“So how’s married life?” That’s the question I hear almost everywhere I go. It really makes me laugh and make me think of all kinds of smart remarks that I really shouldn’t say out loud. I appreciate the intentions of the askers, just the frequency and phrasing of the question entertains me. How do I answer that?
The answer is that life is life. Married or not married, there are joys and challenges, hardships and happiness. In contrast to how I used to view marriage as a teenager, it hasn’t been this great earth-shattering , revolutionizing change of all things in life. I mean, it is a change, but not quite as dramatic a change as I expected. It’s been more subtle. It’s more like the change of the seasons from summer to fall. I don’t remember the exact day the seasons changed. I just remember one day looking around me and feeling a crisp coolness to the air, brightly colored leaves, and the sun disappearing sooner and I realized it was fall.
Marriage has been a process. It didn’t start or end on the wedding day. It started the day we met. From the first day we stayed up late discussing the history of Uganda to the beautiful day we said our wedding vows in front of all our family and friends, right up to this week’s Scrabble games and long walks, it’s been it’s been a journey, not a destination. It wasn’t like when we were “finally married” we had somehow “arrived”. It just meant we continued on our journey together. We will continue learning together until the day we finally go to our true home with our Father.
Our wedding was beautiful. I will always remember it as the most beautiful day of my life. The love and support of so many friends and family, the colors, the whole week leading up to it as friend after friend arrived in, it was a beautiful time. Afterwards, I was happy to have all over with though (all the work and planning and so on…the visitors on the other hand I wish could have stayed forever! Ivan and I want to have a wedding every six months just so we can visit with so many dear people again).
We celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those were the big three I’ve longed to celebrate in the U.S. again. It was a joy to be back with friends and family again. It was comforting to be back and fun to show Ivan “how we do things here,” only to find I miss “how we did things there” too. We miss Africa terribly.
I used to hear stories about how the “first year of marriage is the hardest” and “after the honeymoon phase is over” and so on. Honestly, the hardest parts of marriage thus far haven’t been learning to live with each other or learning to be married, it’s been learning to survive in the U.S. We can happily and harmoniously live together well. That’s no problem. But dealing with job searches, visa processes, momentous life decisions, family conflicts, culture shock, and learning to be responsible adults is enough to add stress into anyone’s life. Maybe that’s one goal of marriage though: learning to build a safe haven and refuge, one place to be safe from all the craziness of the outside world, where each person can be strengthened and encouraged to face the challenges.
I love the rocks and hills around Chatsworth. They are turning green now from all the rain. I realized that life is so similar to my hiking adventures. When I’m scrambling up and down rocky faces, I never can see the end of the trail I use, if it’s all a dead end, or if it leads somewhere. The only way to tell is to pick a trail, walk it till I can’t go anymore, and see where it ends up. If it’s a dead end, then I try over again. Usually though, one little trail leads into another and leads into another and before I know it I’ve reached somewhere. I just can never tell exactly where I’m going on how I’m getting there along the way. But when I finally arrive, the view is so worthwhile.
God has been providing for us. It’s been amazing. It’s always just enough, not more, not less, and I have to humbly learn dependence and trust the same way I always have had to learn. He is opening doors and creating trails where it looks impossible to keep going. I just can’t see how all things will work out or where all this will lead, but God knows. Tomorrow is in His hands. I never know what to expect, but He is good. That is my hope and my strength. In all parts of life, marriage or singleness, hardships or joys, God “works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose”.
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