Love and Marriage

When I was about 12 years old I was afraid of the very idea of marriage. I felt marriage only led to heartache so why even bother? I didn't really have many examples of healthy, thriving marriages in my life. And when I was younger unfortunately I allowed the good examples I did have to be overshadowed by other more painful ones I was aware of.

I'm now 28 years old and Jason and I are coming up to our 8 year wedding anniversary. Being married to Jason has honestly been the greatest blessing of my life.

Jason and I met almost 10 years ago. We met on Friday, September 22, 2000; I had just turned 19. I was living in St. Catharines with my family at the time and my mom made a trip to Port Perry for the weekend to visit an old family friend. My sister and I went along for the ride. When we met we had an instant connection...I was SO shy and nervous. I later discovered he went downstairs to his dad and brothers and told them about the "hot girl" sitting upstairs in the kitchen. ;) I ended up going with him and his friend Mike to watch them play music at a church service in Whitby. We had a lot of fun hanging out and talking that weekend. I remember looking out the window of my mom's car once we'd pulled away from the house and out of sight, silent tears running down my face. I was pretty devastated - I figured I'd never see him again.

After leaving a spontaneous birthday message (a few days later on Sept. 27) for Jason on his parents phone, he returned my call and got my e-mail address from me. We began e-mailing each other every day (loooong letters - we actually got to know each other quite well that way). He came to St.Catharines for a few visits and by January we were dating. I wouldn't admit to this of course prefering to call Jason my "buddy". I was still afraid. Afraid I could never actually find true happiness in life, afraid God would "make me" give him up, afraid I didn't deserve him. I thought that in order to even get to know him I had to "know" that he was the one. So silly - and quite frankly - rather embarassing to look back on!!!!

As a teenager I remember pondering the idea of finding "the one" with my girlfriends. The response I remember getting from those older and wiser than us was "you just know". And so there I was armed with the knowledge that when I met the person I was meant to be with I would "just know". And it didn't help me out one little bit! If anything it just scared me more! Maybe "just knowing" works for some, but it's definitely not the advice I'll be giving my daughters or my son as they grow older in the years to come. I already tell my girls to marry somebody like their daddy, while pointing out his many wonderful attributes. ;) I'm sure there have been people who just "knew" they'd found "the one" only to have things end in heart break.

Somehow I had this notion that God had a very specific and detailed life planned out for me and I had to find all the pieces to the puzzle and put it together entirely on my own in order to be in what people like to call "God's will". This was a very scary prospect for me...how was I possibly supposed to figure out who the one person in the whole entire world was?

As I've grown as a person and come to discover that I don't have to earn God's love my understanding of what I believe it means to be in God's will has matured. I do believe that prayer is essential and needs to be a consistent part of our lives. So should the act of trusting our futures and our lives to Him. I believe that when we trust our lives to Him, that we will begin to see God's hand at work in our lives. These are really just a natural response to understanding God's love for us and his interest in our lives. BUT, I also believe God has given us a brain for a reason and sometimes the answer is right there in front of us and we just don't know what to look for.

The advice I see myself giving my kids (what I would tell you if you were a good friend looking for advice) would be this:

1) Use Wisdom: Wisdom would say to choose someone who works hard and can keep a job. It would also be prudent to choose someone who places the same sort of value on spending time together that you do. Someone who doesn't have anger, drug, or alchohol problems. Don't choose someone who is manipulative or abusive. If you have family or friends who have serious concerns (ones they can articulate) about the relationship or the person you're with take that into consideration. Look for someone who encourages you to have healthy relationships with family and friends outside of the relationship you have with each other.

2) Attraction: It's not the only thing but it is an important thing...you HAVE to be attracted to each other! People sometimes worry about this being superficial and think they should be able to overcome a lack of attraction with time and getting to know each other. Sometimes it happens that way, but not usually. And when it does I think it happens naturally and not as a result of someone willing it to happen. Sure it can be superficial if the only connection you have with someone is physical attraction and nothing else, but there still has to be an attraction!

3) Trust: Do you trust them? Have they ever done anything to seriously break your trust? Trust is essential, and it's definitely something that develops over time.

4) Shared World Views: It is so important to find someone that you see eye to eye with on the big stuff, the things that are going to affect your day to day life choices as well as your major decisions as a couple. I don't think that you will ever find someone you agree with absolutely everything about, but it's good to be aware of what issues/beliefs are important to you and find someone who views the world the same way you do. Another major aspect of this I think is what is their take on marriage and family? Some people believe marriage is a lifelong commitment and others go into marriage seeing divorce as a back-up plan in case anything goes wrong. If you're truly at the point where you want to find someone you could have a future with be honest with yourself about where the relationship is at. If you're investing your time, energy and heart into it, make sure they're worth it!

5) Friendship: Jason is absolutely the best friend I've ever had and I feel safe telling him anything. I recognize that as women we have a need for girlfriends and being able to connect wth other women, just as men have a need to connect with other guys in their own guy way (which for my husband revolves largely around sports, music and video games). I do think it's healthy for every person (married or single) to have friendships for themself as an individual, but; marriage is a lifelong commitment, who better to spend it with than your closest friend?

6) Love: You have to be in love with each other!

7) Honesty: I think one of the most important types of honesty in a relatonship (aside from a general honesty and openness with each other) is the willingness to be able to look at yourself and be honest about what motivates you. The ability to be honest and recognize when you're wrong and when you need to work towards making changes. It's always so much easier to look at your partner and see in them what you think needs to be changed. However, I've learned the power there is in being able to own up to attitudes and behaviours of my own that need to change. When two people in a relationship are both willing to be honest with themselves about who they are and what they need to work on, it can make life a lot easier on both people.

8) Be Realistic : Recognize that you're not perfect and that you'll never find someone who's perfect either. Every healthy relatonship has a learning curve and every person has a need to mature and grow.

I'm very passionate about marriage. Marriage can be a beautiful thing. It has the potential to bring amazing joy, connection and belonging to two people. We've all seen the heartache and heartbreak it can cause, we've all seen people who've wielded the idea of marriage and used it as a means to judge and condemn those who do things differently. It must break God's heart to see that happen. If we truly believe in marriage we need to let it speak for itself, in the way we choose our spouses and in the way we live our married lives.

I came across this thought somewhere and I just love it: "Don't marry someone that you can simply imagine spending the rest of your life with...marry the person you just can't imagine spending the rest of your life without."