The Full Life

I've started re-reading Angela Thomas's book, Do You Think I'm Beautiful?.

A strange confession to begin a post with, I know. But, reading through it this time, I have a different perspective now - now as a married woman.

When I was single, even when there was no significant other in the picture, I imagined the adventures and cuddles of marriage and seemed to consider it some sort of higher state of existence.

Then I tried it and found out that it starts to feel a lot like real life very quickly.

Go figure!

Please do not (purposefully or otherwise) misunderstand. I love married life. I love my husband. I would never want to go back to the single years, not even for a trip to Italy (and that's saying something).

But God seems to smile and chuckle when he sees me running around, getting things perfect, with the expectation that everything will then feel perfect.

Because, you know what? On that evening when I most emotionally need my husband to gush over my cooking, that will be the evening that he really isn't hungry.

And, you know what else? On these days when I'm looking forward to having a mini paradise of a Saturday, I'll wake up and find out that something is smack dab in the way of my little (or gigantic) hopes for the day.

And sometimes, I'm ready for my romantic husband to come rushing through the door and sweep me off my feet and out of my doldrums, and instead he comes home more discouraged than I am.

Why?

Not because he's a bad husband.

Not because he's slacking.

Not because he doesn't care anymore.

But because he wasn't made to fill my every need.

He wasn't. That's the bald truth. Oh, I know he would love to! But when I ask him to fill the voids of my heart, I am not just being needy; I am sinning against my husband. I am attempting to body-slam my husband into that space that God specifically put into me with the purpose of creating a yearning that He could then fill! And my husband doesn't fit. Go figure.

BUT -

When God is in His rightful place, then I am not dependent on my husband coming home and haling me a culinary hero.

When God gives me value, I am not reading into everything my husband says and does as an estimation of my worth as a human being.

When God is my Savior, my husband gets to just be my husband.

Now, when I am a whole person without my husband, it's not that all of a sudden I don't like to spend time with him.

Quite the opposite!

We find our sustenance in our Creator and get to enjoy each other as complete individuals, complete with quirks and hobbies and pranks and shared secrets.

When he and I are whole without the other, we save our relationship from the realm of the parasitic. We are no longer loaning crutches to our spouse as we attempt to limp along on one leg ourself; we get to experience healing and then share that healing with each other. Because we no longer NEED each other, we get to enjoy just being ourselves, together.

And that means that on those days when my husband gets a case of the blues, I can be there for him. I get my strength from beyond our marriage, which lets me pour into it and into my husband when there is a deficit.

I don't have to panic because he isn't my emotional life support.

And, you know what? This is still real life. But I am not crabbing for fulfillment from someone who is, in return, looking to me to fill them. That sort of contractual agreement ("I'll make you feel good if you make me feel good") gets empty real quick. But, as a whole human being in a marriage to another whole human being, I get to live real life more fully and with more gusto!

Or, as Mrs. Thomas puts it, "So what about the other [ones we love]? They can be fabulous when your soul is full of the love of God. But they can be devastating when you have expected they could fill up the dry and empty places" (47).