This may seem like an accident of a picture. The lighting is bad, the focus isn’t great, and it doesn’t seem to capture anything really that spectacular. I took this pic at 6:30 am the other morning, because somewhere between having my morning coffee and pulling myself out of bed at O’dark thirty, as I set down my shoes when I got downstairs and looked at them haphazardly sitting beside my husband’s, I suddenly saw more than just running shoes….
We have been married for 16 years. We have had some really great memories, and more than a few difficult ones. We have had more than our fair share of moments and days where it felt like we were just surviving to get through another day. Full time ministry, raising kids, living away from family, and having a child with severe disabilities has more than taken its toll, and on many days I find myself daydreaming of how I wish things were, or longing for an easier path.
I’ve heard a lot of sayings about marriage- like how you have to fight for it. But many days I just feel like we’d fight, without fighting for the greater purpose. We can get stuck in our individual stubbornness and need for control, and hold too tightly to the expectations we had all those years ago. Even though they are old and crusted, layered with dust. They have begun to decay around the edges, and yet we hold on to them. As though they are our rights. And we want justice. After all, we gave up everything to be with only this person forever, the least they could do is live up to MY expectations!
Actually, if you look it up the definition of expectation it is: “belief about the future” OR “anticipating with confidence and fulfillment.” So when we stop to think about all of those “expectations” we had going in to marriage, and the ones we are still holding onto- of course we will be deeply disappointed because in a sense it has become our “belief” that they will happen or we have held on with such “confidence” that we ultimately lose site of the meaning God had for marriage in the first place.
I expected a lot of things. And most of them have not happened. And it’s not because my husband has done anything to purposely prevent it from happening or that he has even had any apathy towards my expectations. It’s simply because most of the things I expected or so “confidently believed” would occur, were not things that I had control over. And they were not things that God or my husband ever promised me. And yet here after 16 years I have found myself still trying to hold these expectations in my hands whilst trying to hold my husband’s hand at the same time. Guess what? It’s really hard to hold hands with someone when you are already holding something in your hand. Imagine holding a book or a cup of coffee, and trying to hold someone’s hand at the same time with that same hand. It doesn’t work. There is no room in your hand. Ultimately to hold hands with someone you have to drop or let go of whatever else is in your hands. You have to fully be physically present and sacrifice what you are holding in order to reach out to the other person. And reaching out is exactly what you are doing. Almost like a symbol of sacrifice, trust, and unconditional love all at once. Holding hands is choosing to reach for the other person. And it is choosing to not hold on to anything else.
We can hold onto our expectations in marriage, or we can hold onto the person we married, but we HAVE to choose one or the other. Because the in between is a destructive place of empty hopes and unrealistic dreams that likely will never be met. And ultimately when we continue to hold on to those, we are never fully choosing the other person.
Referring back to the picture: I “expected” we would do more things together. Like running. I’ve tried to ask in so many different ways the last few years for my husband to come running with me. But he HATES running. He will do other things but he continues to tell me how much he hates running. So I stopped bugging him about it. But recently in his quest to get in better physical shape he said he would run with me. Imagine the joy as I thought FINALLY he will run with me!!! But, then he said- I will run with you but we need to go at 6:30 in the mornings. This is easy for him as he is a morning person and I am really, REALLY not. But I agreed. And so we both set our alarms and came downstairs with our running shoes the other morning. It was still dark outside, and I thought at first- this is NOT what I meant when I said lets go running…… and then I tossed my shoes down and immediately my heart leapt when I looked to see the deep symbolism in our smelly running shoes tossed haphazardly on the floor at 6:30AM. It was a beautiful picture of marriage to me. One we have not always gotten right. But this seemed like a really good place to continue build on. We both sacrificed in different ways to move towards the other person. No ultimatums or shaming. It was a beautiful picture of love to me.
I have been reading Timothy Keller’s “The Meaning of Marriage.” I will leave you with this thought from his book:
“The reason that marriage is so painful and yet so wonderful is because it is a reflection of the gospel, which is painful and wonderful at once. The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed not in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. This is the only kind of relationship that will really transform us. Love without truth is sentimentality; it supports and affirms us but keeps us in denial about our flaws. Truth without love is harshness; it gives us information but in such a way that we cannot really bear it. God’s saving love is in Christ, however, is marked by both radical truthfulness about who we are and yet also radical, unconditional commitment to us. The merciful commitment strengthens us to see the truth about ourselves and repent. The conviction and repentance moves us to cling to and rest in God’s mercy and grace.
The hard times of marriage drive us to experience more of this transforming love of God. But a good marriage will also be a place where we experience more of this kind of transforming love at a human level. The gospel can fill our hearts with God’s love so that you can handle it when your spouse fails to love you as he or she should. That frees us to see our spouse’s sins and flaws at the bottom — and speak of them — and yet still love and accept our spouse fully. And when, by the power of the gospel, our spouse experiences that same kind of truthful yet committed love, it enables our spouses to show us that same kind of transforming love when the time comes for it.
This is the great secret! Through the gospel, we get both the power and the pattern for the journey of marriage.”
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