One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
My fingers type out each number word. It takes me longer to type them than I think it will.
I have to go back and add capitals to a couple of places. My fingers tried to fly faster than my typing skills and missed the proper capitalization.
I lean back in my chair and I deliberately read each number, pausing on them all. If I were reading them out loud to you, I would drawl them out placing extreme emphasis on each one. I would pause long enough between to catch your attention and make you sit up and listen.
Onnnnnnnne. Twwwwwwooooo.
And so on and so forth. And so forth and so on.
I didn’t plan to write a word about marriage this year.
This year.
This year as we celebrate our nineteenth year together.
Nineteen!!! My goodness. That’s why I had to type them all out and read over them slowly.
Make sure I counted right. It feels like not that many days since it was fifteen I mused over. {Yeah, Yeah. I know. There I go again, waxing nostalgic.}
I’d had projects and plans in my days and I had no intention to type out thoughts on marriage.
But then words started running through my mind. A thought here and a quote there and it seemed they wanted to try to come out and align themselves together in some sort of way.
I think they may be in more of a haphazard way than all neat and tidy and summed up. But I’m really ok with that because that’s just the way words are sometimes.
I follow several accounts on Instagram who are strong supporters for marriage. I’m inspired by these positive attitudes about marriage. I like the quotes and words they share. I like the way they are using social media to inspire and encourage commitment.
One of them recently posted this quote:
Marriage was not designed to make you happy. YOU make your marriage happy.
{Marriage 365. Find them here.}
It’s a choice. We get to choose to keep loving. To keep looking for the good. To keep laughing together.
I believe God means for marriages to be happy and for our marriage to be a happy place. That means choosing happy and choosing to invest in each other.
To choose to keep the stardust sparkling in our eyes.
And believe me, I know life isn’t all about stardust and good times. It holds a lot of hurt and disappointment and broken dreams.
But it’s choosing to catch the falling star and let it shine, that shields us through the pain.
It’s choosing to focus on what we do have instead of bogging down in resentment and regrets over the things we don’t.
It’s setting our foot firmly on the pathway of gratitude instead of taking the trail of dissatisfaction.
It’s speaking well of each other where ever we are.
I’ve been around women who seem to have nothing good to say about their husbands and I’ve been around women who take obvious delight in the man they’re married to.
Guess which one inspires?
{I know. That’s a tricky question. {It’s the one who acts like she likes her husband.}{In case you weren’t sure.}}
I’ve watched marriages fall apart because one or the other decided someone else was best for them. They decided they wanted someone else’s spouse and they didn’t seem to think the fact that this person had already promised to love and cherish someone else, mattered at all.
{It matters.}
We must keep choosing the person we’re married to.
I love my man deeply and dearly and I’m glad I get to be married to him and I believe he is the best husband for me!
{INDEED, I do!}
I’m also aware that all spouses aren’t good-natured people. That’s not what this post is about. That’s a whole ‘nother category of its own. And not a fun one.
I told my husband thank-you this morning. This husband of mine that is best for me.
I look at him across the pillow and I say these words, “Thank-you for putting up with my “worse”.
I mean it with all my heart. I’m so grateful.
‘Cause this verse right here? It’s a whole lot of feeling humbled and a whole lot to live up to.
We two, we’ve had a lot, a lot of “for better”, but like every marriage, we’ve had our “for worse” moments too.
If my dear man wanted to, he could make me sound like a pretty lame wife. He could make me look a whole lot closer to “rotten” than to “excellent” if he so chose.
He could get tired of my selfishness and my achy-back-for-two-years and my complete ineptness of so many-farmy-things.
But he is gracious and forgiving and he chooses to overlook my offenses and failures and forgetfulness and keep on loving me in spite of them.
We have this quote magneted to the refrigerator in our basement. It’s been there for four years. I print it out and hang it up soon after we move in. There it remains.
“A Happy Marriage is the Union of Two Good Forgivers.”
Truth, that.
Know what else?
My man and me. We like each other.
It’s kind of like this quote from Sophie Hudson. I loved it so very much the first time I ever read it. ~ “I’d learned that my heart would certainly go on without him, but I also knew that my heart was never more at home than when we were together.”
More truth, that.
The thing I’ve noticed when we hit a “for worse” moment? Neither one of us likes them. We don’t enjoy them. In reality, we hate them. We want to be on the same team. We don’t want to be separated by disagreements or misunderstandings. We like to be friends.
We’re learning to call out the real enemy. We’re learning to fight together against him. It’s a life long process, but we’re choosing to keep choosing each other and keep fighting back. NO WAY is the devil gonna win.
It’s like the t-shirts some friends of ours had on the other evening. They proclaimed Fiercely Loved & Freely Devoted. They hold a two-fold meaning. We’re so fiercely loved by Christ and by choosing Christ we are freely devoted to Him. Flip in to marriage and we love our spouse with fierce devotion because we chose them and they chose us and we are doing this thing called marriage together, each and every day!
Because time is not promised to any of us. Last night Matthew read to me of a thirty-eight year-old farm man who died in his sleep a few nights ago, leaving his wife and daughters. THIRTY-EIGHT. That’s right in the age bracket we find ourselves in. {35-40.}
RIGHT THERE.
You bet I was glad to wake up together this morning with my farmer and celebrate NINETEEN. I was glad to scramble eggs for him. I was glad to repeat again, “Every good day. For every good day.” To breathe out grateful. So grateful.
We’ve had good. We’ve had bad.
We’ve had sickness. We’ve had health.
We didn’t even begin to understand what we were signing up for when we grasped that pen and we signed our names together on that piece of paper that represented marriage.
Not just any marriage.
OUR MARRIAGE.
The marriage we chose to enter. Because we had chosen each other and we wanted to spend our days together.
For better or for worse.
xoxo ~ dear man of mine
Here’s to many more years of mostly “betters”!!!
Linking up:

Happy Anniversary, Deborah! You certainly do have a good word (truth) for us in this post. A great reminder of the choice married couples have. My man and I are nearing 27 years now. Hard to believe. God is gracious and merciful!
He is indeed! Hurrah for almost 27 years! Bless you.