Walking With Christ

Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”(ESV)

To my lovely bride,

There are promises we make because we know what we want.  Then there are promises we finally understand only after we’ve spent years living inside them.

When I stood with you and made my vows, I loved you.  I knew that.  I meant every word I said.  But I couldn’t possibly have understood everything those words would eventually require from us.

We hadn’t yet lived all of these years.  We hadn’t carried every joy we would eventually carry together.  We hadn’t buried every dream that wouldn’t survive.  We hadn’t faced every fear, raised our children, endured every disappointment, celebrated every victory, fought every battle, or discovered all of the ways two stubborn people can sharpen one another.

I knew I loved you.  I just didn’t yet know the full shape that love would take.

I know more now.

Marriage isn’t simply two people who love each other deciding to share a life.

It’s covenant.

It’s the decision that your life and mine will no longer be treated as entirely separate things.

Your joy affects me.  Your pain affects me.  Your dreams matter to me.  Your fears matter to me.

What wounds you matters to me because I’ve promised that I won’t live as though your heart belongs to somebody else.

It belongs in my care.  And mine belongs in yours.

That doesn’t mean we always agree.  We certainly don’t.

It doesn’t mean we never disappoint each other.  We have.

It doesn’t mean marriage magically removes selfishness, frustration, exhaustion, insecurity, or anger.  Sometimes marriage reveals those things better than anything else possibly could.

But underneath all of it is something stronger.

Covenant says, “You are not my enemy.”

Even when we disagree.  Even when one of us is hurt.  Even when communication fails.  Even when life becomes heavy.  Even when we’re both tired enough that grace doesn’t come naturally.

You are not my enemy.

You are my wife.  My partner.  My best friend.  The woman I chose.  And the woman I choose again.

There’s a kind of love that asks, “What am I receiving?”  There’s another kind that asks, “What can I give?”

Real marriage eventually demands the second one.  True love has to become sacrificial.

Not because one person disappears so the other can thrive, but because two people continually choose to lay down selfishness for one another.

Sometimes that sacrifice is dramatic.  Most of the time it isn’t.

It’s listening when I would rather defend myself.  It’s serving when I’m tired.  It’s forgiving when I’ve been hurt.  It’s telling the truth when silence would be easier.  It’s protecting your heart instead of simply proving my point.  It’s carrying something for you because your hands are already full.  It’s remaining close enough to know when you need strength and humble enough to let you strengthen me when I need it too.  It’s waking up, again and again, and deciding that “us” is still worth protecting.

So I want to make something clear to you.  I’m still here by choice.  Not obligation.  Not habit.  Not momentum.

Choice.

If I could stand across from you again knowing everything I know now — knowing the joy, the grief, the struggle, the laughter, the arguments, the children, the sleepless nights, the ordinary days, the extraordinary days, and everything we’ve survived together — I would still choose you.

I would choose you with more understanding this time.  I would choose you knowing that love isn’t merely the feeling that begins a marriage.

Love is also the decision that keeps building one.

So consider this a renewal of my vows.

I promise to continue learning you.  Not the version you let other people see.  The real you.

I promise to listen when you need to be heard.  I’ll try not to make you repeat yourself ten times before it clicks.

I promise to tell you the truth, even when truth requires courage.  But I’ll tell you in humility and love, because there’s a difference.

I promise to protect our marriage from the things outside it and from the selfishness inside me that could damage it.  We both know I can be truly selfish and inconsiderate sometimes.  For that, I ask for your forgiveness.

I promise to keep becoming the husband you deserve rather than assuming that yesterday’s effort is enough for tomorrow.  I may never become the man you truly deserve, but I’ll always know that I’m blessed enough to be the man you have, the man you chose.

I promise to pursue you rather than merely live beside you.  Like the delight in Song of Solomon—not simply admiring the woman I can see, but continually discovering the woman only I am privileged to know this closely.  I will pursue every corner of your mind, every beat of your heart, and every rich layer of your soul.  I truly desire the woman I see, but every part of me craves every part of the woman you are.  Song of Solomon speaks of being sick with love, and I understand something of that language now.  There’s a hunger for you that never seems completely fed and a thirst that time and distance can’t quiet.  I crave your body, your mind, your heart, your voice, your presence, and your very soul.  Yet the beauty of that craving is that it can only be satisfied by what you freely give.  Love taken by force would cease to be the thing I wanted in the first place.

I promise to honor the woman you are now instead of expecting you to remain the woman you were when we first married.  I prefer you now anyway.  Your love has woven itself into every fiber of my being.  I’m intoxicated with thoughts of you.  You have a habit of invading my thoughts when I should be thinking about something else.  I welcome the diversion.

I promise to give you room to grow, to change, to dream, and to become everything God is shaping you to become.  I will thank Him every day for the blessing it is to know you.

I promise to pray for you.  I will pray for your peace, patience, and heart.  I will pray for your wisdom and grace.

I promise to stand beside you most of the time.  There will be times when I’ll have to stand in front of you to keep you from harm, a duty I truly enjoy.  There will be times when I have to stand behind you, in awe, because it’s your time to shine.  Oh, my how you shine.

I promise to carry what I can when your strength is gone and to let you help carry me when mine is gone too.

I promise that disagreement will never make you my enemy.

I promise that familiarity will never be allowed to make you ordinary to me.  Every moment with you has taught me that I will never be able to see you as ordinary.

And I promise that I’ll never intentionally leave room for you to wonder whether you’re loved.

You are.

Completely.

Not because you’re perfect.

Not because our marriage is perfect.

Not because life has always been easy.

I love you because somewhere along the way, God took two imperfect people, bound their lives together, and taught them how to become something neither one could’ve been alone.

You’ve shaped me.

You’ve challenged me.

You’ve comforted me.

You’ve frustrated me.

You’ve strengthened me.

You’ve seen versions of me nobody else has ever seen, including some I’m not particularly proud of, and you’ve remained beside me while I became the man standing here now.

And I’m not finished becoming him.  Neither are we finished becoming us.

So I choose you again.

For the laughter that still waits for us.

For the tears we haven’t yet cried.

For the victories we can’t see yet.

For the difficult days that’ll eventually come.

For the quiet evenings.

For the ridiculous moments.

For our children.

For our future.

For every ordinary Tuesday that nobody will ever write a story about but that, gathered together, will eventually become the story of our life.

I choose you.

Body, mind, heart, and soul.  In joy and in sorrow.  In strength and in weakness.  When life feels certain and when everything ahead of us is unknown.  Whatever shape the road takes from here, I want to walk it with you.

You were my choice then.  You’re my choice now.

And as long as God gives me days to choose, I intend to keep choosing you.

I love you.  Now.  Still.  Again.

And always.