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| The unexpected, and unwanted |
Okay! So yes! We are technically in the “honeymoon” stage of our young marriage, but believe me, this has not been a honeymoon at all…in fact I wish I had listened to all the wise people who told me “you will want to take a honeymoon” because guess what! I sure would love a honeymoon right about now. We call this baptism by fire in our home.
I can’t lament not getting a honeymoon, or really any of this because I chose this. I think that goes for a lot of things in life. That has been my constant reminder to myself when I start complaining about anything, “Remember; you choose this.” In the past few years I have found it is so easy to find the negative side of things and just start throwing a pity party. The reality is if you trace it back, anything and everything, you chose something along the line that has brought you to where you are. So, you can thank God for the choice or you can lament the results.
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| The unexpected, but welcomed |
In this new married life I have been throwing a ton of pity parties for having to struggle with the language, having to be a “First lady” of sorts, having to clean, cook, wait on papers, blah blah blah….yada yada yada, and the list goes on and on and on, but at the end of the day, all these problems started with a choice, a choice I don’t regret now, nor do I think I will ever regret. I might wonder at times why I made the choice I did, but it will not change the reasons nor my thankfulness towards God for giving me the choice that I was able to make. I chose Roberto for so many reasons; his fine looks, his wads of cash that I know he has hidden somewhere in this house, his brains, his humor, his sensibility, his gentleness, his kind and big heart, his good looks (did I say that one already), many of these I don’t get to see all at once (especially the cash, I’m still waiting for him to slip and tell me where it is) and one day all of this will fade. In baking terms, it is all icing on the cake, and I love cake more than I love icing.
I had a pastor once tell me that he could have married a million women, but what made the woman he did marry “the one” was their commitment and vows made before God, and the Church. So ultimately God made her his choice. I agree whole heartedly with him this side of the marriage certificate, but I would add, my choice was based on the beginning upon what God was building.
My Roberto is a baptized child of God who shares the same foundation of faith and love for God. At times he shows it better than I do, but it is that part of him that I choose for the rest of life. I know that when I start to complain about the trials in life, the difficulties, wanting a honeymoon, or just wishing that my husband were with me instead of with the many other people of the church, he can point me to the cross of Christ and remind me what it is that we are working towards until that day when we complete our baptismal vows.
You can say I am in that honeymoon stage, but I know that part of my Roberto can be shaken but never taken. I will not love him any less than I do today for the man that God is making him to be and because it isn’t my choice alone to love him, but a gift that I get to actively participate in. I’m thankful to our God that every day, I get to see my Roberto live out his baptismal faith and to know that we are built upon a foundation much stronger than Mai Tai’s on the beach (Or maté in our case). I am beyond “in love,” I am proud.
