“Well, we did it. We’re married!”, were just a few of my thoughts immediately following my wedding ceremony on May 24, 2014.
In the months (actually years) leading up to the wedding, my wife and I wanted the perfect day. Kate and I dated well over four years before we exchanged our vows. For the majority of those four years, we were in a long-distance relationship; thanks, college! When we were finally engaged and it started to set in that we were really going to be married, my excitement level was at an all-time high.
I won’t lie. I have never been more impatient than in the two years we were engaged. I was always thinking of solutions in which we could get married before the ever elusive May 2014. Every idea was turned down quickly, and rightfully so.
Once the week of our wedding began, it was all that I could do to keep myself from going crazy. There was so much to do and so little time. All that I wanted was to sleep all week and wake up on Saturday. But, as I’ve learned a lot this past year, the days fell off the calendar quicker than I’d anticipated.
Wedding Day
I’ve said it all year long: my wedding day was absolutely perfect. You dream of a day filled with sunshine, where everyone is happy, no one is late, and everything goes according to plan. From top to bottom, everything was perfect. My in-laws and everyone involved with the wedding did such an incredible job to make sure that it was perfect. I prayed so many prayers just over the weather on my wedding day. As selfish as that could be, God definitely answered my prayers.
The day was a dream come true. The honeymoon was equally amazing, and the most fun that I’ve ever had.
The wedding day itself was great, but what about life after the wedding day? What about life after the honeymoon? What happens once the newness wears off?
Well, here we are. We’ve been married for a full year! Am I still excited about being married? Am I still excited about my wife? Yes.
For one reason or another, people get bored easily. So, to combat this, they often find ways to get excited. More often than not, I see people using things to be excited. Maybe it’s a new car, a new house, a new this or that. Sometimes it’s even a new spouse! I think that’s why some couples don’t wait so long to have kids, because they need something new and exciting to drown out the feelings of boredom and monotony.
Those periods of excitement are mountaintops. Everything else is just coming down, hanging out in a valley, or going back up. Over the last year, I’ve realized that life is not the mountaintop; it’s the walking in between. (Thanks Ben Rector!)
I waited so long (relatively speaking, 4 years isn’t that long, but this isn’t your blog, it’s mine) for this one mountaintop experience! It definitely exceeded my expectations and was more than worth the wait! But once we started coming down from the mountaintop, that’s when life really began.
“How’s married life?”
I’ve probably answered this question almost a hundred times this year, and each time without hesitation, my answer has been the same: “It’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done.” When I say greatest, I always mean it in every definition of the word. It is equally the most significant and most fun thing that I’ve ever done.
Some days are better than others, for sure. Marriage and loving my wife is a daily choice. No, I don’t think that I’m going to wake up one day and realize that I no longer love my wife. But every single day that I do wake up, I have to make the choice to emotionally, spiritually, and physically love my wife.
When we were dating and living miles apart, it was easy to live off of yesterday’s emotion, because we had to. But it got old, fast. It’s the same way with our relationship with God; we can’t live off of Sunday’s sermon, we have to put forth the effort every single day to nurture that relationship.
I’ve learned a lot about myself from being married. I’ve learned a lot about my wife from being married to her, I think that goes without saying. Over the last year, I’ve enjoyed walking through an incredible journey with my best friend. None of these words can truly explain any of my feelings or thoughts, but I thought I’d try.
Every day I choose to love my wife. Every day I choose to walk in between with her. That’s why it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever done.
Josh Bennett 