The Marriageless Countdown
Apparently Brett and I are getting married soon. A day short of two weeks from what I've heard (I really do love it when friends call or text to remind us that we are getting married soon... trust me, we haven't forgotten!).
I have tried my hardest not to count down for lots of reasons, but one in particular: I've read that when you get married you find that you no longer have to work like you did while dating or engaged to "keep the other person around". You are no longer responsible to your significant other cutie pie shnookums baby to prove you are just as schnookumsly good as you perceive them. You are not proving that you worth marrying and loving...because you are already married to them. You are in the arrangement/covenant you vowed yourself into. Done. No more proving, only living.
I don't countdown because there is a hope somewhere inside of me that the way I love Brett now will not change for the worse after our vows but for the better. I hope that now, even before we are married I am not trying to prove how great I am to him. I KNOW he sees my flaws. I'm pretty sure after a million meltdowns, my over-gracious vulnerability about my bowl movements or bra ancy-ness, and enough hasty sarcastic comments I shoudn't have made to him, my cover as a sweet angel of sugary goodness has been blown.
There is no room for proving in Brett and I's lives. God didnt make us that way. I hope we embrace giving each other grace, servitude and intentional depth of conversations every day. I hope we communicate our frustrations just as openly as we communicate our dreams. And, knowing I struggle with this one the most, I hope we accept the grace given by the other... even if it's needed a zilion times in just one hour. I know we will grow. We will come to appreciate marriage more. We will see things in the other we don't necessarily love about them. There will be times when one of us wants to jump on the trampoline and the other will just want to lay on it and look at the stars. And I hope in those moments we accept what the other desires and simply because we are called to consider their wants and love them. The best part of it is, I'm not having to prove to Brett that I am worth being on the trampoline with... because he's already there with me.