 |
| Our wedding day- April 28, 2012 |
The other day, I was told that my husband is crazy. If I were thinking straight, I would have responded proudly, "That's my man!"
But to tell the truth, I was very confused. Very distraught. Very heartbroken.
The past 10 days (and 2 years) leading up to that point in my life seemed so real, yet at the same time, such a blur. It seemed so serious a matter, yet other times I would think to myself, "Can this really be happening?!"
Allow me the pleasure of explaining why this girl likes the fact that my husband is cRaZy...... :-P
I came from a conservative family. My parents were what some call 'first-generation Christians.' I'm the oldest of 7 children, with a half-brother who's older than me. We lived in a rural city and secluded ourselves from any church family after an incident in the family caused us to lean on each other and practically nobody else. I was about 13.
I was very close to my mom and sisters. I was the "good" girl, the one who would be found cleaning after someone without getting upset with them. I was the one my mom came to for advice sometimes. I was the one who planned menus, loved grocery shopping, and dreamed of becoming somebody's wife and living happily ever after. I was the one who wrote out a list of 'qualities' my future husband should have, because he would be perfect. I was the one who said I wouldn't hold hands until our wedding day.
I had seen how my parents' marriage had gone from good to bad to worse, and finally good to better to wonderful. It filled me with a sense of security to see that. And then, my thoughts would drift away to the future. I dreamed of having a marriage like theirs: blissful, happy, perfect.
Well, okay- I knew everything was not peaches and cream all the time... but hey! They had each other and that's all that mattered. Right?
Mother learned to spend less time on the phone with her friends and instead be with Daddy. Less women's Bible Studies where all they seemed to do was chat with each other about what this husband did or what that husband said. She spent more time with us children. She and Daddy began dating again. And instead of making dinner the way
she said it was going to be made, she'd ask him what
he wanted. All I could see was that Daddy was not so moody anymore, Mother was not the source of too many arguments, and we kids were a lot happier, too. Whatever they were doing differently must be working out for them, I thought, storing away little memos in that section of my brain labeled "For Future Marriage."
Then, my life received an abrupt interruption in the Fall of 2011.
As my 25th birthday approached slowly but surely, I wondered - as I had so often wondered before - where that special guy was and why we hadn't found each other yet. An old grandpa met me at one of our singing engagements and told me, "Some guy's going to find you and be so happy, someday!" I just smiled and laughed it off, all the while thinking to myself, "Oh yeah right. He's just going to fall out of the sky one day... ha!"
 |
| March 2012 |
Just two weeks later, it would seem that he
did just fall out of the sky - literally. :-) I received a message from a guy whose family my family and I met briefly at a festival in Colorado almost three years before. They all played music, too, just like us. The message indicated just a friendship, but it would be the first GUY I ever corresponded with. I was shocked, excited and nervous all at once. I remembered what I had always envisioned doing when that "moment" finally came, so I did the effortless: I directed him to ask my dad if it would be okay for us to write.
I could say the rest is history - and that would be true - but the "rest" is not actually history until it happens.
Stephen is not a typical guy when it comes to character and demeanor. He has ideas pop into his head at the oddest moments; he likes to analyze a situation in a way that seems totally opposite of what would be called typical; he finds another angle to a matter, in order to understand it better; he has a thought and shares it - sometimes without thinking what the repercussions could be; he has values; he has convictions; he loves the Truth; he has a great arsenal of knowledge about the Bible and its contents; he is vehement about Right and Wrong; he is passionate for his family; and so much, much more.
Fast-forward to our first month of marriage. I was very new at this thing called marriage; after all, I'd had no practice! In my mind, being a good wife was being just that: good. In every way. I thought (without even realizing it) that I should shove my own feelings out of the way and just do whatever he wanted; unless, of course, he wanted to blatantly sin or something. Stephen brought to my attention the fact that this was not what the
Bible taught us wives; in a way, I wasn't trusting him enough with my
whole heart. I knew that it wasn't my job to be his conscience or his mother. My job was to be his Help Meet (Genesis 2:18).
 |
| Wedding Reception in NC - May 19, 2012 |
Let me point out, here and now, that I don't believe the Bible talks of submission as a kind of slavery. Marriage is meant to be a team - not an imbalanced yoke upon one or the other spouse. If both roles of husband and wife are being played out as the Bible intended
* then they will be "heirs together of the grace of life" as it says in 1 Peter 3:7. My husband is my friend, my confidante, my partner, my helper - yes, even my guide sometimes.
In our 16 months of marriage, we have had our fair share of in-law "drama." I always seem to get stuck between both parties, defending one and then the other... which only results in confusion and hard feelings on the part of everyone involved.
These past two weeks have been yet another such conflict. I feel like I know my family very well.... and I know my husband very well.... but
they don't know each other very well... it can prove to be a very awkward, very messy situation. :-/
I didn't know how they could not understand one another. Why couldn't they get along? Stephen tried to help me see things the way he saw them - and I did, to an extent. I was baffled the rest of the time. We were praying hard that things would somehow calm down on both sides and we could settle the huge disagreement once and for all. This time around, I was slowly but surely beginning to see how I had been disregarding my husband's sincerest concerns - concerns for righteousness, godliness and a separate entity all our own. It was hard for me to see it as clearly as he saw it. So I sought online resources to help me see what I was missing.
One of the articles I found seemed to describe me perfectly. I was so excited. It said:
"Your mate views your unwillingness to stop these intrusions into your family as betrayal. Your mate believes that every time you take your parents' side or do nothing to stop your parents' intrusion, you are betraying your vows to honor your mate above all others."**
I had thought that it would be better for us to ignore the impositions; to pretend as if they never happened. But Stephen kept saying we should do something about it..... now, I understood why he felt this way.
I don't pretend that my husband or I are perfect in any way. We definitely have our faults like anybody else. And I definitely don't think that he is perfect and can do no wrong... he's a sinful man just like I'm a sinful woman. If we weren't, there would be no need for the saving grace of Jesus Christ! All that to say, that, we contributed somewhat to the contention. But the root problem still remained and we had to do something about it.
The next day, I was flipping through a book
*** that outlined three types of men: the Steady, the Command, and the Visionary. I couldn't believe what I found:
"Once you get it into your head that your husband does not have to be 'right' for you to follow him, you will FINALLY be able to say 'bye-bye' to your overwrought parents, even when they are screaming that you are married to a crazy man. People looking on will marvel that you are able to love and appreciate your husband, but you will know better because you will see his greatness."
So why do I like the fact that he's "crazy"? Because he is willing to be crazy for the sake of righteousness and goodness. He's willing to be crazy for the sake of protecting our home - in any way, shape or form.
And I find great security in that.
*See: 1 Corinthians 7:3, 1 Corinthians 14:35, Ephesians 5:22-25, Ephesians 5:33, Colossians 3:18 & 19, 1 Peter 3:1, 5, 7
**Click here to view article.
***Created to Be His Help Meet by Debi Pearl.
.jpg)
