On My 20th Anniversary: An Open Letter to My Kids

This week it passed rather quietly, thanks to quarantine: our 20th anniversary. Holy moly, it’s weird to be this old. (Though yeah, marrying at 19 and 20 years old–that happens.)

But this is what I loved, guys. Even as I typed away at work, as you woke up and poured cereal and forgot to put bowls in the dishwasher, my insides felt like I was bubbling over with liquid gratitude.

On May 27, 2020, I woke up yet again next to my best friend in the whole world.

In the next 16 hours, you’d find me like any other day: squealing in the kitchen because your dad’s making me laugh out loud again. Sighing because we were annoyed with each other.  Sneaking a kiss in his office, his beard lunging at my chin  (not my favorite, but he likes it, so, cool). Enforcing discipline for sassy kids (you’re taking turns). Chatting about the now and the future. Me snapping from exhaustion. Resting silently, comfortably beside each other before bed.

I think of the smooth-cheeked kids we were, grabbing hands as we loped through a hail of rose petals. As we jumped into the unknown in its pain and ecstasy.

Truth: Real love holds a lot more buzzing clothes dryers than flower petals; a lot more checkbook-balancing and carpool lines than dancing in the half-dark.

But I’ve found holiness in both kinds of moments. It’s kind of like Jesus passing out crusty loaves and grilled fish for an eye-popping miracle.

Sometimes the miraculous nestles right up to the mundane.

When Different is Good on Your Anniversary

We’re both such different people now.

We’ve been changed: By years in Africa. Grandma dying. That accident that left me stricken. By years smothered in apple juice and wet wipes, then the creativity and plodding of homeschooling overseas.

But also by unloading the dishwasher and getting handsy in the kitchen. Of mowing the lawn and decorating the tree. Of changing diapers and playing board games. Of arguing and going on long walks where yet again, your dad saw me like no one else.

To walk with God for twenty years together will leave you indelibly different. In many ways, this is an anniversary for three (I know, I know, that sounds weird).  God loved us both just as we were, and still enough not to leave us there.

I thought I’d be this single missionary somewhere, feeding refugees. Your dad thought no one would want to follow him to seminary (which he hasn’t done yet).

But marriage has left us both barefoot on holy ground.

Finding Your Way Home

Being married is a different kind of love than lust or that giddy, fairy-lights feeling.

No, my heart doesn’t beat faster when Dad walks in the room. I just feel safe, like I hope you always feel coming home.

C.S. Lewis wrote,

People get from books the idea that if you have married the right person you may expect to go on “being in love” forever.

As a result, when they find they are not, they think this proves they have made a mistake and are entitled to a change–not realizing that, when they have changed, the glamour will presently go out of the new love just as it went out of the old one.

In this department of life, as in every other, thrills come at the beginning and do not last.

The sort of thrill a boy has at the first idea of flying will not go on when he has joined the R.A.F. and is really learning to fly. The thrill you feel on first seeing some delightful place dies away when you really go to live there.*

Scientifically, the first flush of love can last at the most two years.** (That’s about 48 years less than one would hope.) There’s a lot of great brain chemistry God brewed up to get us on our feet in marriage.

The Velveteen Marriage

But it’s real love–each of you cheering and sacrificing for, being changed by each other, each of you tuning in more to the Holy Spirit than feelings. He’s what changed your dad to be this kind of humble and gentle, to be a strong leader and a truly good friend.

God’s changed the fabric of who I am, to be a better partner than just the “yes” (wo)man I thought your dad would want. To be a strong, more secure, more authentic woman than the passive, fearful, pretentious one I was.

When your love story becomes a real one–a little like the Velveteen Rabbit–it is sacred ground. And an anniversary makes you remember that all over again.

I’m praying that someday, each anniversary of yours is a gift like this.

Let us hope that we are all preceded in this world by a love story.

–Sweet Land (PG, 2005)

Like this post? You might like

What’s Hidden inside Your Love Story?

The Next Great Love Story

Guest post: Where’s the Holy Spirit When My Marriage is Hard?

*Mere Christianity, 1944.

**Pawlowski, A. “How long does passion last? Science says…” Today.com. 23 February 2017. https://www.today.com/health/how-long-does-passion-last-four-stages-love-t108471