So In Love

“How is married life?”

That’s what people ask when you’ve been married five and a half months.

 

“Absolutely wonderful,” I tell them, which is very, very true.

I don’t want to be that girl who gushes online about my wonderful husband and all the wonderful things he does for me, because I know what it’s like to be single and read those kinds of posts.  I was always happy for my friends, but in my head, I was like, “Yeah, yeah, marriage is the best thing in the world.  I get it.  You can stop telling me.” 

Most days I can’t believe I’m actually married.  On top of that, I can’t believe I’m married to Jeff.  In what I thought was excessive praise, it turns out those gushy posters of the past didn’t do justice to how beautiful marriage can be. There’s a lot I’d like to write about in this new season of life, even at the risk of making some folks roll their eyes like I used to.  But, before I do, I want to share something I wrote a year ago.  I was single, options wide open in life, and had just started going on little dates with God.  I was in love with Him and enjoying exactly who and where I was in life.  It’s the kind of love I would enjoy reading more about in others’ lives too, so I hope someone can resonate with this today.  

Here’s my journal entry from March 8, 2014.

Lately, I’ve just been having these ridiculously sweet times with God.  Our date under the stars in Uganda last month, His gift of a shower in the Entebbe Airport, and our new Lent adventure of finding ways to serve others every day.  Last night, I got my hair cut, which always feels so luxurious.  The view of the water from Ballard enticed me to wind through the neighborhoods for a closer look.  Little did I know, God had a surprise date ready for us.  I realized I was right by Golden Gardens Park.  I parked, put up my sweatshirt hood, and started walking the beach.

I quietly studied how the sand gradually gives way to rocks and then melds with the water.  I turned my head at the distant echo of sea lions barking, which was just in time to see a flicker of a fish surfacing.  Seriously.  It was like a dream.  Popping, snapping fires filling my nose with summer, blue gray snowcapped mountains with a swirled blue gray sunset gently descending on their heights like a blanket to tuck them in for the night.  Birds dancing, people laughing.

I sang a new song because no love song had yet been written for the kind of love that’s come to me.  I’m so full of it, even now as I try to put last night into words.  “Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…. Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…This is our new song, this is our new song, of love for You… of love with You… of love from You…Oh I love, bein’ in love with You…”

I got back to my car and it was nice and warm.  I put my keys in the ignition but didn’t start the car yet.  I just sat there, savoring the view, the moment.  Everything was heightened, like what I’ve experienced in love with a person, but a million times richer.  I said out loud, “I never knew life could be so beautiful.”  My voice cracked on the words and I started to cry from joy and beauty and LOVE!!  Dang.

He showed me something else.  I get to have this life.  Many 33 year old women have kids, a husband, and family things.  They don’t know what it feels like to be 33 and single.  To dig into the loneliness until this geyser of amazing love and contentment explodes in your life.  I get to have this kind of life.  I get to go on Friday night dates with God.  Not in a “crazy-cat-lady-please-pity-me” sort of way, but in a “gorgeous-gift- that-I-wouldn’t-exchange” way.  I really want to be a Mom.  God knows that and I trust Him.  God and I have this brand of life now.  

I don’t want to compare phases of life anymore.  I just want to be in love with God and sink deeply into gratitude for where He’s brought me today.  This morning, I woke up, held my sleeping husband’s hand, and whispered, “Thank You,” to the One who is the same loving, amazing God, yesterday, today, and forever.  Amen!!