Prosaic Moments
He wakes up and gets ready for work. She wakes up and cries for her breakfast. I wake up and get her milk. He says goodbye. She plays in her crib for a bit while I make the bed and check my e-mail. I change her diaper and bring her down. She eats. I eat. She plays while I alternate playing with tidying. She goes down for a nap and I do more housework. She wakes up and the cycle begins again.
He comes home. We eat supper and briefly catch up on our days. We go our separate ways for a couple of hours. I put her to bed. He prepares for tomorrow's lessons. I deal with the dishes. He grades a stack of papers. And sometimes we watch a bit of T.V. Then we go to bed, exhausted.
We wake up in the morning. And it begins again.
It is extremely easy to drift into mindless monotony within our marriages. Who can blame us? Life is busy. And during my endless tasks of motherhood and the infinite demands of my husband's profession, we are tempted to take each other for granted. Understandably, we glance back at our carefree infatuated days with nostalgia. Or we look forward to more quiet days when we can leisurely enjoy being married with children. Better yet, we count the days until our next romantic adventure.
But what about today? Is there purpose in the here and now?
Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage sure thinks so. He argues that while we have a visceral desire to be in a constant state of exhilarating romance, our spirits need the mundane and challenging moments in our marriage to become more like Christ. We can either choose to be dissatisfied with the lack of lustre in our relationship and quickly exit (figuratively or literally). Or we can choose to embrace our spouse, as imperfect as he or she is, with the aim of loving God more. Here are a few quotes that I have found inspirational from my brief reading of the book.
"I remembered the intensity of the night on which we had become engaged; the joyful exploration of our honeymoon; filling out a preliminary application for a mission organization; bringing our first child home–but now, ten years later, we have 'evolved' into spending Friday nights watching other people fall in love according to the machinations of a Hollywood script... What was this thing called marriage? How had I ended up here? Was there no more purpose to it than this?" (pg. 19-20)
"If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there's no question–stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than to get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you'd never have to face otherwise." (pg. 21)
"You've probably already realized that there was a purpose for your marriage that went beyond happiness. You might not have chosen the word 'holiness' to express it, but you understood there was a transcendent truth beyond the superficial romance depicted in popular culture." (pg. 26)
I am looking forward to finishing the book, after which my husband will pick it up for a good read. I am eager to view the mundane of my life today with the purpose of loving God forever. And I know that in the course of renewing this pledge, I will learn to love my daughter and husband more abundantly by addressing my weaknesses first and foremost. After all, prosaic moments will outnumber times of romantic ecstasy. The sooner we embrace this reality, the more content we will be.
He comes home. We eat supper and briefly catch up on our days. We go our separate ways for a couple of hours. I put her to bed. He prepares for tomorrow's lessons. I deal with the dishes. He grades a stack of papers. And sometimes we watch a bit of T.V. Then we go to bed, exhausted.
We wake up in the morning. And it begins again.
It is extremely easy to drift into mindless monotony within our marriages. Who can blame us? Life is busy. And during my endless tasks of motherhood and the infinite demands of my husband's profession, we are tempted to take each other for granted. Understandably, we glance back at our carefree infatuated days with nostalgia. Or we look forward to more quiet days when we can leisurely enjoy being married with children. Better yet, we count the days until our next romantic adventure.
But what about today? Is there purpose in the here and now?
Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Marriage sure thinks so. He argues that while we have a visceral desire to be in a constant state of exhilarating romance, our spirits need the mundane and challenging moments in our marriage to become more like Christ. We can either choose to be dissatisfied with the lack of lustre in our relationship and quickly exit (figuratively or literally). Or we can choose to embrace our spouse, as imperfect as he or she is, with the aim of loving God more. Here are a few quotes that I have found inspirational from my brief reading of the book.
"I remembered the intensity of the night on which we had become engaged; the joyful exploration of our honeymoon; filling out a preliminary application for a mission organization; bringing our first child home–but now, ten years later, we have 'evolved' into spending Friday nights watching other people fall in love according to the machinations of a Hollywood script... What was this thing called marriage? How had I ended up here? Was there no more purpose to it than this?" (pg. 19-20)
"If you want to be free to serve Jesus, there's no question–stay single. Marriage takes a lot of time. But if you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than to get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you'd never have to face otherwise." (pg. 21)
"You've probably already realized that there was a purpose for your marriage that went beyond happiness. You might not have chosen the word 'holiness' to express it, but you understood there was a transcendent truth beyond the superficial romance depicted in popular culture." (pg. 26)
I am looking forward to finishing the book, after which my husband will pick it up for a good read. I am eager to view the mundane of my life today with the purpose of loving God forever. And I know that in the course of renewing this pledge, I will learn to love my daughter and husband more abundantly by addressing my weaknesses first and foremost. After all, prosaic moments will outnumber times of romantic ecstasy. The sooner we embrace this reality, the more content we will be.