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I’ll never forget years ago watching my little niece, then 3-years old, running down the the harbor dock in my hometown of Northport, Long Island, screaming out to a bride getting her picture taken, “Cinderella, Cinderella, Cinderella!”
As I reflect this week of my 20th wedding anniversary, I realize that marriage is far from finding a fairytale Prince Charming or fantasy partner to sweep us off our feet. For me it’s been a much better story – a story of entering through the doorway of intimacy into a new world of two, not one. It’s a story of journeying together on a long, long winding road (with plenty of hills, and bumps and curves), into the heart of Godly love – an uphill journey not for the weary hearted. This road we traveled for 20 years has been both hard and beautiful, a road of laughter, crying, fighting, stretching, forgiving, caring, building up, tearing down, letting go, holding close, cheering on, and best of all, at the heart of it all, serving one another with wholehearted selflessness.
It’s funny, the friend who forced me out the door the night I met my husband, called just last week after we had lost touch 17 years ago.
Back then, in search of romantic love, I dated far too many frogs in search of a prince, including Peter Pans and few Don Juans. When my fruitless love seeking plight became too painful, I finally took a year off from dating to ponder the true meaning of intimacy, vowing to love myself a whole lot better and only allowing someone to know my heart who’d do the same.
My friend knew my relationship fasting escalated to the point of isolation, and one night insisted I go out to a fundraising event.
Still not ready to venture out of my secure hiding place in a studio apartment on the bottom floor of an A-framed house perched on Mt. Tamalpais in Mill Valley, California, I resisted her invitation. After all, after spending a year content reading books, watching movies, and blissful hikes alone on Mount Tam’s winding trails to the crest of clay cliffs overlooking the Pacific, going to a party felt invasive, out of context, frightful even.
Yet my friend cajoled, persuaded, and finally forced me out the door. “You’re going to meet your husband tonight”, she said.
The fundraiser, a benefit for the World White Water Championships, organized by a mutual friend, was held at the Patagonia store on Union Street in San Francisco, an event I cared nothing about. After all, sporty, tanned, outdoorsy men weren’t my type.
Thinking back, God’s mighty breath was behind the scenes, wooshing me out that door that night, just as it happened years before when I quit a promising career at the Discovery Channel to move west.
“Why are you doing this?”, a successful owner of a video production company asked. “You have the world in your hands here.”
If I knew what I know now, I would have told him, “I’m going to learn what love is”.
My friend was right, I met my husband that night.
When I turned to leave — yes, believe it or not, just before the clock struck midnight– he was standing before me, just a haze of a person, more like a soul. I had seen him earlier, thinking he was handsome, unique, with a European flair, far from the outdoorsy type.
Few words were needed. We both loved dancing, we talked about dancing. I was taking jazz classes at the time. Then he asked for a ride home.
No stage coach turning into a pumpkin scenario, just a ride in my Toyota. We stopped first for pie and ice cream at a late night dessert place on Union Street, and talked and talked until the place closed at 2 am.
I felt a tiny shift in my heart those momentous hours, a knowing, a sweetness, a peak into into the doorway of intimacy. I wanted to know more about this person, who, with unabashed candor, told me in the car that I was beautiful in such a sweet way that I didn’t feel he was just another charmer, who to this day tells me so often that I’m beautiful. I wanted to know more about this man who listened with intent, studying me as if preparing to paint a portrait, watching and listening for nuances, details, emotional cues that would capture the whole of me.
We wanted to see each other again the next day — and the next, and again and again.
God is the umbrella under which we walk together on this journey, protected, guided, glued together in sacred love. We’ve learned over the years that true love means serving one another as Christ serves us — in a sense, it means laying our lives down for one another.
But it wasn’t like that early on. We had too many road blocks and carried too much baggage to freely serve one another well on the early road to intimacy. Our flaws, personality differences and unhealed childhood wounds rose to the surface like adolescent acne. Our temperaments in how we dealt with conflict clashed. Mine — feisty, confrontational, Italian-Irish infused –intimidated him. More familiar with a cheerio, let’s pretend everything is perfect –the British way that he learned from his darling, afternoon-cup-of-tea-drinking parents– he most often cowered, or we bucked heads.
But we kept at it. My husband likes to say, he stretched..stretches — making sure he works on changing troublesome patterns so he can better serve me. And I’ve learned, and continue to learn, to soften, to admit I’m wrong sometimes, to say I’m sorry, and to step out of the shadow of my own stubbornness.
When God finally came into our lives years later, the deepest work of pruning the dead branches of our relationship, the parts of us no longer working, started in earnest. Under the umbrella of God’s grace, the fruits of the spirit in our marriage flourished — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control — have become the stepping stones of our marriage. And when we stumble, and we do, we have God to guide our way.
This person I’m with for life brings me happiness, and with him, I have learned to love.
I read in the Old Testament that men who recently married couldn’t go to war the first year so they could spend that time making their wife happy. That sounds good and healthy, and about right. In healthy intimate relationships, we’re meant to make each other happy. Proverbs says a wife of nobel character is worth more than rubies, her husband has full confidence in her. She brings good not harm. She’s enterprising, serving her loved ones, creating a solid ground for them to live together.
Let us learn to love well.
Here are some gems we are given on this path, to hold dear, to remember, to practice until we get them right:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast,
it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does
not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects,
always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
♥
Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm
for love is as strong as death,
it’s jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire
like a might flame.
Many waters cannot quench love
Rivers cannot wash it away.
If one were to give all the wealth of his house for
love, it would be utterly scorned.
