Twenty four years ago Collin called my parents and said, "Can I stop by?" This was without me, without my even knowing. We'd been dating six months.
Seated at their yellow formica kitchen table, he told them. "Well, you know I've been dating your daughter some time now, but I've known her as a friend much longer." He probably tapped his foot and looked from one face to another before blurting the rest. "I'm thinking to ask her to marry me and I'd like to ask your blessing."
I see my dad's face turning pink as he put both palms on the edge of the table, his elbows pointing out. "Well, you know, she has . . . " The drum rolls here. and Collin's pulse rises by twenty points. A shopping addiction? a baby out of wedlock and placed in a home?
"Allergies."
A sigh of relief.
But these were not just inhalant allergies, but sensitivities to food. My issues with food have affected our meals together considerably. He married me anyways, after that frightening revelation.
Actually, many more terrifying things surfaced as the months and years together unrolled---how I don't screw the lids on jars tightly. That has caused many spills of salad dressing, tablets and spaghetti sauce and despite many vows I've made to reform my ways.
He's had to deal with my messy handwriting in the check register and forgetting to write down ATM purchases--quite vexing when he's trying to balance the checkbook.
A more recently-occurring annoyance has been how I cause the plastic clothes pins to fall apart. I've broken eight this way, while he's never done this once.
Then there are the pots I leave on the stove on high and walk outside to do one quick thing, which become a long gardening project. How many pots have I thoroughly blackened?
Being instinctively cautious, these are not the kinds of mistakes Collin is likely to make.
But much harder for Collin has been the tendency to tell him what to do or criticize him, my anxieties that make sleep difficult sometimes and tears that cannot be easily dammed. These make my allergies seem like very, very small stuff. In fact, we usually laugh when we remember that conversation.
In every marriage there are the little, and big, things that frustrate and enrage, times a person may wish she or he hadn't taken that vow. The magnitude of the difficulties cannot be comprehended beforehand.
Peter's words from Chapter 4 reorient me again and again, "Love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything." And where does that love come from? How can it be kept consistently flowing? In short, Jesus. In practicalities and specifics, much is required -- that's another essay.
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