What I Didn't Know When I Married

When I walked down the aisle 29 years ago, I really thought it was all about us.

We celebrated 29 years married yesterday, my husband and I. There were no flowers, no fancy meals out. It wasn’t the year for that— the bank balance isn’t exactly accommodating extras— and besides, we live such that our days are filled with, “thank you,” and, “I love you,” and, “I am grateful every day that Lord gave us this life together.” So instead we sat around our dinner table last night and told a gathering of our children—the six who still live at home— a few stories from our wedding and the days that followed.

They were interested, laughing along with us that Mom’s one request for wedding music was that there was absolutely no Rocky Top, and yet the bride celebrating her reception at the inn we retreated to after our our post-ceremony celebration clearly had given the opposite instruction. They wanted to know the details of why we chose black and yellow as wedding colors. (“Like bees?” “No, like… I don’t know. But not bees.”) They liked the story of the uncle they know as a physically imposing gentle giant nearly swooned at the altar due to his terror at being even almost center stage.

My husband had requested a no bake chocolate tart topped with raspberries as a dual anniversary/Father’s Day dessert, and we all enjoyed it. The observation was made that this was probably better than any wedding cake and I couldn’t disagree. My memories of my own wedding cake are decidedly thin; I had photographic evidence that I ate some, but nothing comes to me when I try to conjure up the moment.

And this was the door that opened to usher in talk of the family weddings my children have attended and do know: their older siblings’. Because my wedding? The one where I was bound to a single man for a lifetime and stepped into the role God had planned for me? It has been fruitful.

It’s not uncommon for a bride to look backward when she’s planning her own wedding, to contemplate tradition and what has come before. And when we revisit the day, that’s where our minds naturally go, too. We think of the people who witnessed the ceremony and are no longer with us (oh, don’t get me started). We think of what was currently in style, and we remember how young we were and what we thought the future held for us.

But it’s a rare bride who can stand with a fist full of flowers, hair carefully twisted and smoothed, and think, “Some day, I will see my daughter take this very step.”

And yet, God willing, we do.

“The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”—Genesis 2:23-24

Four of my children so far have married. Two girls, two boys. No, scratch that. Two women, two men. They each did it their own way, and no one chose to have Rocky Top played at the reception despite the fact that we live in East Tennessee. My wedding day was the seed that God used to nurture ten souls here on earth and, should He will it, we will see several more weddings before this generation is exhausted.

But we don’t think of that when we say yes to the dress. We don’t think of that when we’re deciding a honeymoon destination. Our own union is a domino falling in the Lord’s purposes, a piece of a puzzle being fit in just right that allows other pieces to find their own home. Without this, there would be no that. It’s staggering to realize just how big those choices we’re allowed to make when we’re not yet mature, maybe not even yet sure of who we really want to be, really are.

My kids last night reminded me of the beautiful memories our family has made through the weddings we’ve experienced. So-and-so’s cake. The piano being moved to the front porch for the ceremony we hosted here. My third daughter’s uncanny inability to stay dry-eyed once the vows begin. Last night we looked backward, yes. But it was downstream from the event we were celebrating and truly brought things into a sharper perspective for me. A God-perspective.

Four of my children have taken the leap into entwining their lives, forever, with another person. They’ve brought new members into our family, people we love and cannot imagine life without. But the story isn’t finished being written. Most of those kids around my table last night will marry, too. There will be more grandchildren, more laughter… and someone, somewhere in the line will request Rocky Top and right there, in our fancy dresses, we will hoot and dance and write that moment into family legend.

Anniversaries are for looking backward and seeing what the Lord has done. But oh, they’re also for looking forward and waiting on what He is doing in the midst.

Twenty-nine years has gone by in a flash, I want to say. But of course that isn’t true. So many people have passed, time has slipped through our fingers, life has been lived. My husband and I are here in the delicate, straddle parenting dance of teaching a preschooler to add and form letters and encouraging a young mother with her own medically fragile preschooler that God’s plans are still good. Next year, we say, we will pause and celebrate. Next year, we will mark those three decades with something bigger than a homemade dessert and a stroll down memory lane.

But if we don’t, that’s ok, too. This is the simple beauty of a marriage being lived out, walked in partnership with love and respect and the understanding that sometimes it’s less about dying for someone than choosing to truly live with and for them. This is the message we want our children to remember, as their own branch on the family tree splits off and grows strong: your wedding is one, beautiful day, but your marriage is one, beautiful life. Hold them both loosely, remembering the One who is in charge and giving Him due reverence. But embrace them both as well, because the life that comes from these things is truly, truly one of His greatest gifts.

In Christ,

Heather