The Start

Today I marry my best friend.

Doesn't that sound ridiculously cliche?

And yet, all the best things in life are, are they not? Originality and uniqueness are overrated. As my sister says, all couples end up saying and doing much the same things - if they don't, they're doing it wrong.

This is philosophical for a wedding day post, you are probably thinking. That's me for you, although I am sure it would be less so if I actually wrote this on my wedding day. I didn't. If I have time then, I will be writing my beloved a letter.

I am getting married. I am excited to have the chance to prove all those terrible jokes wrong. Marriage is good and to be held in high esteem by all. I have resolved never to tell any young person a joke like the three rings of marriage: engagement ring, wedding ring, suffering.

Of course marriage involves suffering. Life involves suffering, and marriage is life at its richest.

I would rather suffer with my beloved than without him. As my dear sister-in-law said when I was beginning this journey with him, this won't really add to the problem. It just gives a face to it. That's how marriage is - it doesn't create problems, it's just really good at revealing them. At showing you your sin.

With my husband - wow, what a weird thing to say, although I have accidentally called him that before - who always so longs to help me walking with me, suffering is easier to bear.

Does this seem heavy for a wedding day?

Why, my little sister asks, do you have to get married? You don't, she says. He can just come over to visit. Why do you want kids? You don't have to have kids.

What is the purpose of marriage? The romantic and sweet are delightful benefits - and essential. We need them. Yet our highest goal in everything must be to honor the Lord.

The undeserved, unwavering, relentless love that Parker has shown me has given me a knowing of God's love that is mind-boggling. Many times I have shaken my head, looked at him, and asked, "Why? I don't understand."

"You're never going to," he says.

And he's right. There are three things that I do not understand, and four that are too wonderful for me. A ship in the sea, a snake on a rock, a bird in the sky, and the way of a man with a virgin. The desire, the devotion, the love are too overwhelming, too strong to be explained by looking at their object. When he sees me, my sin, how I have hurt him, he only loves me more. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is high, I cannot attain it.

I can't wait. I can't wait to be able to be free to be fully united. How wonderful it will be to not have to say goodbye and tear ourselves apart! So long we have been in this strange partial state, me under him, but not quite; our own family, but not yet - how does one live in this state of unity of mind and spirit, and yet not quite reality?

And this is the beauty of marriage: everything is a picture. I wasn't meaning to make a parable, but is this not just our state here, waiting to be fully united with Christ?

I am learning for myself things I have heard. Like marriage gets better with time. And that is perhaps what I anticipate most. Romantic ideals are overrated. The best things are simple, everyday things.

Like cooking a meal for Parker. Like coming home from school and going to my own house. Like arranging the million and one generous gifts we were given in our little kitchen.

God has been good to us, though we are so undeserving. He is faithful, so I know that He will for the rest of our lives. For one way of God showing His amazing, unconditional love for me is through Parker's. Thinking about it, I can't help but smile.

On My Wedding Day

Today is the day, the long awaited.

Today is the last day I wake up before anyone else, marveling at the quiet, dark house, slipping out of my bunk bed quietly lest I wake my sisters. The last that I fall asleep with my little sister's warm body beside me, her arms thrown around my neck. The last that I pull our blankets off the windows so the early morning light can shine in. The last I admire the clean, freshly swept carpet and clean kitchen after we readied for guest.

Last night, I realized I'd miss hearing my dad and little sister laugh at Youtube videos together in the background, as I dried the dishes for my sisters for the last time. We didn't sing, but I thought of how I would miss singing together as we work, knowing and enjoying all the same ridiculous or beautiful songs.

Of course, not all of these things will really be the last time. Many of them will happen again, but it will be with me as a visitor in what right now feels like my own home.

I have been so blessed in my wonderful, crazy family, and only something exciting and amazing would convince me to leave.

Something like Parker, and a life with him.

How strange it is to think that tonight, we'll be married. We'll be able to do things together. The apartment is my home, my base, where I will do everyday things like write and clean and make food. I won't be at my big metal desk, nor in the kitchen where everything's in a logical place. I can't assume that dishes and clothes and food will get done even if I don't help. That is a rather exciting and fun thought, for I will only have things to do for two. That seems ridiculously small.

After school starts, I will not go down back towards Dorr St. and Crissey. I won't ask Dad to take my checks to the bank, nor ask my sisters if we have anything to eat.

But instead, I will go home to Parker.

I am not nervous this morning. Nor am I scared or even sad, despite my thoughts of what I will miss. What I am is hungry from waking up so early and the fact that we're not making pancakes for a while yet.

When I think of what our life and marriage will be like, I am excited and a little somber. I know it's a big thing that I've signed up for, and I have no illusions - well, perhaps I do, but subconsciously - that it will be easy.

But it will be good. Parker is amazing at helping me to grow.

My prayer is that God will bless us with a godly marriage, that we will quickly learn and establish good patterns so that we are able to serve well.

I am excited and happy and waiting. And yet, calm. Everything feels natural, just as I suspected it might, as most things that are right do.

I can't wait to see what God has in store for us.


Apparently that's what it's like if I really write on my wedding day.

The Wall

I wrote this a month or so ago, and didn't realize I never finished and posted it. I blame it on my wedding brain, which apparently is a real thing.

 
Across the field before me stands a wall, composed of rows of stones, a dozen stones high. I sense this is the way I need to go - but how will I do it? It's so much taller than I am.

Beside the wall he stands. His eyes are on me. "Come on! Let's get beyond the wall!"

I hesitate. I am not sure how I can.

"Come on!"he calls, his hand motioning. He doesn't understand how small I am.

I step forward, slowly.

He is sitting on top of the wall. Another familiar voice calls out to me, "Come. Come beyond." In response, he swings his legs to the other side and looks back at me.

I eye the wall, raise my brows, and step cautiously towards the wall. Step by step I slide closer until I stand two steps away. I look up.

The wall towers above me. I look up and up and up until my head cannot go back any farther. The wall is so tall it seems to curve back over me. It is impossible to climb it. The first layer of stone is three times as tall as I am at least.

"Climb it," he says.

Climb it? I can't even see him. All I see is this huge wall before me, above me, around me. I am surrounded by these giant walls.

"Come, dear." Suddenly he has slipped beside me. I shake my head, and the wall swallowing me has taken shape again before me-still taller than I can see.

He reaches for my hand and pulls me one step closer. "You must cross the wall."

Tears fill my eyes and streak my face. "I know," I murmur. "But..." I lift blurry gaze to towering wall. "I don't know how."

"Just do it," he says, pulling my hand. "Come."

I know I can't. The wall is too high. The first stone on the wall is too high. It's too smooth. There's not even a place to put my foot.

"Step up, dear. Come."

I look into his face and step forward. The stone is hard, cold, impossible.

But I obey, I put my foot towards it, only to show him it cannot be done. And it stays. My eyes widen, and I excitedly take another step and grab onto the stone with my hands.

Maybe I can do this after all.

 I look up. I can see nothing but rock stretching above me. No. There's no way I can do it that far.

Then, at the top, I see legs dangling and a smile. "Come on, dear. You got this."

Maybe, just maybe, I can.