My handsome husband, a UT blanket and Christmas lights on our first night.
We thought we were old-house people when we began searching for our first married home. We looked at new apartments with working appliances, closet space and parking spots, but somehow, those didn't feel right. We found our little shotgun house on Craiglist, and through a series of fortunate events and God's infinite provision, we started renting it three weeks later.
I remember walking in for the first time and beginning to mentally place my own things in a space that wasn't mine yet. I consistently choose character over functionality when it comes to most things in my life, so Keller was not surprised when I fell hard for this strange, tiny house with hardwood floors and lots of windows in about two seconds. In typical Katie fashion, I looked past all the projects and plaster and jumped right into a world of gallery walls and storage solutions.
Anyway, let me get something straight: I love our little house--more than closet space and a stove that works perfectly all the time. But it is WORK. And here I am, a month into marriage, staring at apple-green walls that need to be painted and stacks of clothes that are still on the floor because we're waiting for the hanging racks to be shipped. The plaster needs to be redone a little bit (the house was built in the 50s) and the oven doesn't actually tell me when it's done pre-heating. Also, sometimes you look down and realize that there is not a place for the roll of toilet paper, so back to the hardware store you go. There's a lot of guesswork with this house, but it is ours. It's the home we chose to spend our first years of marriage in, and so we have committed to creating a space for friends and family to feel loved in. We have prayed for hospitality, generosity and community in this home, and perfection was never part of that. So I am learning to let go of gallery walls and my search for the perfect pillows.
I am also learning to let go of the expectation that my husband will respond perfectly all the time, know exactly what I'm thinking exactly when I'm thinking it, and never sin again. I am realizing, more than ever, that he is human also, and that our favorite being married and also being best friends moments have reminded us of that.
We still fight (sometimes silly, sometimes deep, heart-wrenching sin on sin fights), and we still fight hopelessness when we are not satisfied in Jesus. But, the wonderful thing is that we are now chasing holiness, oneness and sanctification side by side. Marriage has not erased a single one of the insecurities that either of us brought into marriage, but it has made our deep need for the gospel apparent more quickly, because no matter how hard as I try, mine is only a shadow of the love and acceptance my husband will find in the cross. Oneness and covenant are the most strange and beautiful things, and I am still only in the shallowest waters of both. Perhaps that's the most breathtaking part.
So it seems that both this home and my new marriage have forced me to unclench my fists and unlock my knees a little bit more (surprise), because both are far more wonderful and more demanding than I imagined. Now, we are beyond the looking-past stage and have moved into the loving-and-nurturing-those-things-that-need-work-stage. Although both lists feel endless, this is where Jesus steps in. This is where loving God and loving one other comes in, because the gospel is more than sufficient to sustain us. I can walk in the freedom of knowing that our marriage and our home are made beautiful and God-glorifying only through the blood of Jesus. Amen and amen.
Love,
Katie
“Marriage is more than your love for each other. In your love, you see only the heaven of your own happiness, but in marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and mankind. Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal - it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other that joins you together in the sight of God and man.”
-John Piper
