Prudence is someone who I instantly connected with…short exchanges via Twitter, and I just felt like she cared in a way that not many people do, with her WHOLE heart. She writes over at Prudychick.com where she shares her struggles, her hopes, her fears, and her dreams. She has a heart for those living deep in poverty, and is always open, seeking, and ready, to grow in love for others. Prudence on Twitter
Eleven years.
That’s how long we’ve been married. I didn’t realize how married life would turn out. How much more amazingly awesome it has become since those first few months when the honeymoon effect was still swirling around us.
Marriage has become so much more than I ever gave it credit for. Being his wife and him my husband is the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.
Those first months were extraordinary…our little apartment, learning to live with another human being, the outside events that became part of the foundation with which we built upon. But I could never give up the marriage we have now to get the honeymoon effect back.
The couple we’ve evolved into from that young couple risking the rest of our lives for love, is more than I could have dreamed we would become.
The spontaneity & frequency that comes with being a newlywed may be less frequent but I’ve watched over the years as substance & knowledge brings a deeper level of intimacy.
We’ve been forced to re-learn how to communicate with each other. Taking for granted four years of dating and knowing how the other person thinks & works. You never imagine waking up one day and all those things you know aren’t necessarily the case any longer because like you they have also grown and their way of thinking & doing things is completely different than when you were first married.
Your dreams and goals change. Or in our case you begin to have them. Dreams that have more impact than owning a large, fancy house in the fancy subdivision on the edge of town. The dreams that keep us up at night and affect how we spend our money. Dreams we question God in why He didn’t give them to us years ago.
That 26 year old bride in our apartment never knew just how different things would be 11 years later. How loss of jobs and car accidents, hated jobs and perspective changes would strengthen our love for each other.
We’ve changed and evolved in so many small ways, yet we’re still so much the same. He’s still my best friend. The one I want to grow old and gray(er) with. But now he’s also the one I want to travel to India with. He’s the one I want to minister and care for orphans with. The one I want to live these dreams out that we’re day dreaming about now.
I like who we’ve become, and who we’re becoming. It is an amazing, fantastic, wonderful journey.
Aww, Prudy. That was beautiful!
Thank you so much Bethany.
What a beautiful living prayer. Thank you for your mighty example!
Thank you so much.
I was just at Target picking up a few things (few things, LAUGH)…and I was thinking about your post. I’m realizing how our expectations are ALWAYS wrong. God blows us out of the water every.single.time. We enter into everything with expectations, as much as we say we don’t want to have them, and in this case, you made a life commitment, a life altering one, and how amazing is it that it is nothing like what you thought it would be?! I’ll be married 4 years next month, and where I thought we would be after 4 years of marriage is not at all where we have landed, in an absolutely wonderful way. I think your description of how you go through a relationship, and witnessing the highs and lows, and watching your dreams change and evolve, it is exactly how our relationship with Christ is. Changing and evolving, what we think it will be and where he will put it is usually not at all what happens…this really is a beautiful picture of what our marriage to our spouses should be, and really, how our relationship with Jesus can be. Just perfect.
This is one thing I’ve realized in the last year is that everything I expected marriage to be is completely different. It’s so much better. The highs and lows are just part of it. It’s how you deal with them that matters. BUT we’re only where we are because of God giving us the desire to fight for it. We would have screwed this thing up long ago if it were left up to us.
amen.
And Target…I actually went in and bought nothing yesterday because I refused to pay $18 for a pair of yoga pants. #imcheap
Fantastic post. That was a really good cross-section of how life in marriage evolves, and a good take on how changing with it can actually be exciting and rewarding.
Thank you so much Josh.
This makes me happy. (and hopeful for the future) And I just love you, dear Prudence.
Thank you friend.