We were on our way to a wedding shower outside of town. Which already sets the stage of this story because my beloved hates anything social, fancy or obligatory…and this was all of those things. He hates tucking in his shirt. Hates the grinnin’ and shakin’ hands…all of these things…not his cup of tea. (Oh and he would hate to sit and sip tea too) So the edge was already present.
Not me. I love the social scene…laughin and cuttin up…causin scenes…you know the whole deal.
We had been driving for a while when my main squeeze said, “Am I going the right way?” To which I said “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know, didn’t you tell me you had the directions?”
“Did I tell you that?”
“Yes”
“Oh. Well I don’t have them.”
Silence.
“Am I going the right way?”
“I don’t know”
“So you’re saying that I may be driving to the complete wrong city?”
“No no this is right.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t.”
More silence.
I started calling people at the shower…to get confirmation on the address…no answer. We were already an hour late. I knew we were missing all the social moments…and another thing I knew…I had NO CLUE WHERE WE WERE or where we were supposed to go. I could feel the tension building in the car as my hubby realized we were all the way lost and would never make it to the shower I had forced him to tuck his shirt in for. I knew he was most frustrated that I didn’t know where it was…the pressure guys…it was building.
We drove for thirty more minutes, blindly, when I finally decided to call good ole’ Mom. Moms fix everything right?? So I called her to ask if she had the directions.
“Well Cass, don’t you remember I told you I put the directions on the gift in the trunk.”
This time I got silent.
Oh my lanta. How was I going to break this news. We’d been driving lost as a goose with the directions in the trunk the whole time???
I hung up the phone.
“What did she say?” my better (way better) half asked me calmly.
“Can you pull over?” I asked.
I jumped out of the car and popped open the trunk and lo and behold…the directions…tucked neatly on the gift package RIGHT where my sweet mama had told me they were.
I climbed back in the car sheepishly….head down.
I was holding a small slip of paper.
“What’s that?” He asked.
“The directions….” I said as I offered them like an olive branch.
My sweetness just sat there staring at the slip of paper in my hand. He started driving. No words….just that eerie calm before the storm….the kinda quiet that I call the “crazy quiet”.
“Babe? Here’s the directions.” I feebly said…still offering the slip to him.
Silence….deafening silence as he white knuckled the steering wheel.
He looked across the front seat at me and jerked the directions out of my hands.
And I watched as my level headed lover balled up the directions and PUT THEM IN HIS MOUTH.
Yes people, he put them in his mouth and he chewed them up.
Let me repeat: He put them in his mouth and CHEWED THEM UP.
He then rolled down the window and spit them out.
Yep. Spit them out. In absolute silent anger he had munched on the directions and spit them out on the side of the road.
And we were STILL LOST.
Blessings, mercy and peace….it was a rough moment…obviously not my tall drink of fines finest moment.
And do you know that there was only one thing I could do: hysterically laugh.
Like full on tears-fallin’ crying kind of laughing.
And that love of mine simply pulled over and found his happy place, quietly staring straight ahead, still white knuckling the wheel. He was beyond mildly irritated with me.
And then someone called with directions and we were rescued.
But we didn’t speak of the chow down my lovely went on. It was too much to speak of.
We were driving to Frisco, TX to shop for furniture to fill our brand new newlywed apartment.
We were wide eyed and excited about all our new furniture and our new life together.
I had a legal pad with the measurements of ever nook and cranny of that brand new shoe box of an apartment. Every window measurement, every inch of what we needed was written on this legal pad.
We were driving down the interstate with the windows cracked.
I was holding the legal pad.
I looked at my babe driving us and smiled big as I thought about the question I was about to ask him.
“Babe….how bad would it be if this legal pad got sucked out of the window….like what would you do?” (as I held the legal pad up towards the window crack)
He chuckled and shook his head and was about to respond when…
SUCK…the legal pad was GONE….in an instant.
The window crack served as a vacuum of sorts and ALL THE MEASUREMENTS and all the joy got sucked out right with it… That legal pad was gone.