-Song of Songs 8:6
WE LOVE YOUR LOVE COMMENTS!!
Linking up with #Small Wonders and these lovely groups!
I love the story of how you met your husband! How enchanting it is when God lifts the veil and allows us to see his hand working directly. Enjoyed this tremendously. Linking with you at #TestimonyTuesday.
Hi Ginger, so happy to have you visit and glad you enjoyed my anniversary story! It’s blessing to have you here! Hope to share with you again!
Oh my friend! 20 Years is incredible! I just love that story of how you met… I never get tired of reading about God’s wondrous and creative ways to move us toward His Will! This just makes me smile, and makes my heart smile too.
This. YES! —->”God is the umbrella under which we walk together on this journey, serving one another on this path of Godly love, as Christ served us.”
Thank you Chris, yes God has been the glue that has kept us strong, convicting, shaping, reshaping us everyday! I’ve just edited a few things in the blog, and added some details–one of which I realize is a crowning grace of the hard work of marriage–the gifts of the fruits of the spirit that help us continue onward! Always lovely sharing with you!
Brava Kathy. This brought tears to my eyes. Exquisitely expressed. Beautifully shared. Thank you Kathy and Kathy’s husband of 20 years! for allowing us a glimpse into your 20 year journey. Happy Anniversary.
So grateful for your heart and encouragement Dorry, and for warm wishes for our anniversary. It’s a true blessing to share this sacred journey with you all these years! I’m feel so blessed to share it with you!
Kathy darling…..your and Simon’s meeting is a perfect example of how when we surrender we allow the divine to enter our lives. In so doing, our lives and our hearts expand in ways we never believed possible. I know that going a a Patagonia fundraiser with a bunch of strangers would be the last thing you would have wanted to do………That your friend knew to push and you knew to go along is one of those miracles that we discussed in one of your past beautiful blogs. Congratulations to you and Simon on your twenty years as husband and wife. Believe me I know that even the most beautiful souls coming together have incredible life challenges. I appreciate your eloquent expression of these challenges and wished my parents gave me the honest truth of the difficulties in intimate relationships. I believe I would have been a more loving and supportive wife in my marriage of 27 years if I had known the reality of both the light and the dark sides of marriage. I would like to leave you with my most favorite love poem that highlights the sacredness of an intimate marriage relationship. To me it is the most beautiful reminder of how marriage is about creating a divine coupling that makes two people stronger together. Much stronger than we are alone if we choose a partner who knows how to love and is willing to sacrifice self interest at times. Enjoy!
The Third Body by Robert Bly
A man and a woman sit near each other, and they do
not long
At this moment to be older, or younger, or born
In any other nation, or any other time, or any other
place.
They are content to be where they are, talking or not
talking.
Their breaths together feed someone whom we do
not know.
The man sees the way his fingers move;
He sees her hands close around a book she hands to
him.
They obey a third body that they share in common.
They have promised to love that body.
Age may come; parting may come; death will come!
A man and a woman sit near each other;
As they breathe they feed someone we do not know,
Someone we know of, whom we have never seen.
Happy 20th Anniversary Kathy and Simon!!!
With much love Theresa
Oh my gosh, how utterly beautiful. What a divine, sublime poem, a gift to ponder and to hold on this our anniversary day. Thank you, dear Theresa!
Beautiful a million times over! What a love story and how eloquently you told it. Congratulations on 20 years! May God bless your marriage and your life over and over again throughout the next 20!
Thank you, also, for visiting my blog the other day. I appreciate your encouragement so much!
Blessings and smiles,
Lori
Dearest Lori, thank you for your robust and beautiful blessing, encouragement and congratulations! I really look forward to sharing again! I so much enjoyed your blog!!
This is so beautiful, thank you for sharing your journey.
Thank you so much Ngina, love having you visit. I feel blessed to have these 20 years of marriage, and sharing this gift from God with you and other beautiful people I’ve met along this journey!
What a beautiful story, thank you for sharing! It made me chuckle, because it is sort of similar to mine. Except instead of a fundraiser, it was a gaming night, and the friend urging me to come out was an acquaintance I had met through a series of strange events on Twitter. He wanted to introduce me to his roommate, as he thought we would hit it off. So I left work, packed my overnight bag and drove an hour by myself to meet this group of people (a huge accomplishment for someone who has social anxiety disorder). We spent the next three days over the long weekend together talking, and were dating at the end of it.
The whole dealing with disputes thing made me chuckle as well, as that is very similar to us. I come from a family that fought loud and angry. We let it all out, and we battle until it is done. My husband’s family never fought. He can’t recall a single argument. They never raised voices, never had any form of expression of conflict. We’re still learning how to find a balance in that. With only two years of marriage under our belt, we have a lot to figure out, but we’re getting there. With God and with our love for each other, we use it to consistently work on changes that help us. Every few months, we like to sit down and ask each other where they feel the other could improve and if there are any issues, actions or reactions from the other that is bothering us. It allows us to continuously keep conscious of how we are affecting one another.
thank you so much Tabitha for your story! So glad you stretched and drove that night to the gaming night! Isn’t that amazing how your husband’s family never fought..my family too were like yours! It’s still a conflict with us, in fact my mother-in-law is here now, and got very ruffled one day when my husband and were working through an argument and I got a little feisty. I made a joke and told her I needed to stop at an Italian restaurant to be near some of my kind..she got the joke and laughed! It sounds like you are working really hard with one another to find a balance with your husband, that is so very important! With God as your source, you’ll make strides! Love that you visited, and really love your story!