Jarryd and I just
recently celebrated 4 years of marriage together on January 10th! Every year we
have always made this time very special and it has been something we look
forward to all year round. We save up money throughout the year just so we can splurge
and get away from the craziness of life for a couple days. This was our first
one to celebrate since having a baby and we were determined to not let that
change anything! (Hoping we can stay faithful to this even after more chubby
babies come along but regardless we WILL stay faithful to making it
special!)
I was really
heartbroken this year at the amount of people who questioned why we still made
such a big deal about celebrating our marriage. "When you've been married
as long as I have, you won't see the need to go through so much trouble,"
one person mentioned. Another who shares a very close anniversary date to ours
(but far surpasses us in years) made it clear that they weren't even going out
to dinner, stating that they never see the importance to fuss over making that
day more special than any other day in the year.
Am I the only one who thinks these two outlooks on anniversaries is tragic?
Just to clarify, I am
by no means stating that these two do not have a healthy marriage,
(truly I don't even know very much about their marriage) I have no
judgments to how they approach things in their relationship, and would never
pretend to have marriage all figured out. But it really bothered both Jarryd and I
that they would imply how pointless it was for us to make our anniversary
special.
It also got me
thinking... and this can be a dangerous thing!
If you agree with
their stance let me ask you a few questions first:
Do you not celebrate
anything else in life?
Birthdays?
Graduations? Job promotions? What about your children? Do you not celebrate
when they achieve their goals or are successful in their God given talents?
What about sports? I bet I got you on that one... do you not celebrate when
your beloved team makes it to the playoffs or wins a championship?
If you answered NO to
any or all of those then I would say you fall into the
small category of people who really don't make a big deal about
things. However, I would challenge you to get to the root of why you don't find
it important to rejoice in the life that God has given you.
I have a strong
feeling, however, you said yes to most of those questions though... so now let me ask you
one more:
What are
the qualifications for something to be worthy
of celebration in your life?
My guess would be...
you have to love it, cherish it, value it, and also be proud of it!
So does your marriage not meet those qualifications?
God's commandment to
us in marriage is not to just "stay together" but to continually
and sacrificially show love to one another until death parts us. I believe
ANY two strong willed people can be married for a lifetime. The number of years a person is
married never impresses me... quality is more important than quantity! You
can be married 50 years and have a lifeless relationship. Where's the big accomplishment
there?
However, it is BEYOND impressive for a couple to be married
for decades if they are even more passionately in love with each other at
the end as they were in the beginning. That kind of marriage doesn't just
randomly turn out that way... it takes an enormous amount of work and
prayer.
Let me end with
this... It's never too late to start a new thing! Who cares if it has been years
since you have done something special... let this be the year you start a new
tradition! Celebrate all that God has done in however many years you have been
blessed by your spouse! In a culture that breeds commitment free
relationships, your commitment to one another is to be truly commemorated
and honored!
And don't just stop at
anniversaries... Valentines Day is right around the corner! And so what if it's
just a holiday created by Hallmark and jewelry stores to make a
profit... let them! Any holiday that encourages couples to romance one another
will have a fan in me! Jarryd and I already have the babysitter booked! Do you?
Jarryd and I just recently celebrated 4 years of marriage together on January 10th! Every year we have always made this tim...
