Our First Decade Together

Not the best picture of us, but the only recent one I could find.

Today I have been married for 10 years. That is quite unbelievable. It has flown by! One of the problems with having a blog is that you feel pressure to write something profound on these special days. If you have your blog long enough you have to come up with new thoughts every year. Evidently I didn't feel pressure last year because I didn't even acknowledge our anniversary (it was a very busy June). This is what I wrote two years ago on our anniversary.

All of those thoughts are still true today, but we tend to make our lives seem perfect on our blogs. Here's the truth: I still love this man I married. He is still wonderful. He still comes home every night and plays with the kids. He still does the dishes after dinner and bathes the kids. He still reads them bedtime stories, helps put them to bed, and then settles down next to me to watch some T.V. But what about when he doesn't? What about the times when he comes in after work so burdened by the problems of others that he has nothing left to give? What about the days he has seen death or marriages ending and he comes home and retreats a little? What about when he doesn't nudge me away from the sink to take over the dishes or put up the rest of the laundry folded on the bed? What about those days when I choose to make it all about me and be the victim, not realizing the suffering he sees and deals with? What about when I get angry that a dinner is missed or a vacation postponed so he can deal with other people's needs? What about when I get selfish and don't want to share him with our church family and I punish him emotionally for doing his job well? What about when we lay down in bed at night and don't speak? What then?

Well, there is still love....a love that can withstand our weaknesses. It isn't a perfect love. Sometimes we wound each other. But I know it is a deep love because I have never even considered quitting on it. I have never feared that Taylor would walk away either. I'm secure in this love even when I don't feel like showing it. I love this man I married and I'm sticking with him.

One of my favorite CDs lately has been Fireflies and Songs by Sara Groves. She has a song she wrote to her husband called Different Kinds of Happy. There is a part that has stuck with me.

Better than the promises

Is the day we got to keep them

I wish those two could see us now

They never would believe

How there are different kinds of happy.

At the beginning you think a happy marriage will be found in a perfect marriage or a marriage with the fewest amount of problems or conflicts. However, the imperfection just gives us more opportunities to really love. I have found happiness in the perfection and the imperfection. I can't wait to see what the next 10 years hold!