Thriving, not just surviving....My Marriage (part 1)

A week ago I sat in the living room of my parent's home in Golden, rocking comfortably in their glider rocker, while an uncomfortable sinking feeling uncoiled in my stomach. My parents were simply reorienting themselves with the goings on of many of my best buddies from childhood through college. But as we scrolled down the list the conversation went mostly like this, "Alyssa, how is (insert name)? They were married a few years back, right?" And I responded, "Well things have been pretty hard I would guess. They're divorced now." I was heavy hearted for my many friends, whose perfect love stories turned out less than perfect. I was humbled by knowing that apart from the grace of God this would have been my same story. And I was burdened to share somewhere, somehow a little of what God had done and taught Chris and I this last year.

While we were engaged and during our first year of marriage I remember Chris praying one thing more than anything other: that we would be in love with each other more everyday than we were the day we were married. A big prayer in my opinion and I wasn't even sure it was possible. I mean I would have kids and gain weight, and responsibilities would weight us down, and hurts would happen. Could we really love each other more? And as the years tick on (I admit 6 years is only a drop in the bucket) we've realized that we don't want to merely survive in our marriage, we want to thrive. We don't want to be on the defensive as the opponent backs us into the corner, but on the offensive, charging forward. We want to remember we are on the same team, something we often start off by saying to each other whenever we are having one of those "tough conversations".

Now I don't know everything about marriage. I am a baby in terms of what I will know by the end of my life. But a year ago we were merely surviving. And since then there a few things that drastically changed the way we relate, and now I can say, at least today, we are thriving. We are more in love than any previous year. So I am going to take sometime this week to journey back through the things I learned and the struggles we had. And at the very least I hope I am blessed by it and maybe someone else will be too.