Before I get into today's post, I want to first mention a few things about my last post. I recently had a wonderful conversation with a very dear friend of mine who has a different perspective on the idea of soul mates. I believe that we make a choice concerning who we marry, and the biggest point I wanted to make in last week's post is that once we make that choice, we must continue to make choices to love and nurture that relationship. At that point, you're in (and what a blessing to be in a wholly committed relationship that gives grace to flaws and says, "I'm in it for the long haul, no matter what"!) There's no reason to get into this destructive mindset of, "Oh, I'm just not in love anymore - I think I found my true soulmate." Attraction to someone outside of marriage is purely emotional, because one need or another is not being currently met by the spouse - not because the stars aligned and brought you together with your true other half. Once married, you are made one. I still absolutely believe in God's sovereignty and am not saying that everything in our lives is 100% reliant on us. I know that the only thing good about me is God. But I do believe that ultimately, the choice is ours. And God is sovereign.
My friend made a great point, however, and I think it's important to hear all sides of a conversation, so I'm going to share, as accurately as I can, what she shared with me. She does believe that God created us with our significant others in mind, and that by his sovereignty, we meet and marry. She shared that in Jewish tradition, it is believed that God made two people one before birth, then separated them and placed them in their mothers' wombs. The choice is still ours (after all, God gave us free will), and sometimes we marry someone who isn't exactly who God intended for us. God still perfects the imperfections of our mistakes, but it isn't his perfect, original will for us. Also, I mentioned in my previous post that the Greek word for romantic love is not in the Bible (New Testament). That is true, but she also pointed out that in Song of Solomon and other books of the Prophets (Old Testament), the Hebrew word for romantic, intimate love does appear, or is depicted, although it is rare.
All of this to say, don't blindly take what I say, or someone else says, or your preacher says, or your Bible study leader says, as the indisputable truth. GOD is truth. Pray, ask him to reveal things to you through his word, dialogue about these things. I would love to talk to anyone who wants to have a discussion about this, but I would encourage everyone to go to the Lord first.
Moving on...
I want to talk a little bit about a mistake I made as I "prepared for marriage."
The day before I left kamp last summer, Garrett and I said "I love you." He also told me he knew he was going to marry me, and I told him I knew the same thing. From that point on, the excitement rarely went below a 7 on the Richter scale. There were so many things to plan and prepare for, it was full steam ahead 24/7.
We quickly bought lots of Christian marital advice books and were given many more. We read and talked about everything we could think of, from household chores to how to punish our hypothetical kids to budgeting to intimacy (although we, like "good Christians", tried not to get too deep in our discussions until much closer to the wedding day, as to not cause each other to stumble). We did premarital counseling with our pastor and answered hard questions. It was never a challenge for us to talk about anything - we began early on to get all of the big things covered.
And yet, there isn't much that you can do to truly prepare you for something you've never done. Take riding a bike. When you see other people doing it, it doesn't seem so hard. But no matter how much you've read about riding a bike, how many instruction manuals you've perused, how many YouTube videos you've seen or conferences you've attended, if you've never ridden a bike before, you're almost certain to fall, at least once.
And so it is with marriage. I felt completely prepared, thought I had it down, and never expected to run into some of the emotions I've experienced since our wedding day. The fact of the matter is, you could know, with the most extensive head knowledge, all there is to know about being married, but when it comes time to do it, you're just a newbie.
You see, I was so focused on knowing all the right things, and saying all the perfect, wifely things to say, that somewhere along the way, I stopped preparing my heart as well. I was too busy filling my head with facts and "wisdom". And all this head knowledge was great to have, but in the nitty gritty of marriage, it doesn't compare to having a heart primed and ready to love as hard as possible, and then love some more.
I'll come back to this thought, but I also want to mention something that was tough for me. From the moment of engagement to wedding day, there's always something to do. Meet with the caterer, register at BB&B, make a guest list, attend a party, talk to my mom 4 times a day... it never stops. Then the wedding weekend comes and you have literally every person you love in one place at one time, and you're getting married to THE love of your life. But what about after that?
Although I was very cautious to not get too focused on the wedding day and fail to prepare for all the days after that, it was still quite a change for me. It's fun when life takes you from 0 to 60 in 3 sec flat... but what about the other way around? For me, with school ending, wedding planning ending, job ending... and "easing" into married life, it was like 60 to 0. In no time. PLEASE don't hear me say that being married to Garrett is not fun and exciting - it absolutely is. I have more fun with him than anyone else. It was just a change of pace I didn't anticipate, and I was not prepared to have that adjustment to make.
So, for the sake of simplicity, let me make a list.
1. Prepare your hearts, not simply your minds.
How do you do this? Pray, pray, pray, pray, and pray some more. I was relying on myself to prepare my mind, but I didn't rely on God to prepare my heart, like I should have. I'm not saying that if you do this, everything will be perfect. Marriage is intended to be a sanctifying tool in our lives, so we will have growing pains. But the more you pray for your heart, your spouse's heart, and your marriage, the more ready your heart will be to take on this new challenge. You'll still fall - just like on a bike - but you'll get up faster.
2. Recognize the imminent change of pace.
The hardest thing about the screeching halt of life as I knew it was that it came as a total surprise to me. It's normal, in most cases, for things to slow down quite a bit. Just know that up front. Don't be caught off guard like I was!
God is using marriage more than anything else in my life at this moment in time to teach me, refine me, challenge me, and sanctify me. However, I think this idea of being prepared can be applied to so much more than just marriage. When God calls us to do something, we can prepare for it all day long, but it comes down to taking one step at a time and just doing it. The key is to keep God in the very middle of it all. Trust him in each heartbeat, with every breath, and through all the moments that fill up the days, and follow him wherever he leads you.
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