Two become one

My husband and I just celebrated our 7 year anniversary (but 13 years total if you include our dating years).  The years have gone by so fast and they have been filled with many blessings and joys, but also many tests and challenges.  Our marriage is anything from perfect because we are imperfect individuals.  We have had our share of battles, some fought loudly and fiercely with hurtful words thrown at each other (and sometimes a few objects as well).  Some other battles have been more subtle, evidenced by periods of self-imposed silence while tip-toeing around emotional mine fields. 

Yet, through it all, our love endures and it grows stronger with each passing day.  However, this love is not the love that we originally had for each other.  It is not the infatuated kind demonstrated in the early years of courting and dating.  It is a deeper, committed love that is a result of years of going through trials together and years of forgiving and forgetting faults committed by the other.  It is a love that demonstrates a daily choice to love the other person above all others despite his/ her flaws and differences.   It is a love that is a testament to the Lord's grace working on and through us. 

As I reflect on our marriage, I know we have grown a great deal, but I also know that we have a lifetime of growth ahead of us.  We have learned many lessons together, but I also know God will teach us many more if we let him.   When we said our vows, we acknowledged that through marriage, "two will become one flesh.  So they are no longer two, but one (Matt. 19:5)."  This doesn't mean that  we lose our own identities, becoming some sort of strange hybrid -- some of his traits, some of her traits. . .  It means to become one in a highly intimate way, including physical and emotional.  But more than this, I realized, is that "two becoming one" happens when two people are working together, seeking and acting on God's will and purpose in their lives.  For God has a plan not just for each of us as individuals, but if married, he has a plan for us as a couple.  If we have children this means that he has a plan for us also as parents.   It is working as a unified couple, unified parental unit. . . God's plans for us as individuals, couples, and parents, can and do overlap often, but there are also defining features to each.  We have to seek God's wisdom to discern the distinct lines.  Most of all, we need to pray for God to bless our marriages so that we can truly become one in all the ways he intended us to be.