Reason #537

Aaron and I have both developed a serious case of “I don’t want to’s.” Maybe it’s the mid-summer blues. You know, that time of the year where it’s just hot, hot, hot, and nothing is going on. There are no holidays in sight until September. Now, it’s just a waiting game for fall to begin and activities to start picking up again. We are ready for Labor Day, football season, our week night shows to start back, and for the monthly holidays to roll around. I love summer, I really do, but the stretch between Memorial Day and Labor Day is a long one.

 

Aaron and I celebrate our second monthiversary today. Two whole months! Seems as if I was just writing about our first monthiversary last week. Time flies when you’re having fun. We decided that every month we will celebrate on the 10th since we got married that day. We already had plans for tonight, so we are delaying this month’s celebration until tomorrow.

 

Marriage is one of the biggest life-long lessons one can learn. I’m sure it ties with parenthood, but I can’t speak for that one yet. And so in my opinion, marriage is the beginning of a journey on which you learn a lot about yourself. Marriage is definitely the perfect preparation for parenthood because it’s the beginning of a journey where you learn that it’s not about you anymore. You have to stop thinking in terms “me” and start thinking in terms of “us.” You really begin to understand what it’s like to take care of someone, and you are humbled and challenged more than you’d like to be. And although the marriage relationship is very unique and each one looks different, I think we can all agree that in order to have a good spouse, you must be a good spouse.

 

Aaron and I had a long conversation about this last night. Nothing negative, rather we’re just trying to be the best we can be in this new role we’ve taken on. I don’t want to be that slacker, nagging wife that brings about eye rolls and negative comments when I’m not present. No, I want to be the wife that Aaron is proud of and thankful for. The wife that meets his needs, makes him happy, and gives him something to brag about. I realize these are pretty selfish thoughts, but who wouldn’t want to be married to someone like that? Anyway, we realized that we so often fall guilty of loving and treating one another the way we’d like to be loved and treated. And what works for one isn’t what always works for another. We all give and we all receive in a different form.  So even though that might be one of the most frustrating and difficult things to learn about a person, it’s one of the most important. Because this is what makes us unique. It’s the core of who we are. And yet it is so easy to try and change someone into who you desire them to be rather than loving those unique traits they posses. After all, it’s usually those very things that draw us to people in the first place.

 

When I was first getting to know Aaron, I remember telling my mom that I felt I had found the boy version of myself. Now, a year later, I see that isn’t the case. Because although we had the same morals, beliefs, and values, we couldn’t be more different. Yet those differences are what we both mentioned liking the best about one another. And those differences, if used right and used together, are really effective. But we have to allow those things to happen. And more than that, we have to learn to work with them and not against them. To appreciate the differences rather than despising them. And in order to be the best spouse you can be, you have to not only learn how to operate differently than you ever have before, think with another person’s mindset, and do things that are not second nature to you, you have to remember to actually do them.

 

We hear it from the time we are children. We are made special, unique. We are one of a kind. That never changes, and it never should. There’s a reason God did that, rather than making us all replicas of one another. And this is true for all relationships, not just marriage. Because God, Himself, is unique. His character is like none other, and we should appreciate that about Him. We should love Him for who He is rather than trying to turn Him into who we think He should be. We should accept His ways and work with them, realizing that when we do, it is to our advantage and remarkable things can come about. But this only happens when we stop thinking in terms of "me." When we stop viewing every relationship from our point of view but rather attempt to view it from the other person's point of view Because only then can we become the better half. Only then can we truly be the best that we can be for them.

 

#537 - Because of a God who loves us in all of our uniqueness.

 

"Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it."  Psalm 139:14