Celebration of Love

Today my husband and I celebrate nine years of marriage. To be quite honest, the last year has had some significant bumps in the midst of good times. The eight years before had their own issues as well. We are coming to understand each other as we are rather than the person we would like the other to be.

I've been reflecting on what it means to love in the context of marriage. While reading a book, Exiles, I came across a quote by Madeleine L'Engle that seems to describe love as I have come to understand it.

My love for my husband and his for me is in that unknown, underwater area of ourselves where our separations become something new and strange, merge and penetrate like the drops of water in the sea. But we do not lose our solitudes, our our particularity, and we become more than we could alone.

This is mystery. I cannot explain it. But I have learned that it makes up for our clashes, our differences in temperament, our angers, our withdrawals, our failures to understand.

No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I've been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again-till next time.

I've learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness, but that I won't stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and be blessed.

Today we celebrate the blessing that comes with nine years of joys and failures, of fulfillment and disappointment, of unity and of seemingly uncompromising division. We celebrate the bravery in continuing to travel together. In that place we find the mystery, we find love, we find each other.

Happy Anniversary, Eddie. I love you.