
into the world and you held my hand and cried and fought with me.
Then we held our person. A little bit of you and a little bit
of me. We held those miraculous people whom we had just met face to
face for the first time and marveled at them in a way no other person
possibly could. We have seen God show up and provide for us when we
thought we may not be able to buy food or pay bills and we were
reminded that God loves us...this. You and I together.
When Shepherd came home and I couldn't function after 5pm, you would
gently send me to bed and let me just sleep away the stress in a cold
room on a hot summer night in the pitch black dark, while you waited
up for the nurses who didn't come until 11pm. You, holding your
little tiny boy with a tube in his nose and a feeding pump and a
trach in his neck to breath. But you were brave and you cared for him
without “needing” me so that you could care for me. We have
argued over your discomfort and my love of dancing in social
situations. At one time, we got so worked up we had to cut the
evening short and go home... an event which was planned for an elite
group of “spiritual leaders” to have a fun night. The irony gets
me a good belly laugh every time. We huffed off and then sat in a
parking lot and heard eachother out-argued-whatever. I think we
understood each other more after that night than we had for years
before that. At least as it pertains to dancing, my love. We have
argued, a lot some times. Sometimes it was worth duking it out. Many
times, it wasn't. 11 years later, we have seen so many good days
together. But we have also seen so many hard days that wore us down-
flat out weary- and stressed completely out. It's kind of like date
night. When we “get away” and it's just you and I ,and I'm like,
“Woah, look at that! I like this guy! He's fun!” but in day to
day life there are just so many stressors and it's just so unfun
sometimes, ya know? When we got married,11 years ago, I loved you.
The way I love you on date night. But today, I love you like war
buddies love each other. We have been in so many situations, more and
more all the time it seems, that break us down to the raw us that
often hides beneath a polished exterior. And I think we would both
agree that when the worst of us comes out, we don't like
it much less love it. There are weaknesses to who I am and weaknesses
to who you are that we would never have seen until we were trying to
figure out how to speak kindly to the disrespectful ten year old
while the eight year old was breaking stuff in the other room and
toddler is crying which just woke up the baby who just got to sleep.
It's kind of like 11 years ago we married the handsome smart doctor
version that Hulk is in his human form, but occasioanly... we are
actually married to ugly,destructive Hulk. Sin is just like that, all
inconvenient and messy and always there.
Do I love you more now than
I did 11 years ago? Totally. That Dr. Scientist with the green skin
and glasses and compassionate look in his eyes...that Hulk..He was
great and it was fun and easy to love him. But today, you and I both
have tears in our white jackets from all the metamorphisizing we've
done in and out of so many seasons. We don't look so...perfect...to
each other, I am sure. I know you, Noah Joyner. And I love you,
deeply. Not just cause you're like totally the coolest guy I've ever
met. But because sometimes I don't think you're cool at all but I am,
with every fiber of my body, comitted to learning to love you better
all the time. And not just out of duty. But because you, my wonderful
man are a beautiful creation of God, a wonder to behold and the
mining of your heart I will have to do in this lifetime to see you,
and know you, and then see you and know you all over again day after
day. That. I'm in for that. Forever. You are worth any of the effort
and you have shown me that kind of love for 11 years straight. Yep,
we had every reason to be all doe-eyed on October 2, 2004. Because
just as we had hoped, God would show up, and carry us through.
Whatever the future held. And He has. And he will.
Let's do that again. Every day.
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