Marriage Diaries: What Love Requires of Us

I was honored when Tara of Between You & Me agreed to write for the Marriage Diaries. She has ten years of marriage on me (we’ve been married for 8), and I love her sweet perspective on life and love. Welcome, Tara! 

Andy and I laughingly say all the time that our marriage was so hard during those first years because our brains were only half developed. It’s definitely true. Having fully developed brains would have served us well.

But the other reason, the more challenging truth is that we didn’t understand the weight of our vows. We didn’t have any clue what it meant to have and to hold from this day forward…to love and to cherish for better or for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health, til death do us part.

We didn’t understand what love would require of us.
We didn’t know that it would require everything. All of us. Everyday.

I have no idea why we were so surprised that God meant it when he said that our individual covenants with him were meant to be mirrored in our marriage covenant with each other. Maybe we weren’t surprised that he meant it, but we have been both painfully and beautifully surprised at how he has manifested this truth in our marriage.

As he has drawn each of us into a deeper, more intimate oneness with himself over the almost eighteen years we’ve been married, he has also been faithful to show us how to navigate the waters of a deep and intimate oneness with each other.

With the combination of our young-and-in-love naiveté and our very underdeveloped brains, I’m afraid the only vows we really understood were: for better. for richer. and in perfect health. til death do us part.

Unfortunately, our life with God isn’t void of pain, suffering, and all kinds of trials and hardships and neither are our marriages. Like the easiest parts of our marriage vows, mountaintop experiences with God are wonderful, but the deepest works are often wrought in pain, sacrifice, and surrender.

Helplessness is how the christian life works. Whether we’re coming to him for the very first time or for the millionth time, we have to come empty-handed and aware of our great need for him.

I had known about Jesus all my life, but I had never reeeeaaally known him. My childhood included loving parents, an older brother, a close extended family with Sunday lunches together, sweet friends, sports and every other extra-curricular activity you can imagine. It was a good life that I’m sure looked absolutely fine from the outside, but it wasn’t without brokenness. There was addiction in my family, and I experienced abuse from a neighbor at a very early age. Relying on people felt dangerous, and trusting people felt nearly impossible.

Vulnerability and authenticity felt uncomfortable for me, so I armored myself with masks for a lot of years, protecting myself from disappointment and hurt. In a lot of ways, my armor felt like second skin, but just below the surface, I was exhausted from my “try hard” life.

I was helpless. Empty-handed. Aware of my great need for him. At nineteen, I surrendered my life to Jesus and began what has been a twenty year journey to healing and wholeness.

Almost immediately, he gave me my life verse, which is 2 Corinthians 12:9::
My grace is sufficient for you, for in your weakness my power is made perfect.

He has revealed layer upon layer of armor, and is gently replacing that “old skin” that I came to rely on with new skin. His word is daily renewing my mind. He has walked with me through those places in my story that represent “the valley of the shadow of death” for me, and he has been my Good Shepherd and shown me that my story isn’t meaningless. My story drives me to him.

Every marriage involves two stories. I have mine and Andy has his and both involve brokenness. Only God can use the most broken pieces of our stories to create a masterpiece of art in our marriages.

He designed that our covenants with each other would mirror his covenant with us. It never ceases to surprise me. He draws us to himself out of our great need for him…out of the hardest parts of our stories. He perfects his power in those places. And, if that wasn’t miraculous enough, he joins us with our spouses and uses the brokenness in each of us to draw us together as one in Him.

It has taken us the better part of 18 years to figure it out, but we know now what love requires of us. It requires everything. all of us. everyday. With him and with our marriage.

If your marriage is hurting today, my prayer is that your hope in Jesus would be restored. He raises dead things to life. He makes beauty from our ashes.

Tara and Andy will celebrate 18 years of marriage this summer, and their hearts are passionate about living in the oneness that God intended for marriage. They are honored to parent their three children…Luke, Seth and Lydia and consider them to be their richest, most rewarding work here on earth. Together they serve in ministry at Athens Church in Athens, Georgia. She’s been blogging since 2010 at between you and me where she purposes to write from a vulnerable, authentic place about whatever floats her fancy, but you can find her more regularly on Instagram. She loves {in no particular order}:: chips and salsa, beauty hunting, writing, long walks with Andy, strong coffee, investing in people, chunky guacamole, and reading. Their SMALL claim to fame in the internet world  is their Etsy shop, where they sell  hand-crafted wooden signs. (Erica note: Their signs are gorgeous!!) They made a family rules sign for their home with their family’s mission and purpose, and through God’s grace and provision, it organically turned into a thriving on-line business.

Linked up with Works for Me Wednesday and Grace at Home.