This Marriage Takes Three

The phone rang, his name appeared on my dash, and immediately my jaw tightened. Scott never calls during my morning commute. "Where are you right now?" Those words. Mom had been sick for more than a week, her frail little body bouncing from one illness to another. My heart began to race. Before I answered -- maybe as I was answering -- I began to wonder how it all would sound in my ears, how he would tell me. Maybe he would say, "Well, you need to get home; I have something to tell you." I mean, when a loved one is ill and someone says something like that, don't people automatically know? The caller might be thinking, "I want to be able to comfort her. I don't want her to be alone when she hears." But, in essence, you've heard, and you are alone, maybe more alone than you've ever been in your life. I tried to prepare myself for the words to follow. 

"Babe, your mom got sick. I mean, really sick. Sick like I've never seen." I held my breath. "It's everywhere. The whole basement stinks. You need to brace for impact." I waited. "I mean, Babe, it's everywhere!" 

It was my turn. "But, how is she?" I thought he was stalling.

"Oh, she's the same as she's been, you know. She's sitting in the chair right now. But, you really need to brace for impact: it's everywhere." I wasn't sure if I wanted to shout with joy or laugh out loud. I was thrilled she wasn't gone. I was grateful she wasn't gone. But, having my husband think so much of me that he wanted to prepare me for what was to come, knowing he had walked into a scene of such carnage the likes of which he had never experienced, knowing he was sooooo out of his element, and hearing his reaction even as he took the time to warn me, made me want to burst out laughing. It was an enormous wave of relief wrapped in feeling incredibly loved.

This year we celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. Maybe not a huge milestone compared to some, but a wonderful one for us. Twelve years of crazy, nail-biting, abundant, sorrowful, stressful, impoverished, blessed, difficult fun! Through it all, we have loved -- sometimes easily with our hearts and sometimes resolutely with our minds. And that love has grown into the feeling I had when I hit "END" that morning.

There was a time when Scott and I would have lost our minds if we'd been ask to do what we did that morning. There was a time when coming home to find the vacuum lines in the carpet even mildly disturbed would have made us crazy. There was a time when he might have turned right around, shut the door to Mom's room and waited the thirty minutes for me to come home. But we have been through so much, and neither of us has emptied the bank account and tossed our phone in the closest dumpster. We have stayed with it because, as ugly as it has gotten and as ugly as we have both acted from time to time, we love because we were first loved by Jesus. I don't think either of us could have continued to love but for the love of Christ. That love has transformed us and continues to transform us. We become more like Jesus and, therefore, more like truth and mercy and grace and love and servanthood. We are drawn to Christ because of who He is and, as He changes us, we are drawn to each other because of who we are becoming.

My ninth grade Bible class focused on dating and marriage. Of everything we heard that year, the thing that stuck with me most, was a diagram the teacher drew to illustrate how godly relationships work. The closer each person draws to Jesus, the closer they are drawn to one another. We are seeing that diagram come to life in our marriage. And for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in abundance and in want, in clean and in dirty, because of Jesus in our relationship, we love and are loved. Until one of us draws our last breath, there is no magical guarantee on the permanence of our marriage. It's work and it's commitment. Our marriage will only be as solid as our willingness to stay in it. But, praise God, we are not alone.