Perspective and Community in 10 Years of Marriage
The trip started out just as bumpy as our first year of marriage did. We were bright-eyed and hadn’t even thought anything about our trip to the Pacific Northwest could go wrong. However, as soon as it came time for our plane to board, we were alerted that we would be delayed about 10 minutes. Then as soon as we could get on the plane, we learned there was horrible weather in our connecting airport city, and there were no planes allowed in or out. Thus began our 3rd of 7 hours in the Richmond airport. As we rounded upon hours 5 and 6 and our connecting flight to Seattle was canceled, I began to imagine all of the ways our first trip away from the kids could go wrong. I imagined us being stuck in Richmond for our entire week - all of this build up to potentially be stuck in Virginia or have to cut our sight-seeing trip in the Pacific Northwest short. I imagined never getting to the west coast and the whole week passed before my eyes and I became dejected and discouraged no matter what was actually happening in front of me.
Eventually, we wisened up and put our heads together. We found a flight through another airline in D.C. that required us to be at Reagan National Airport by 4 AM to board a 6 AM flight to Newark. We canceled our ticket from Richmond (and were eventually refunded) and proceeded to drive to Alexandria. There we slept on Scott’s sister’s couch and floor (thank you Bethany!) and she graciously took us to the airport to avoid expensive parking fees.
I remember our first year of marriage as well, not something that I ever anticipated being tough. What could go wrong with my newly happily married husband? My own sin, that’s what could go wrong. Similarly to our flights getting delayed and changing - once things weren’t “perfect”, I imagined all of the ways that it could go wrong forever. Would I always be unhappy? Did I make a mistake? Could it just be the birth control pills making me crazy? (the answer to that one is yes, it did). If I were to describe something that has ultimately been helpful in our marriage in the last ten years and my life in general would be the concept of perspective.
Worry, anxiety, and our imaginations take things and they spin them. We have one negative interaction and our minds want to control and predict the future from that interaction, but it gets out of hand and at some point - you can’t imagine a place where your marriage could ever be happy again. You can’t imagine how things could ever be better, or a day in which you didn’t experience resentment. However, I’m here to tell you that our perspectives aren’t the full picture, they’re not always correct, and positivity honestly goes a long way. Even when there are issues - changing the perspective that marriage happens in seasons and there are so many resources to grow and develop relationships can change a lot of things. Emotions, while strong, are momentary, especially the bad ones. They come, and they also go. Toddlers are living proof of that beginning in the human body.
The last ten years with Scott have truly been amazing, and there have been hard parts. I’m hoping to walk into years 11 and beyond with a renewed perspective of the seasons and ups and downs of marriage.
A second aspect of marriage that was reflected in our PNW trip was the presence of community. Most people (from what I’ve heard) choose to vacation on their own. For us, we had the option to do that, but we also chose the PNW so that we could visit some dear friends that actually allowed us to live with them for about two months in 2017 when we were in transition from Norfolk to Blacksburg. They’re absolutely dear friends that have been through a lot recently and seeing them in person was something we knew we’d really like to do.
Spending our time adventuring with Cody and Jess was a dream. They were so easy to travel with, knew about all of the most amazing places in the areas that we went to and spoiled us with lots of trying lots of new drinks, foods, hikes and seeing beautiful places they knew how to easily navigate. We had great conversations, celebrated, were in awe together, shared stories, cried, ate amazing food, took pictures and just absolutely had a beautiful time. Marriage is a team between the partners, but it also takes so much community to make marriage work and to make it work well. I’m grateful for our chance to bond not only with them, but also Cody’s parents who are from the PNW and generously opened their home to us.
Community has been invaluable to our marriage over the years. Community has sustained us in those moments of poor perspective, has encouraged us through our fledgling call to ministry as a couple in those early days, came alongside of us as we had kids, literally financially supports our family as we ministry to college students, prays for us, and is absolutely and incredibly invaluable in these past ten years. Marriage is mostly about the work that you put in with your partner, but having wise and steadfast community around both partners can help make that work easier, more effective and can often speak clarity into issues and ask you, “have you prayed about it?”.
It has been a gift to share these last ten years of ministry, marriage with Scott. I’m looking forward to him as my adventure partner for many more decades while we keep a Kingdom perspective on marriage in our community of people who are cheering us on.
