'til death do us part

friday i am going to go wedding dress shopping for the first time in my life. my mom is going to make appointments at various shops in the bay area and we'll go....play dress up. at least that's how it will feel, i'm sure.

amidst the fairly superficial wedding planning, i have thought a lot (and yet nearly not enough) about what marriage means to me now (an inexperienced soon-to-be bride) and what it will mean to me later (an older veteran to this lifetime partnership). i am not really a romantic person (even though i will only watch romantic comedies). no, not in the traditional sense at least. i do not really like nice jewelry, or fancy flowers around every corner, or candlelit dinners. i much rather enjoy discussing interesting things, or snuggling, or cooking together, or goofing around. this all leads me to my idea that marriage is not romantic. i think marriage is a lot of work. it is like building a huge, never ending structure or something. a structure that might even have to be torn down and rebuilt over and over as people (and the relationship) changes. i also believe that marriage is about service. it is about serving an individual (dying to oneself) every single day of one's life. it is about being joyful in that service (this might be the most difficult part) for the rest of your life. it is not about giving 50% and getting 50%, in fact i don't think it can be quantified in any percentage breakdown. it seems dangerous as it sets up all kins of expectations - even if you end up giving 60%, you still expect to receive 40%. but i am hopeful about marriage. i am hopeful because i believe that God is constantly working and moving and challenging two individuals in a shared life. with God as the foundation. so regardless of how many times the house needs to be rebuilt, the foundation is always the same.

i also think that God had some say (or most of the say) in how it is that i met peter. that he brought me to a place where i had a choice to take what God was offering me, or reject it. and i decided to take it in a way that i am not doing a good job of explaining. there is something deeply moving about the way in which two people come together that i believe has divine intervention. do i believe that there is only one person for us in the world? no. but that God saw where we were at in our lives and brought us to a place of willingness to give one to the other...that i believe. had i not felt that God moved me to pursue a relationship with peter, or had i missed God's intentions and not chosen to pursue peter, then i believe that God would have provided someone else in my life in a different circumstance and for different reasons.

basically what i'm saying is, marriage is God. it is a reflection of our relationship with him on some level. and it deserves the same work and love and prayer that we put into maintaining our relationships with God. and that i am hopeful and faithful about how marriage could radically change me and my life for the better.

ask me in about 10 years if i still think the same way. i certainly hope so.