Marriage... that Blessed Arrangement.

"Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together, today. Marriage, that blessed arrangement, that dream within a dream...and love, true love, will follow you forever...so treasure your love."
- The Impressive Clergyman, The Princess Bride

7 years ago, my name changed. My title went from Miss to Mrs. and I never knew love was so much work. I didn't realize that a wet towel left on the foot of my bed could make me want to punch him in the face... but it did. There are other quirks that will remain unsaid but let's take this moment right here and just "sigh".     :)

Whenever we say, "We have been married 7 years". People almost laugh at us and say, "well, now comes the difficult years". And I want to bang my head up against the wall. I get it. Normal marriages see this occurrence of change. In fact, normally there are just routine years when your body and things change and it should be expected in marriage too.  Around age 7 teeth are falling out and coming in, around 14 puberty, around 21... baby fever can begin (in women), around age 27 the realization that sleep is a necessity etc.... changes occur around every 7th year. (Give or take for some people). So of course these biological changes will also effect the marriage.

But this feels like this could be our most amazing year yet! You see, our first 5 years were rough. These last two have been the best so far! I mean losing a child is no easy thing on a marriage and we have lost Jonathan, many miscarriages, and an ectopic pregnancy. We were on totally different grieving pages and our marriage took some devastating blows. Blows that would end normal marriages. But God...

This blog isn't going to focus on the wrongs our marriage went through. It is going to talk about what God did. He "made new what the locust devoured".  He took two people on two different grief roads and somehow managed to sync our gps' together to where we ended up on the same path. With a lot of prayer and a lot of lessons to be learned, we merged onto the same freeway at the same time and have been holding hands ever since.

It wasn't just him making mistakes it was both of us and as soon as I realized that and instead of praying for God to fix him... and asked Him to show me what I needed to fix everything changed! Jesus changes everything. At the foot of the cross, I found freedom to not be a perfect wife. At the foot of the cross, Danny found the freedom to not be the perfect husband. At the foot of the cross we got caught in grace and grace saved our marriage.

I love that man unconditionally now. It took fire to perfect it and I would not change it. We do have more we can grow in but I would not change our past! It made us stronger because that is what happens when you allow trials to perfect and mature you.

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"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds because you know the testing of your faith will develop perseverance. Perseverance must finish its works so that you may be mature and complete not lacking anything" (James 1:2-4).

#LifeWithJesus
-Bobbi