If ever...

Six years ago today my beloved and I were "really married" in the sight of 400-odd witnesses seen and untold numbers unseen. It was the moment that my little girl dreams came true, right down to the princess dress!

In retrospect, the most amazing part is that I was given a husband that I can and do truly love and respect. What? That doesn't seem so amazing? Well, I spent several of my formative years thinking -- once I was too practical to continue to think that I would grow up to be a princess or Amy Grant -- that God's plan for me surely meant marrying me to someone I wouldn't love (or possibly even like), since God was a jealous God and I was certain I needed to be taught a lesson. While I dutifully composed lists of godly traits I wanted in a man and prayed for the safety, health and happiness of my yet-unnamed someday husband, wherever he was in the world, from the time I was a young teen, I didn't really have exalted hopes. I think I thought I would be lucky to get someone who would put up with me, let alone care deeply for me, and I entered my 20s still believing that was true. Given that my expectations lowered my standards a bit, and that I probably could have married badly a couple of times over before Daniel and I met, the fact that I was unmarried and not 100% sworn off of men when God brought Daniel into my life seems nothing short of a miracle.

For his part, Daniel once told me that his abiding fear was that God would make him a missionary in India, and later in life he had resigned himself to becoming a monk if the right woman didn't show up, and she didn't seem to be in any hurry to get there. Clearly, Daniel is not a missionary in India nor a monk, and I am not in marital misery or divorced. God knew better, it would seem.

I was right about one thing. I needed to be taught a lesson. I needed to learn that the man God had planned for me was far and away beyond my expectations. More than that, he was what I needed: kind, devoted, talented, intelligent, patient almost beyond measure and a perfect fit in so many ways. I needed to learn something about love. I needed to see that love was neither a fairytale gooey feeling (though I have been blessed with some of that), nor was it the lashes of a taskmaster for my own betterment (though I have needed some of that), nor was it something that I could never experience in a way that enlivened my being (though I despaired of that)... No, love was, as promised, patient, kind, not envious, bot boastful, not proud, not rude, not self-seeking, not easily angered, not keeping record of wrongs... it protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres. It never fails. In my only slightly imperfect husband, I glimpse perfect love, and I am completely overwhelmed.

I may fail to love him as I ought. We have and will face all manner of challenges. There is, however, nobody I would rather face them with.

And so, in awe of God's graciousness and overwhelmed by the gift that is Daniel in my life, I come to the end of my post and I haven't words of my own to say what I wish. And so, what Anne Bradstreet said of her beloved, I quote in honor of mine:

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.