earlier this morning, as thunderstorms were roaring outside my brother and new sister-in-law's houston apartment, i was lying in bed thinking to myself about marriage. this summer, my brother got married, as did two of my good friends--to each other.
it's made me think more about the purpose of marriage and how it is all supposed to work. rather than being some kind of mystical and magical event of falling in love and living happily ever after, perhaps it's simply a kind of comfortability. finding someone you are comfortable with and then sharing your life together.
and that this is a good thing, for it is not good for man to be alone.
and yet another thing too--perhaps an ironic thing about marriage--is that you're not focused soley on each other, but something else. together you have some other focus and some common goal. as we were driving to dinner, my brother and his wife were talking about a patient's pulmonary embolism likely to have been caused by deep vein thrombosis. did you check his protein count? oh shucks, i forgot that, dear. a light-hearted dinner conversation topic, if you ask me. but to each his own, right?
that's why i think i've always been surprised when people say that they run out of things to talk about. if you're talking about yourselves, then i think of course you'll run out of things. but if there's some common interest and common goal in life, then i think so much happens everyday that is continuous fodder for new conversation. and yet still, for the times when there are not, i think there is just a simple and comfortable silence of being with that person.
sometimes i think when you're trying so hard to focus on one thing and catch it, you lose it. but when you're not so focused on it, then you're able to receive it. at krause & cvw's wedding, the pastor was talking about how our hearts were made to love and worship only one thing. whatever you love and worship aside from God will disappoint and will not be able to satisfy. how does it go, seek His kingdom and righteousness first and everything you need will be given to you as well. i guess the promise was always that you seek one thing wholeheartedly, and everything you need on the periphery, will still be provided.
my sister-in-law has a cousin who is 30-something and not married yet. at the wedding, he was very flirtatious and aggressive--in a way that i think makes girls feel very uncomfortable. later she told me he really wants a girlfriend but can't seem to get one. it's ironic...the one thing he wants is the one thing he can't get, probably because he wants it too much? i think sometimes by focusing too much on one person, you can smother them. or perhaps you can become too attached, jealous or possessive. just not a happy person.
on the other hand, if you focus too little, i think you can lose that connection as well. somewhere there is that right balance of loving the right things in the right proportions. how does the greatest commandment go: love God with all your heart, soul, body and mind.
and the second is like it: to love your neighbor as yourself.
and from doing these, perhaps we somehow come to understand what it means to love in the right way.
but really, what would i know about marriage anyway?
: )
