Bold as Love

WE'RE MARRIED! HOORAY! The whole thing went off without a hitch and now Josh and I are in the process of tackling work, school, and adjusting to this HUGE change in our lives. We've been learning a lot, and if someone asks us, "How is married life?" they usually get that as an answer! Seriously, it's the most wonderful, challenging, frustrating, self-exposing, joyful thing God has ever led me into. Naturally, this comes along with a few thoughts on the matter and there is one in particular I think is worth sharing today :) So here goes.

Getting married is a partnership. Two people, coming together  and becoming one is the single most complete partnership imaginable. Now, as far as I know, this comes along with a few presuppositions. For example, that both people love each other—of course not making reference to infatuation because that’s an altogether different concept. Instead, the love they share, I've heard, is an I-Got-Your-Back Love. There's nothing else like it. An unfailing love. An altogether, completely committed love. A deep, a wide, a long, a high love. Like the love of Christ, because of Christ, through Christ.

Okay, we've established a working definition of true love. Good.

Now, what else makes up a marriage partnership? At least, what have I recently discovered about it?

It takes individualism.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not talking about the definition of individualism that the world perpetuates; not an aspiration towards a go-it-alone life, dependent on oneself, strongheaded and proud. Nope, not that. I’m talking about individualism of, well... the individual themselves--lonesomeness in the sense that I think God meant when Christ left His disciples to be by Himself with the Father.

What I mean is if one truly wants to experience the deepest joys and purposes of a God-given partnership, one must go up on the mountain—alone—to seek His face. This doesn’t mean abandoning the partnership, but taking time out within it to be intentionally lonesome. And only in that aloneness with God can we even be able to know the other person in the deepest, truest sense. If it is the same God working in both of our hearts, who made us, who is shaping us into the people He intends for us to be, then we only get to know that person better by delving deeper into the vastness of who God is.  

Check out 3:15-6:00 for my earlier reference. John rants on about his struggles with love in the middle of a phenomenal cover of Jimi Hendix's Bold as Love. Enjoy :) 

Bold as Love-John Mayer