I looked across the seat at my honey and he was silent…eyes wide. He didn’t say a word…I just watched his knuckles turn white as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
Again, he had to find his peaceful place as I sat in the seat and whole-body shook with laughter.
Brent and I have been married for 9 years this week. 9 years since we asked God to make us one.
I have had the privilege of being his wife for 9 amazing years. I am a whole lot to be married to, and that is not lost on me. I bring with me a brand of crazy that would terrify most. Yet I have a love for the ages, who endures scattered brained me, who sees past the legal pad getting sucked out of the window, and loves me anyway.
I remember the night before our wedding, when my hubby-to-be stood up and gave a speech to me in front of the whole room.
He said something to this effect:
“My commitment to you is to love you and to cherish you forever. I promise to be the best leader for you that I could possibly be. I promise to provide for you at all costs so that you never go without what you need. But I want you to know something, from this point on, me and you, we’re going to do EXACTLY what God asks of us…no matter what it is. I commit to you that I will be obedient and I want you to know in front of this room that no matter what anyone says, no matter anyone’s opinion of our decisions, we WILL do what the Lord asks of us. I will support you in what God calls you to and I ask that you do the same…and as long as we do that…we’re good.”
SWOOOON.
Neither of us knew how much that commitment would mean, or what that declaration would require of us.
Marriage is a little like what you think it will be, but a whole lot of what you would never expect.
I have learned that marriage takes a bunch of white knuckling.
God designed marriage to be ONLY for His glory. The original design of marriage has very little to do with us actually…and a whole lot to do with becoming a living example to the world of how Jesus loves. A living testimony of love and serving, commitment and loyalty, a pursuant love of each other that calls to remembrance the pursuant love of our God.
It requires a “bearing with” one another…pushing through the moments when we need it to be about ourselves and choosing for it to be about our other half. Gripping tight to the commitment we have made, to each other, but more importantly to God.
Marriage, lived out the way God designed it, becomes a place where callings are supported and destinies are encouraged. We look into each other’s lives and call out the very things that make us lovely and make us have purpose.
And a lot of times, the callings on our lives cause us to have to die to self…most of the time actually.
And in that dying to self, our better halves have to die with us in order to stand in support of what God has uniquely designed and destined for us to do.
Although in marriage two become one, that does not mean that one side’s destinies are sacrificed on behalf of the union.
We are most powerful in marriage when EACH of us are walking in the unique-one-of-a-kind calling that God has breathed into our hearts.
And the commitment we make to one another: to be the wind in the sails of those callings, to support and not bring down, to get on board with each other and hand in hand see God’s kingdom come to earth as we bear WITH ONE ANOTHER until our calling’s are fleshed out.
I have a husband who has never doubted the calling of God on my life.
I have a husband who has never said no to anything God has asked us to do.
I have a love who has called out my destiny and made it his job to make sure I’m able to do it.
I have a better half, much better half, who has the ability to see past my flaws, the things that annoy him, and white knuckle through, always with the heart to love me in spite of.
I have a partner who has unspeakable talents and chooses not to speak of them, leaving room for God to be spoken of.
I have a man who has lived up to the commitment he made me the night before our wedding: to do EVERYTHING in his power to be obedient to Christ…no matter what other’s think of our lives or say about our decisions.
I am called to love this man the way he has loved me. He has loved me like Jesus. I am called to do the same. To fight for a marriage that brings life and not death, to be the speaker of life into his life, to outserve him, to pursue him in love…..because all of these things have been done for me, FIRST through Christ and then through my man.
We are called to tighten our grip on our marriage, until our knuckles turn white.
To fight for each other’s destinies.
To grip through the moments when selfishness rears its head and we live as though marriage is only for us.
To choose to find a happy place when all we want to do is snap and scream.
To have a tight grip when the world is asking us to loosen up in our committments.
To love each other the way our Husband did, Jesus, which required His everything. His knuckles were white, gripped tight to the commitment to rescue and restore us, and call us His own.
READ ABOUT IT:
Ephesians 5:22-33
1 Corinthians 13
