Marriage, My Man, and Sunday's Gospel Reading - Pentecost 22B

I watched my husband organize the garage today.  No matter how many years we are married, we never seem to be able to get the garage tamed on a permanent basis.  It is mostly my fault; I have a tendency to fill it with things that he has to "deal with".  It is my, "Honey please handle this." methodology.  If I want him to fix, organize, or replace something, I just open the door between the garage and and laundry room and plant it in his territory. This strategy is unfair, but effective.

It struck me, as I was his precise stacking of items upon shelves, that I was looking at a middle aged man.  When did this happen?  I'm not sure.  Just yesterday he was a skinny 23 year old; I'm sure of it.  Now, that 23 years have passed, we have been married for half of his life, and more than half of mine.  Our hard won blessing of a child is now the age that I had been on the day that I met him.

This man has put up with my intensity, the stresses of my grad school years, the sorrows of my infertility, my tendency to be certain that I am right about everything... suffice it to say that he has put up with quite a lot.  Somehow, while we were building a future, we were suddenly overcome by the fact that the future is now.  To borrow a term from my stock car racing filled childhood, the future has "lapped us"...and here we are.

I'm not sure what my life would have been without him. He is my life.  He is part of my very being, and I'm not quite sure where I end, and he where begins. I love this man.

To the young ones who are married, I say, "Hang in there." There will be good times, and there will be bad times. You have made a choice and sealed that choice before God. Stand by it; your relationship will temper under fire, and over time.  To the young ones who are not married, I say, "Choose carefully and do not be afraid."  This modern world would malign marriage, but marriage was ordained of God long before the advent of this modern world.  As you prepare for a marriage vocation, set your mind on holy things, fill your lives with prayer, and stay the course.

To my husband, I say:
Thank you.  Thank you for standing by me.  Thank you for watching over me.  Thank you for providing for us. Thank you for wiping tears in the early morning hours, for running to the store for cough medicine,  and for smiling when I put sweet potatoes in your potatoes au-gratin so many years ago.

Thank you for working long hard hours, and for keeping our yard so beautiful when you could be recovering from the work week instead.  Thank you for holding me up in times of great loss and for gluing me back together when I have shattered. Thank you for cleaning horse pens, and cleaning out your bank account paying feed bills, when you never cared for horses to begin with.  Thank you for cooking meals after a long commute home and for going with me to the grocery store thousand of times.  Thank you for telling me that it is going to be okay, again and again.  Thank you for walking with me, and staying by me, for 26 hours of labor. Thank you for listening to the click of the computer keyboard when the laundry needs folding, and taking it in stride. Thank you for knowing how to fix things, and knowing when to tell me that things don't need fixing. Thank you for being in my life. Thank you for keeping me standing. You could have chosen an easier way, but I'm glad you chose an imperfect life by side, instead. May God bless you evermore for your kindness and goodness. You are an incalculable blessing, the likes of which I could never be worthy.

~~~

Postscript:
Says my husband upon reading this post:"There was a middle-aged man in our garage the other day?  Why didn't you tell me?."
<Smiles>


A portion of Sunday's reading:

Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" He answered them, "What did Moses command you?" They said, "Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." But Jesus said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."~ Mark 10: 2-9

The remainder of Sunday's Readings are here (Protestant) and here (Roman Catholic).

Linked with:
Hear It On Sunday; Use It On Monday, Modest Mom, On, In, and Around Mondays,
Wise Woman, Walk with Him Wednesdays, EOA @ Walk with Him Wednesdays,
God Bumps and God Incidences, Raising Homemakers,
Women Living Well Wednesdays