A Belated Anniversary Post

On Monday, the day we celebrated our first anniversary, my co-worker returned to work from his honeymoon.  He was on the phone when his bride came in to eat lunch with him, so I was chatting with her while she waited.

He got off the phone.  He turned.  He saw her.  He jumped up. "It's soo good to see you!" he gushed, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her.  She returned the embrace and then turned to smile apologetically at me.  "This is the longest we've been apart since we got married." And then turned back into his arms, thrilled that the four-hour wait was finally over.

I had to smile - and then I was thinking about the year of marriage that Josh and I have shared together.  We're not the gushy honeymooners anymore (okay, not as gushy).  But part of me expected that to be a sad realization, like we had fallen "out-of-love".  Yet it was rather a joyful realization.

We don't have that warm-fuzzy-feeling-everytime-I-see-you feeling as often anymore, but in its place is something a thousand times more precious.  We've gained trust.

Not that we didn't trust each other before. But the trust that comes from living and loving together is unique. Special. Intimate.  I trust Josh to care for me, to tell me when there's something on his mind, to apologize when something goes wrong and to rebuke me when that something is me.  I trust him to take the time to talk through disagreements and to set down the impulse purchase and to cherish me and to do everything he can to provide for me.

Josh trusts me to be a good steward of his provisions, to be honest but supportive, to look at both sides of an issue, and to see things with as objective a perspective as possible.  We both trust each other to treat ourselves as the other's possession, and to treat the other as ourselves.

We have disagreements and sometimes one of us (um....me) will try to get out of doing the dishes and there are dirty clothes on the floor. It's all the things that society tells us are those little things that make marriage impossible.

But we trust each other to be married.  We trust each other to love and to cherish, to honor and obey, as long as we both shall live.

And that's not the starry newlywed view, where you hope and you trust in their good character. It's the experience that you can only get by knowing another.

And that is what our first year of marriage has been all about.