¨A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.¨
This week marks our 13 month anniversary. I was thinking about the quote above, and I think the truth is that the longer you are married, the more you find new reasons to fall in love with your spouse. I think all of the reasons I fell in love with Jairo are all still good reasons, but the longer we are married, the more I get to know him, the more we share experiences together, the more he changes and grows as a person...all of these things give me many new reasons to keep falling in love with him.
A lot of the girls in the youth group ask me about marriage, love, and things of that nature, and I am always the first to tell them that love as God designed it really has nothing to do with the feelings we have on a given day. Love is much more than a feeling; in reality is a decision that we have to make every day. If we look at 1 Corinthians 13, none of what is described has to do with feelings. Whenever I think I´m doing well I just open up the Bible to those verses and swallow my pride.(Love is patient, love is kind...) Still though, the feeling that the world calls love, and what we would refer to as being ¨in love¨, definitely helps make the decision to love someone much easier! The days that those loving feelings don´t come as easily are the days that loving a spouse becomes a sacrifice, and it´s difficult sometimes. The days that we do feel those lovey-dovey feelings, it´s much easier.
I guess what I´m saying is that I don´t need any other reason to love my husband than the promise I made to him and to God when we got married. Still, it´s easy to find lots of reasons to keep falling in love with him every day (almost always!).
More than a year into our marriage, what are some new things that I love about my husband that I did not know about him or share with him when we got married? The most obvious thing I can think of is our baby that is currently about 65% ready to be born! I can´t even begin to explain what I feel for Jairo when I think about this life we helped form together, especially when he does something like read a book to my belly or sing it songs. Seeing my husband become a father is and will be a whole new dimension to him as a person and to our relationship as well. I´m looking forward to seeing him in action when this little one arrives!
There are many other things I´ve learned about my husband in the past year or so. He loves to see me happy, and he will do anything, no matter how embarassing, to make me laugh. He is incredibly patient, especially with me. He has a lot of big dreams and I´ve learned that I can help him by simply believing in him and the things he wants to accomplish. He believes in me too, and is always quick to encourage me to pursue what I love and to try new things. He is much more talented than I ever realized in the beginning, and seems to grow more talented rather than just being content with what he already has. He loves silly jokes and he´s really funny, even sarcastic sometimes which is not actually too common in this culture (but I really appreciate it!). He´s really not like anyone else I know, except maybe a little like me in certain ways, and while he has many friends and loves to be with them, he doesn´t trust very many enough to share secrets with them...which makes me feel priveledged to be the one he confides in. He is very sensitive, especially to the needs and feelings of others, which makes him even better at the ministry. I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. These are all things that I had yet to discover about my husband when we got married.
Of course, I could also make a list of the faults I didn´t know about, because getting to know someone implies that you get to know all of them, and not just the good side. But I always remember a saying I heard once, that says that the faults you find in others that most bother you are the faults you yourself have. I always think about that when something Jairo does starts to bother me. I think, if I were to go to him with this and complain, would he be able to call me a hypocrite? And the truth is that almost always I´ve found that saying to be true. And on top of that, I can find many other faults in myself that Jairo does not share. So when I´m tempted to complain, I start praying and asking God to show me where I need to change. That´s a good prayer if you need to be humbled, by the way.
What can I say? Another month has passed, and we are richer, if not in the material sense, in the sense that we have shared that many more moments together, gotten to know each other that much more, learned that much more, failed and succeeded that much more, and come to love each other more, both in the sentimental sense and in the sense of 1 Corinthians. I feel blessed, as I do every 24th of the month, to see how God has blessed me with everything I ever asked Him for, and many things I never had the wisdom to ask for, but needed all the same. I´m still learning, and I have a feeling that I will still be learning all my life, but I look back on those first stormy months and I feel content to know that we have grown and still love each other more every day. I don´t think I can really ask for more than that!
No comments:
Post a Comment