why did i get married?

This post is part of the Happy Wives Club Blog Tour which I am delighted to be a part of along with hundreds of inspiring bloggers. To learn more and join us, CLICK HERE!  

I'm so obviously a marriage expert, right? I mean, I've got real field experience here! I've been married one. whole. month. plus one day. Thus, I'm most definitely qualified to be considered a marriage expert.

Not at all. I'm no expert. It's still strange sometimes. We still forget this is real life, this is forever, we aren't just playing house. It's still new. 

And yet, I have found that one month of marriage has taught me more about myself than I ever thought it could. I know my husband so much better. I know me so much better. I see God so much more. Marriage has deepened everything.

When I decided to join the Happy Wives Club Blog Tour, I knew I would write about why I got married. I'm young. Fresh out of college. Building my career. Just starting out.

It's weird to be a wife in your early twenties in this culture. Five days before my wedding while buying fabric for draping the gorgeous pergola my dad built for us to be married under, the woman cutting my fabric actually tried to tell me getting married now was a mistake. "You're just a baby still! You should be exploring, not being a wife! Why are you getting married now?"

The woman asking me had two pieces of information about me: My wedding was five days away and I really needed ten yards of a specific fabric, and I looked young. She was a stranger. She didn't know my name or age. She didn't know my story. She didn't know anything about me. 

What she knew was that marriage is hard. It's huge. It changes everything. She knew that many people with more life experience than I look like I have can't make it work. She knew that in America, a lasting and happy marriage is weird.

What she didn't know was how acutely aware of all of those things I am. 

For many years, I swore up and down I was never getting married. I was never going to be tied down to someone else. I was convinced that marriage meant giving up all the things I love most about myself. I knew all the statistics. I had snarky comments under my breath ready any time I saw someone I knew get engaged before the age of at least 25. 

What I didn't know was love. I didn't know how dearly I was loved at the time. I had never found faith. I was so opposed to the entire concept of God. And I didn't appreciate the love I had from my family.

When I met Jesus and lay down my heart at his feet, it began to change. I began to see how love worked in my life. I began to see how acts of service and sacrifice didn't mean you lost yourself, but rather that you gained a deeper love for those you served and were served by. I began to see respect evolve through genuine appreciation of who people were. I learned how to be a friend, a good friend, for the first time. I learned how to be loving, compassionate, and sacrifice. I learned how much deeper each of those qualities made my relationships. And I realized I had been missing the point of love all along.

I had taken a year to be intentionally single. It was the best thing I've ever done for myself. I wanted to learn who I was and who God was. For much of that year I prayed for the chance to just apologize to Drew for how poorly I loved him in our past. Finally, at the very end of the year, I decided to give it to God. A week later, the man I would marry called me. Ten minutes in to our six and a half hour phone call I knew we would get married.

I know the risks. I know the statistics. I know it's a struggle. I know that we are still in the honeymoon stage, and that we will hit harder times in our future. I know why lasting marriage is weird. I know why being a young wife is weird. Because when you're young, so much is unknown. So much is unlearned. So much of life has yet to happen to you.

What I do know is that quite a bit of life has happened to me. I've had more of life than many my age. I know the years that brought me to the place I was when Drew came back into my life. I know the tears that got me there. And I know the God who planned this for me. I know the Savior who sacrificed his life for me, the purest and most monumental sacrifice of love in history. I know the love that surrounds me in faith, family and friendships every day. 

The love I know is why I got married. The sacrificial love of a mother and father pouring into the lives of their children even when their children can't see or appreciate it. The selfless love of friends who stay up all night talking to you because you just need someone to listen at three in the morning. The love of a heavenly Father whose ultimate sacrifice gives His children freedom from the pain of their pasts. And the love of a man like Drew pursuing my heart every day.

I got married because I have fallen in love with a man who only loves my God more than he loves me. A man who pursues me every day. A man whose wisdom I trust implicitly. A man who happens to be my very best friend in all the world. A man with whom I want to share all of the life that has yet to happen to me.

Yes, I'm young. Yes, it's weird. But it's right. And one month and one day in, I'm already more in love than I was the day I donned a white dress and veil. More in love than I was the day I was given a gorgeous diamond ring. More than I ever knew I could be. And the longer we have together, the deeper this love will run.

We may be young, but we've seen much more of life than you may think. And we would rather see the rest of it together.

Fawn Weaver, the founder of the Happy Wives Club wrote a book about the best marriage secrets the world has to offer. They say the book is like “Eat, Pray, Love meets The 5 Love Languages.” I say the book is inspiring. You can grab a copy HERE.