I see her dutifully cleaning the kitchen. As a little girl this is how I learn the color yellow. I see it and smell it in the air - lemon-scented cleaner. The sun streams in and she tells me to be careful not to come into the kitchen. "The floor's slippery," she cautions as she backtracks to the living room in a man's pair of socks. Through small eyes I see her exhaustion. I watch her appease a man - dinner's ready when he comes home. I see the way she pauses, waiting until the right time to bring things up.
It doesn't take much to learn that it's not just her in the house. She's first so many things to other people before she is an individual.
Who am I seeing? A wife. She doesn't have a name. She just is what I picture a wife to be. When I think of her before marriage, I see a different woman. Carefree. Summer evenings. Dreams. A future so big it can't be contained by the navy blue night sky. The man begs for her to spend her life with him. He dotes on her. She holds the power to say yes or no. It's just her in this world.
What causes the magical shift between a marriage ceremony and an average day as a married woman in a duplex? In romance novels the story ends when they say "I do". The chase is over. The decision is made. Her future is decided. No surprises here. And it's scary to think that's me soon.
Our culture is in love with falling in love. When you fall out of love a sequel is born and you journey towards love with a new person. But that's not what I believe about marriage. That's not what God commands in marriage.
I fear so many things. But mostly I fear being one woman to one man forever. I fear in the way that you are about to do something terrifying and awesome all at once. I don't want to get caught up in excitement of the wedding day. I don't want the story to end at "I do". I can't live solely for that short walk down a white aisle. What about the rest of our lives? What about the hard work we will need to fall in love with each other over and over again? It's not just one story. It's a dozen struggles and chapters and sequels. It's a lifetime spent with one man, pouring ourselves out over the One book in prayer for God's help for two imperfect people.
God, our hearts are in the right place. But what if we're doing it all wrong? I don't know what I'm doing. I cry out for peace. I see two paths. One is easier - independent - single - but I would miss him so much. I forget what life is without him. The other is a life of service - of dying to self - of loving someone more than myself. Is there really a choice?
Fourteen years ago I bought an Easter card for my first boyfriend. It reads "our love is sweet....longer lasting, too". Ironically our "love" dissolved before Easter Sunday. For some reason I saved the card thinking I would give it to the man that I would be with FOREVER. But every year something would go wrong before Easter Sunday. I'd sit in my room and stuff that card back into the hallmark bag and it would shift to the back of my desk until the next boyfriend.
Now fourteen years later I hold that card in my hands deciding whether to finally give it away. It's yellow, like the lemon-scented cleaner and like the color at my wedding. It's bright - like the future. It's also a step of faith. My signature and his name will only mean I will have to trust God every step of the way. I can't do this alone.
It's a love story that is so unparalleled by the love God showed in dying for me on this day. His love is so much greater - and I don't even begin to deserve it. This Easter Sunday is not about my love life. It's not about us. Our wedding day isn't even about us. It's about God. What He has done. It's a choice to trust Him and to trust me less. Not I, but Christ.
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