Morning Rounds and Evening Musings

I have to write a sermon for a wedding tonight. What I want to write is two sentences: "Get ready. This will be the hardest thing you've ever done." I probably won't end up writing exactly that, but I might try to slip it in there somewhere.

Wes and I celebrated 2 years of marital bliss last week. And I can honestly say that our celebration followed the hardest month of the 24 we've experienced as husband and wife. I'm not sure exactly why, only that two weeks being separated while on our respective Spring Breaks, sandwiched by two terribly busy weeks for both of us left us individually frazzled and scattered, and made us both feel rejected and unaffirmed by the other person.

I knew marriage would be hard. I'm a realist. I was ready. I knew there would be days where you would wake up and not feel so in love with the person you promised "to love and to cherish...until death." I just didn't know that those times would come only a few short months after we were no longer officially newlyweds. Don't get me wrong, I love Wes and I am so glad I married him. But there are days, O my are there days, when marriage is just. plain. hard.

Wes and I have unusual circumstances that contribute to these waves of difficulty--unmanageable schedules, difficult finances, limited time, and heightened stress levels. Most of the time we manage it just fine. But last month, something went wrong. It began with one disappointing conversation after Wes discovered he wouldn't be able to come to service where I was the officiant for the first time. That must have unearthed some serious fears about my future life with Wes (fears I didn't realize were surfacing until a couple weeks after the fact). Fears that I had married someone different than the person I found myself waking up to two years later, married someone who was committed to being home, committed to making professional sacrifices to be a dad to his kids, and a husband to his wife. I married a man who wanted to see me succeed, who wanted a partnership in the true sense of the word--a partnership that meant both of us did the laundry and cleaning, the parenting and cooking, the working and playing.

I couldn't find that man for the month of March. He was there, for sure, trying the best he could within the confines of the work he had to do and the requirements being made of him. But's what's worse, I was afraid he wasn't there anymore. Third year of medical school will be the worst yet, and then another year, and another and residency and bye-bye all those dreams of a happy egalitarian household! During Holy Week and the week after Easter, as we focused on the sacrifice Jesus made for us, I felt like I was making too many sacrifices of my own and I didn't think I was a good enough person to continue making them for the next six years. But in the midst of my self-centered focus on my own needs, I learned that marriage isn't always partnership, that sometimes you give and give and sometimes you feel crappy about it. Sometimes you fight and sometimes you wonder "what the hell did I get myself into?" Sometimes the negativity feeds itself and it takes a vulnerable conversation on a bench in the Springtime to say "I don't feel loved. I'm not having fun. And I want to. I love you, but I want to be in love with you" and to realize that all either of you needed was to hear that you mattered to the other, that you were loved, that your life together is worthwhile, and life-giving and joyful.

One of my professors who is also a therapist said in class the other day, "when the !@#% hits the fan, that's when couples are married. Not on the wedding day. It takes hard stuff for a couple to learn what it means to be a 'we'. Far too many marriages fall apart because they've said 'I Do' to a marriage of cake, rings and dancing. But that's not what marriage is about."

I realized last month that breaking my vow "to love and to cherish" really didn't take too long. I'll break my vows again, and so will Wes as we learn more about being a 'we'. And that's really the whole point of the wedding ceremony, isnt' it? The language we use describes a Utopian marriage. Kind of like the language of heaven, of God's eternal kingdom. This act of human promise making is incredibly bold--to make claims about our life that we'll never be able to keep. Kind of like the covenant we make with God to love and to serve, the covenant made at our baptism to renounce sin and seek our Savior. None of our vows--to God, to each other--none of them will we keep completely. But the language of covenant, and the utopic, eschatological (sorry for the seminary word!) language of the wedding ceremony draws us to the One who always keeps promises. Our failures remind us of our mortality and simultaneously, at God's fidelity.

And so, as Wes and I continue to work together (and it is work!) to keep our marriage vows, to love each other the best we can, it is my prayer that on year three and year ten and year forty, that we will know God better because of our marriage. That our failures and our success, our highs and lows, our difficulties and our joys will draw us ever closer to the One who holds us together.

I think I've written my sermon.