“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.” – Robert C. Gallagher
I don’t mind change. Well, I don’t mind little changes. For example, I rearrange my bedroom to match my moods. I would change my hair color for the same reason, if I was allowed to have blue/purple/pink/green hair at work. I love to change up my workout routine, mostly because I get bored easily. I have a stack of books that I read simultaneously, changing between them again, to suit my mood.
But you throw a big change at me? Hold on while I freak out and hyperventilate into a paper bag… My panic-type reaction to big change is a huge reason why I won’t get a tattoo, because 5 years/days/minutes later, I’ll want to change it, but oh wait, IT’S THERE FOREVER. No thanks, man.
Moving rattles me to the bone. Ditto changing jobs. And the biggest change of all? Yeah, the one I’m consenting to in exactly 3 months? The one that makes me feel like my heart is in my throat, cutting off my air supply? Yep, you guessed it. MARRIAGE.
“MAWAGE… Mawage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam…”
“Princess Bride”, anyone? No? You should go watch it immediately. But I’m avoiding the point: We’re talking marriage, aka the event that changes the rest of your human life by joining it in Sacrament (that’s a capital S, you guys), to another person’s. The day where you hand your hearts and souls over to each other, vowing all of these really hard things. That day, I will be given the responsibility to get my husband to heaven. No big, right? It’s only his one eternal soul. Not like a life or death situation or anything.
Sarcasm never looks good on me.
Needless to say, I’m scared. I love Danger so much and want to be the best wife in the whole universe. I want to stand by him, thick and thin, no matter what, loving him and being true to him until we’re both in our 100’s, and die together in a nursing home, Nicholas-Sparks-“The Notebook- style. I want to have tons of kids that I raise so wonderfully, that they don’t have to go to therapy as adults to reverse the damage I’ve done. I want to have that Better Homes and Gardens house, where my family grows our own food, never fights, and never takes awkward family photos. I want everything to turn out good, easy and lacking any grief.
This is why change feels so dangerous, because there are no guarantees that it will turn out okay. Change means lots of opportunities for me to fail in all the things I don’t have experience in, and even the things I do have experience in. I could fail my husband. I could fail my family. I could fail God. And therein lies my problem: I assume that if I make this change and then make mistakes, I have failed beyond redemption. I somehow expect that despite my many human flaws and setbacks, I should do things perfectly, and that my husband will also do things perfectly. But we won’t. We can’t. It’s arrogance to think otherwise.
The only way we can survive this marriage thing, is to entrust it to God. There’s no way we can do it left to our own devices. Who do we think we are, anyway? We’re just people who are completely, totally, 100% dependent on God. Any marital success is due to His infinite mercy and love. And any marital failures? Totes on me and Danger. But the beauty is that God loves us anyway, and will always be right where we fell, waiting to pick us up and walk with us again. We just have to humbly embrace our deficiencies, and keep trying til death do us part.
So, big changes? Easy peasy… Except not at all. But this whole marriage thing with Danger? Totally worth it, at least that’s what God tells me. I guess I should trust in that infinite, unfailing, never-changing wisdom of his and just keep moving ahead.
“Even if you fall on your face, you’re still moving forward.” – Robert C. Gallagher
