The Messy Marriage.

Throughout my entire childhood, I have daydreamed about my wedding day. I picked out the flowers in my mind. The color scheme (which for a long time was going to be lime green and hot pink). I pictured my dress. Me, standing in front of a man I love, telling him that he was my forever.

On April 14, 2018, that day I had dreamed about for so long finally came to pass. (Hence the reason that the blog has been on "pause" as of late, sorry friends.)

Let me tell you, I felt like a princess. The colors, which were navy and blush thankfully, looked beautiful. The weather was perfect. The food and flowers I had spent weeks and weeks picking out all tasted and looked fantastic. Honestly, the wedding itself could not have gone any better. I was exceptionally pleased with it.

But in about 0.3 seconds -- it was over. And then it was Nathan and I speeding away in the car, Walt Disney World bound, starting our forever.

Can I just admit that being engaged to a man who you see on the weekends and living in the same house with a man -- those are two VERY different things. And I mean that in the best way possible.

We are two very different, very independent people who have been thrown together and told we're our own family now. We are officially each other's closest living kin. And honestly, it hasn't been the easiest transition. But can I say that it has been one of the most rewarding?

I truly do love Nathan with my whole entire heart. I love coming home after work and having someone there with me to binge watch Netflix. I love having someone who will go for runs with me. Someone who will let me adopt a dog 2 weeks into our marriage.

However, two people means twice the laundry. It means twice the mess around the house. Twice the personalities who didn't have the best day. It means twice the imperfection. Two people who are inherently selfish, coming together and trying their best to put the other's needs first. I've found it's not the easiest task.

But there's something really beautiful in Ephesians chapter 5, where Paul gives us his longest anecdote on marriage. Here, he tells us for wives to respect and submit to their husbands, as the church is to submit to Christ. Then, he goes on to tell husbands to love their wives unconditionally, just as Christ loves the church and laid down His own life for her. Jesus Himself says that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for another (John 15:13).

For a long time, I bristled at the idea of "submitting" to my husband. What does that even mean? I would think. Should I just let him walk all over me? Is THAT what the Bible is telling me to do? I honestly don't believe that it is. I think that a lot of it is just that we need to be willing to set our own thoughts and desires aside and LISTEN to someone else. Listen to what they have to say. CARE about what they have to say.

The beauty in a marriage is that Christ created it to be a reflection of Himself and His greatest love -- the church. If we can for a moment realize that marriage isn't about making ourselves happy, but rather making someone you love truly happy, maybe we can start to get the point. This outline for a marriage is perfect. It's literally created by the One who created US. He probably knows what is best for us.

I don't know that I am in ANY position to be giving marriage advice, as I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out, slowly but surely. But I can point to the Bible, both for myself and for anyone who has or is going to enter into this wonderfully crazy covenant. I can point to the perfect wisdom that is there and say that maybe it doesn't have to be tragically messy, just a little sloppy sometimes, since we're all sinners. And maybe if we can set our pride down once in a while, we can learn what it feels like to be truly happy in the design that Christ made for us.