Once upon a time, I believed in happily every after. I gleefully skipped rope while chanting along hopes and dreams with the other girls on the playground. If life had turned out the way my seven-year-old self had planned, my story would go a little something like this… Kelly and Mellie sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. (I like the sound of that!) First came love (yep), then came marriage (right on!), then came… cue the record screech! … a whole lot of disappointment.
What was that?! Where did it come from? I don’t recall ever hearing that version being recited in the yard of that quaint, little country schoolhouse.
The Mister and I thought we had fairly realistic expectations for what marriage would look like. There were aspects of the vow that we had both been privy to prior to marriage and were prepared to endure as a team. For richer or poorer: Growing up in a rural community in the 80s, financial security wasn’t exactly perceived as a guarantee. In sickness and in health: Kel was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes six months before our wedding and although sickness can get much worse, we learned before the wedding we would need to be flexible. To love and to cherish: We were in a-whole-lot-of-love and were committed to staying that way til death do us part.
By year five, our plans took an unexpected and sudden left turn. A deviation that left us in a land of despair that no one had ever told us about. It was a place that we certainly didn’t grow up dreaming of. An unmarked road that didn’t have so much as a single sign pointing us back in the direction of our pragmatic-fairy-tale ending.
In that single year, we faced two significant breaches to our plan. The company we both worked for downsized departments before downsizing was cool – a disturbance made even more confounding based on the fact that they kicked things off with the two departments that happened to be represented between the two of us. And while we watched the clock on our income and heath insurance rapidly ticking away, we found a grim kind of solace in discussions with doctors about aspects of our marriage that we would’ve strongly preferred remain private.
This glimpse is strikingly personal. And by no means do I share it with you to invite pity. Please hear me when I say that I provide it as insight into the road a young couple was traveling throughout year five of marriage. It was a leg of our journey marked by pain, humiliation, anxiety, and frustration.
And yet, when I look back at that couple, I don’t see weakness or failure. I see strength and triumph. I see a husband and wife that were committed to finding their way back to for better, when for worse ferociously pummeled the wind out of their sails. I see a man whose gaze never strayed from his bride. I see a home that was filled with dance parties and laughter. I see the generations before them that faithfully imparted the charge to never give up. I see a legacy of broken yet hopeful perseverance.
Because mass layoffs weren’t common at the time when we were given ours, there wasn’t an established protocol for what to do with employees as they awaited their final day of employment. We were given almost three months paid leave prior to the severance. Throughout that extended “vacation”, we spent every moment that Kel wasn’t interviewing working to finish our basement. By the time that we were officially jobless, we had our very own in-home studio and office. Soon thereafter, Kel was offered a position in another company. One that offered better benefits that we had been preparing to take advantage of.
As he settled in to a new career, she pursued photography.
Somehow what had felt so painful turned out to be a good thing.
One day on his way to work, Kel called in to a radio station and won a set of tickets to a weekend marriage conference. Some couples attend this same conference with divorce papers in hand. That wasn’t our story. We showed up on the opposite side of the spectrum – probably a little too confident that if we could survive the year we’d just had even somewhat resembling happy, we could make it through anything. We went thinking it would be a good opportunity to enjoy time focusing on us after a year of so much yuck. What we hadn’t expected was to discover that the true reason to care for our marriage was more significant than the pursuit of our own happiness. We were confronted with truths about our innate selfishness and why the world’s idea of a 50/50 marriage is doomed for failure, while God’s plan for oneness prevails. We learned practical applications that would help us not only enjoy a beautiful marriage, but thrive in it.
There was one bullet point in particular that stood out to me. I even recorded it as my top takeaway from the weekend… Marriage is her most important human relationship. This relationship takes priority over her relationship with her children, other family members, and friends.
Her marriage is her most. important. human. relationship. (As is his.)
A lot of women in that room acknowledged that they had been so occupied with children that their husbands’ had been neglected. Meanwhile, my husband and I were together more than either of us had anticipated. Pouring in as much time, energy, finances, and emotion as we could to creating secondary human relationships. What hit me like a ton of bricks in that statement was the realization that if children weren’t meant to take priority over marriage, the lack of children most certainly did not have the right to demand our entire focus.
Caring for our own marriage – for reasons much more honorable than happiness – became a top pursuit that weekend. And we walked away with a newfound passion for encouraging and equipping other married couples. We even looked into what it would take to move away and pursue a career in marriage ministry. We quickly gave up on that for two reasons though… 1-We had just started a photography business that we weren’t willing to walk away from. And 2- We couldn’t fathom leaving family when any moment we could be needing those grandparents nearby.
I think back on that season of our lives – an entire decade ago – and can’t help but chuckle. It is a sweet release from the flood of bittersweet tears that I’m fighting to hold back. The raw emotion of that experience will always be a part of me. And yet what I love about reflecting on year five is that although the memories are painful, we have perspective now to see that in our pain, God was preparing us for something far greater than our own meek plans.
His divine fingerprints are all over this story! It’s so clear to see that we are hardly stuck with a secondary best, Plan B. This has always been Plan A. It may look nothing like the way we would’ve written it ourselves, it is what we were meant for all along.
I would never, ever wish the hardships we’ve endured on anyone. And yet, I can honestly say that I would never go back and do it differently. It is so easy to confuse good with happy. We are conditioned to assume if we aren’t happy, it mustn’t be good. But happy and good are not one and the same. Happiness often looks like getting what we want. But that is temporary; it is an immediate gratification that inevitably ends in disappointment. Good, on the other hand, is lasting. It comes through understanding that in order to reach a higher peak, we must first descend to the valley. It requires the wisdom to choose a more difficult path, knowing that a shortcut won’t produce the same results as a journey that develops character and strength. Why is it, then, that so often we deny ultimate good for the sake of momentary happiness?
I need this reminder today. “Happiness” is not difficult to find in this world of two-day shipping and lattes on every corner, and lately that path of least resistance has been beckoning. But the truth is, ultimate good is not achieved by taking the easy way out. Alluring though it may be, a shortcut always denies us the beauty of the process.
COMING UP NEXT:
The Beauty of the Process –
PS. This entry has taken up residence on my to do list for a few weeks now. If you’ve been wondering when it would finally show up, I sincerely apologize for leaving you in the lurch. You should know, though, I’ve actually been waiting patiently alongside you. On several occasions, I anticipated the words’ arrival – the unresponsiveness reflected in a blinking cursor, idly standing by.
It’s times like these that I am reminded that I am not a writer. If my lack of grammatical propriety hasn’t given me away yet, the inconsistency with which I am capable of stringing together words worthy of hitting that publish button surely has. And yet my hope is that just maybe this laissez faire approach is a reason you are here in the first place. For the honest imperfection that is hard to find in a world where everyone is sparing for recognition. For inspired words that come when they do, but will never be forced or take precedence over meaningful conversations face to face. My desire is that you will be met here with a refreshing confidence that breathing room (for both you as well as myself) is integral to my interpretation of hospitality. I am honored to have you as my guest.
