Our Deep Marriage

In the picture above I am 20 years old marrying a beautiful older woman who is 22.
The year, 1978.

37 years later (on June 3) we don't quite look the same. The years have extracted their tolls in the form of knee, back, shoulder surgeries for me and radical cancer surgery for her. I look at the above picture  of us in honeymoon outfits and hardly recognize the two hip kids showing their "swag" to the world.

Yet, the years which have clicked by faster than the numbers on the gas pump have delivered a gift that defies age. It is the gift of DEPTH. Depth of understanding, depth of communication, depth of intimacy, depth of joy, depth of love.

YOU CAN'T RUSH DEEP.

Deep takes time - years, decades.

Deep takes pain - tears that are not shed alone but with one another.

Deep takes grace - countless moments of forgiveness for sins small and large.

Deep takes labor - the little moments of serving the other when selfishness seeks to rule.

Deep takes fights - those wrestlings of disagreement that build the individuality of the spouse but end up in peacemaking that prioritizes the relationship over the issue.

Deep takes intercession - this daily delight of lifting one another up before God's throne and praying God's favor and guidance onto each other's lives in such a manner that we gain God's heart for each other.

Deep take prioritization - the earnest desire to have one relationship in life in which I am fully giving myself and I am fully known - naked and unashamed, secure and championed.

With sinners like us, "perfection" is an intimacy reserved for heaven but oh the sweetness of 37 years of DEPTH.

Our culture is promoting relationships that make momentary splashes in the shallow end of the pool while God is calling our marriages to ocean depths. Deb and I are committed to the dive.