Listen to the blog:
I grew up not knowing if my father would be the same person from one day to the next. Not dramatically different. Quietly, dangerously different. The kind of different that makes a child learn to read a room the second she walks into it.
So when I got married, what I wanted most wasn’t romance. It was stability. I wanted to know the person beside me would be there tomorrow. And the day after that. And on the days he was furious with me.
I wanted to know he was staying.
“Yes, we actually got married again in the church,” I tell my sister-in-law. “Our pastor introduced covenant marriage to our congregation. Since Jim and I were married before I was a Christian, we were married by a rabbi. The pastor’s offer gave us an easy opportunity to renew our vows, this time under Christ.”
“Wow, I didn’t know this. Were the kids there?”
“Yes, lying all over the pews. They were still young. This was probably 20 years ago.”
Driving home from dinner, I’m thinking about that second ceremony while Jim drives us through the dark, assuredly not thinking about our marriage covenant at all. In June, we will have been married 38 years.
I start laughing at myself. He glances over.
I don’t explain.
We’ve made it 38 years. We’re more than halfway to “’til death do us part” — woo hoo!
I’m not even talking about the legal covenant marriage that some states offer. I’m talking about the biblical one. The promise made before God when you say your vows. After eighteen years of marriage, we chose each other again. That is the real covenant.
For me, that promise is the best part of our marriage. It means I never have to wonder. He will be there when we’ve had a knock-down-drag-out fight. He will be in the bed next to me, even on the nights I go to sleep angry, and there when I wake up.
One time, he was so angry with me that he went full silent treatment. That same week, I got a call from my sister that my mom had been rushed to the hospital. He was still my first call. He got in his car and came to meet me, and he even talked to me the whole way.
When all is said and done, he shows up when it matters. And I’ve learned what that demands from me in return. Even when he isn’t speaking to me, I do the simple things, like make his breakfast and dinner.
That is reciprocation.
I am sure he wishes he could have added a few amendments to the covenant he maybe didn’t anticipate:
Thou shalt not leave coffee cups all over the house.
Thou shalt not leave every cabinet open.
And most importantly, thou shalt move thine own laundry timely through the process.
But he does get the reciprocation of me always coming home, always putting his real needs above my mood of the day.
We have been married twice now, and not once has either of us ever mentioned divorce. Not in a fight. Not in the worst of it.
It is hard to trust someone who always threatens to leave.
God never promised easy. He promised presence. He never leaves either. And marriage, the real kind, is supposed to teach us something about what that looks like.
Unconditional. Ever present.
My father never gave me that. Jim has. Every single day for 38 years, the same person in the same bed. That is not a small thing. That is everything.
Sorry Charlie. It’s ‘til death do us part.
You are so cool