I have paid a high price to have the marriage I have now.
I have not lost my personhood, but I have given up things I thought were so important to me as a person. Pride. Expectations. The need to control. The need to put myself first. The desire to be heard instead of understanding. Those I fight to leave at the cross DAILY. I often lose the battle, but I love that Christ stacks wins… so the days I die to myself count for something.
We are celebrating 21 years and I keep hearing the first 25 are the hardest. I believe that is true. Our journey has not been easy.
There is a truth about marriage few will tell you. To be married means many things, one of which is to allow your heart to be broken and to know you will break another’s heart… and yet you remain.
You remain though there is pain.
But I also know a greater truth: Love bears all things. Love hopes all things. Love believes all things. LOVE NEVER FAILS.
We pay the price to keep the promise.
The rewards of this sacrifice are immeasurable.
The marriage is rock solid. The love between us is deliriously rich and growing richer. The intimacy is life-giving. The mutual encouragement is like oxygen. The acceptance and understanding astonishing.
The husband and wife look more like Christ.
The covenant is purer.
In spite of me. In spite of my weakness. I stay. He stays. We work on it.
We stay.
We keep our whole hearts, minds, bodies and souls in the game.
FERVENTLY CHASING AFTER WHAT CHRIST HAS FOR US IN THIS MARRIAGE.
We abide. We succeed. We fail.
But Love doesn’t fail.
Somehow Love wins.
Stay Strong,
Dawn