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I'm still not used to sleeping on a little sliver of the bed. I was dreaming when I thought I'd get a half and she would get a half. That's not how things work. And the knee! The knee poking me in the back is not that great.
It is still funny to me to use terms like "sister-in-law" and "wife" and call her parents by their first names. At the same time, it sometimes is a relief when my mom calls to talk to her instead of me. I just get to smile and pass the phone off.
Above all of those things, it still gives me chills reading Ephesians 5. It's a passage I had heard and read a hundred times in my life, and understood the basic premise: We are called to love as Christ loved the church. An undying love, unfaltering, unconditional love. A love that cared more about others than about self. A love that would be willing to give everything up for the better of someone else.
The illustration of husband and wife, bride and bridegroom, however, had always eluded me. I couldn't grasp it, couldn't quite understand it. Until May 19, 2012. Until this exact moment:
We have argued. We have cried. DEFINITELY cried. We have struggled and fought and laughed and made up nicknames and gone on dates and been to different countries. In all of those things, we are learning to love, and learning to communicate.
We are learning to do ministry together, and I've come to realize that means so much more than the ministry I actually get paid to do. How do we exemplify Christ to our apartment complex? To our family? To dating couples who struggle with purity? How do we minister to each other? What does that look like? MARRIAGE IS A MINISTRY. It is the biggest ministry we will ever have, to each other, and to anybody we will ever be around.
Perhaps the hardest lesson I have started to learn, and am still so far away from aceing the test, is that I am not my wife's ultimate provider. Sure, it's my Biblical responsibility to make sure there is food on the table, to make sure the roof stays over her head, to make sure her physical needs do not go unmet. But it is not my job to provide her joy or the ultimate contentment. It is simply my duty to point her everyday to the One who does.
As a man, understanding there are some things I cannot give my wife, is maddening. I want to give her everything she wants and desires, and, confession time, sometimes want to be her Hero. Sometimes I want to be the one she praises for our life.
And it is in those times, I have found, when I personally am least satisfied in Christ. Husbands, it is not your place to be the one your wife praises. If she glorifies you, exalts you, you're doing something wrong. You should be pointing her to Jesus, praising Jesus with her, encouraging her to sing her life to Jesus ALONE.
Loving my wife as Christ loved and loves His Church makes total sense to me now. Seeing my wife as Christ sees His Church is a total reality now, yet I will never be able to match His love for my wife, and that brings me joy. To know the ends I will go to to love her, and then to realize Jesus went infinitely farther than that, HOW GREAT IS OUR LORD!
The knee-in-the-back-in-bed thing may never be comfortable, but it is a constant reminder of the blessing Jesus has given me, and at the same time the responsibility to make Him known and praised in our house.
HE IS THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE AND GLORY OF OUR MARRIAGE.
