Thinking about my marriage

CS Lewis in the Screwtape Letters wrote, “A woman means by unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others…. Thus while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people’s rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.”

I don’t write about my marriage much. This is usually because I am a smart man and don’t want to say anything about my wife that will get me in trouble. I like to avoid trouble. But, I also stay away from writing about my marriage because I live a public life. While I am not constantly being hounded by the paparazzi or making appearances on Entertainment Tonight, I serve as a spiritual leader for a large congregation. Much of my work and life is on display for those I serve. So I tend to protect and hold back my wife and my marriage from others because it is ours and not anyone elses.

That being said, I have been thinking about marriage a lot lately. I have been engaged in a fair bit of premarital counseling lately and have had numerous conversations with friends about being married. Just the other day I was reminded of how much my marriage has changed and how it just keeps getting better. So let me celebrate my wife Gretchen for a moment.

Sunday was an incredibly long day. I got to church at 6:45 am, spent almost two hours getting ready for the day, lead a worship service, taught a lesson about textual criticism and the formation of the Bible, led another worship service, went to a mission meeting, ate lunch, went to a youth committee meeting, practiced my sermon, got ready to lead another service, preached, and finally went to about a two hour church council meeting, arriving at home around 9pm. I was just exhausted.

When I got home, the only thing I wanted to do was eat, drink, and watch a basketball game I had recorded. And so what did my wife do? She welcomed me home, gave me the remote, and left me in silence. I can’t tell you how great it is to have a wife that understood exactly what I needed in that moment. 5 years ago, the night probably would have gone differently.

You see while I was off being a pastor, my wife was being a mom and a good church woman. She got the kids up, got them dressed, and went to church, got the kids to their classes, helped man the preschool auction booth, ran preschool Sunday, set up fellowship time, saw our daughter sing, cleaned up fellowship time, went home, fed the kids, put the kids down for rest, rested for a brief moment, came back to church, served as lay liturgist during worship, taught the kids zone, came back and served communion, then took the kids back home and put them to bed and waited on me.

My wife did all of these things without complaint (well at least without real complaint, it is impossible to spend all day with two kids and not complain about them at some point) and still understood what I needed when I got home. Earlier in our marriage a Sunday like that would have been met with arguing, dissatisfaction and complaining. But, we just understand and get our each other, our roles, and each others needs much more than we ever did before. I hear others talk about their spouses, especially those have been married for a shorter time than us (it will be ten years in August) and I am just thankful for my wife and what a decade together has helped us to become. I can only hope a decade from now will blow where we are now out of the water.

So here is some serious love and thanks and praise and whohooo and can’t imagine what I would do without you and you rock my world and you are still smoking hot and I am such a better person because of you and thanks for not only willingly bearing my children but dealing with offspring that share my DNA and for getting better with age (although you look younger than your youthful age even) and putting up with me. My wife rocks, and I know it, and now you know it too.