Starting afresh

It's a new adventure, this marriage idea. It's an identity shift, and a wakeup call to reality. In some ways, the dreams I once carried privately are shattered, the pieces falling to the floor with the tinkling of a thousand pieces of glass. But all of life is made up of shattered dreams; at one point, each dream we have must fall to the cold floor. Real life is in the recovery and modification of the shards, and so many of my dreams that were broken through the years are being pieced together, perhaps one shard at a time, perhaps in a different pattern than the previous one, but nonetheless, beautiful. The piecing is much easier when you have someone on your side.

He's beautiful, my husband. I realize that all young brides are expected to attest to this up to the sixth month (give or take, perhaps), but truly, truly I say that my beloved rises above all the others. I have never known a woman as undeservedly blessed as I have been. No woman could ask for a more tender lover or more gentle man to care for her. Though his flaws are many (and may at times drive me to distraction), the One piecing together his dreams is flawless, and I see Him in my husband more each day.

One of our favorite books is A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. It is the stunning autobiography of a love unlike any love I've yet seen between man and woman yet on earth, a love that bound he and his wife so closely that all around them (even now, years later as I marvel as well) held their love in awe. They knew each other so well that with one glimpse of his wife briefly glancing at the candles on the mantel, he got up and met her unvoiced request.

I hope we can attain to such knowledge of one another. Last night, he looked at the thermostat while we were doing devotions; the look was fleeting, but I knew, perhaps before he did, that he was hoping we could turn the heat up, and I rose and turned the knob. He laughed, realizing that I knew his need before he even realized it, and reminded me of the passage in Severe Mercy. It filled me, to meet his needs and take care of him. It satisfies me to love him in a way no other woman can. I hope this journal will be filled with such records of ways I am learning to best love and care for my new husband, and that I will look back over time and see blundering growth in my steps as I follow His.