Five Years…give or take.

Give and take, that is. I’m speaking of marriage and am about 2 weeks overdue for my 5 – year wedding anniversary. I say give and take because marriage is a lot of both, and I am better for it, and because of it, both the giving and the taking. Everyone knows that you get married thinking you know one another, and love one another, and are wanting to spend the rest of your life with this person. You vow it. You say it before God and everyone else in a church with candles and flowers that you hand-picked and for better or worse you even sign your name on a piece of paper that makes it official. You consummate it, some time or another, and then you get to the business of living life together and consummating it in other ways too, with tears and laughter and giggling and sometimes silence because there is nothing left to say. Brushing teeth together and sleeping close together and cooking eggs together and taking walks together. You do things you never vowed to do, or agreed to do, or thought you would want or have to do…you do them because you now know each other, really love each other, and are trying at least to learn how to know and love better. You’re both giving…and taking…but I think that “receiving” better describes how it ought to look and should look and feels good to look. There have been so many times these past five years that I have been humbled and blushing, embarrassed even, at how much I have needed to receive from my wife. Give and receive…and sometimes just receive. And sometimes just give.

We spent our 5th year anniversary in Yellow Springs Ohio. We hiked for about 3 or so hours in the Glen Helen Nature preserve, alone, in the woods with the silence and the leaves under our feet and the pine forest that is deep into the preserve where we lied down and watched the wind bend the tops of the trees feeling the mystery of a place that seemed so thin. We ate at The Winds Cafe and enjoyed an uninterrupted meal of locally grown and organic food that was prepared with such care and goodness. It’s a rare meal that it is just Jaime and I and it felt as much like an anniversary as our wedding day felt like a wedding. We stayed at The Arthur Morgan House bed and breakfast and enjoyed a king size bed with a private bath and a home-cooked organic meal for breakfast. Leading up to our anniversary, I had been unemployed for about 3 weeks and short on cash I wondered whether or not I ought to be extravagant and frustrated that I felt like I couldn’t be even though I wanted to and felt as though we needed to. Celebration is good…and five years of good marriage is something to celebrate. I went ahead and made all the arrangements in the days leading up to our little get-a-way. Jaime’s mom took the kids, we had a 5pm reservation at the restaurant, and a night booked at the bed and breakfast. I threw up a heart-felt, though very quick prayer that God would bless our anniversary and provide for us, even if my choice to be extravagant during a time of need lacked some discretion. The next day someone showed up to our house with an envelope full of twenty dollar bills that added up to $200. It added up, as well, to God’s way of answering that prayer and blessing not just the anniversary, but also the next season of life and the next 5 years.

I love my wife and the two children we have and the little house and the life we are choosing to live. Our marriage is good…and I am saying that in the midst of a week where it seems everything we say to one another is at the wrong time, or with the wrong tone, or shouldn’t be said at all. Thank you, Jaime, for giving, forgiving, and helping me to receive when I have nothing to give and for teaching me to give in ways I thought I couldn’t.