TWENTY YEARS of marriage this week! I can’t even believe it. If you would have asked me on my wedding day, “Do you think you’ll make it to 20 years?” I would have probably laughed and given you an astounding, very confident, YES! Of course we would. How could we not?
Now 20 years in, I say with so much more humility and weariness – we have made it. Our road hasn’t been incredibly hard by most standards, but my vision of what marriage is and isn’t looks drastically different to me now than it did to that 23 year old bride all those years ago.
I have watched others not make it. Succumb to infidelity or selfishness or plain ole’ I feel like moving on mentalities. Making it in marriage for 20 years is no small feat. And yet, here I stand even more confident in my union today than I was in June of 2001.
Aaron and I have lived life together for two decades. Seeing hard things. Seeing beautiful things. Enduring tragedy. Enduring sorrow. Celebrating milestones. Grieving unmet expectations. And through it all, I would do it all over again with this man. As my friend Devin once said, “I recommit my life to you through the lens of experience.”
Through all of our experiences I would do this all over again with him. I would walk through the pain and the sorrow and skip through the fun and gladness. Because he’s my person. And more than that because God has brought us together for a bigger purpose than our pain or our happiness.
Being together for 20 years let’s us display the gospel in everything we do. Our union, our commitment, our covenant displays something beautiful between God and His people. That makes this union more than just about me hanging out with my best friend and having someone to vacation with. It makes it about the beauty that our marriage illustrates His unbreakable love for us.
I can’t wait for 20 more years – even if they include hard times, painful times, sorrowful times alongside beautiful times, joyful times, and happy times. Together we will journey through them all.
Happy Anniversary to us!
CONNECT WITH JAMIE
celebrating 20 years next month and i’m right there with you– God reminds me every day that He has purpose in our marriages… to grow us, to grow others, and to live out His Word in a VERY tangible way!! praising Him for those 20 years, and thankful for the one I am living them with!
BEAUTIFULLY stated.
Thanks for reading, Melissa! Congrats on 20 years!
Thanks so much for reading, Tiffany!
I just love this, Jamie. Twenty years is no easy feat for sure. I loved your phrase “grieve unmet expectations”– that is so much of what marriage is, I believe. We all enter the covenant with these tremendous ideals and then are confused when they don’t materialize. The beauty in marriage is the ways in which God blesses us when we commit to our person to work through those struggles together. My husband and I celebrated 22 years in January. I have no doubt we will make it 22+ more, but I am astounded by the amount of learning, loving, forgiving, and encouraging we still have to do for and with one another! I am overwhelmed some days by God’s divine design of the martial relationship– so fragile, so strong, so dear, so foundational, so difficult, so rewarding. No doubt He has an incredible sense of humor! Thanks again for your wonderful words.
Congratulations on 22 years! Thanks for reading (: