Surreal: Some Thoughts on Marriage on Independence Day

Surreal.

Happy Independence Day. Happy Birthday to my Dad, who turned 47. Happy week’s eve to my wedding day.

I once heard a man tell a joke. It was July 4 a few years back, and he mentioned that it was his wedding anniversary. “Ironic, ain’t it?” he said. “The day we celebrate freedom is also the day I lost mine.”

It’s pretty funny on one hand. Independence Day….Wedding Day….opposites…..haha. But I look at my approaching wedding day as anything but Loss of Freedom Day. I remember once, as a kid, dreaming about getting married. I didn’t remember to whom I was betrothed in that dream or when the betrothal was fulfilled or anything like that, but I remember one very distinct feeling from that dream: sheer, utter freedom. I felt as free as I’d ever felt in my life, even more than the dreams in which I was flying. 

A lot of people rip Christianity for pressing such moral values on society like abstinence—not having sex—until marriage. I’ve been among those who question the feasibility of remaining pure for so long, when in Bible times people were married as soon as they could begin having children, which is usually in the early teen years or even sooner for some. That’s why teenagers today are so whacked out about sex. People blame the media for selling sex, but all the media does is sell what sells. Really. Sure, the lurid music videos and the overhyped sexiness of movie stars don’t exactly mitigate teens’ sex drive, but the people producing those videos and movies know that’s what people are going to watch on television, or what they’re going to spend $10 on at the movie theater. Advertisers spend the most money to get ad space where the ratings are highest; movie studios buy projects that will make them the most money. It’s basic math when it comes down to it.

But what that’s done has create in people this idea that they, too, are supposed to have sex with a lot of people until they stumble into the sheets of “the one.” People have these ideas that romance is meant to be full of making out and naked bodies rolling around together and pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, and that couldn’t be more of a lie.

Because while there is wild freedom in that kind of action—who doesn’t get a rush from a one-night fling with a stranger you meet in a club, a girl who hits on you after a ballgame—it leaves you with an inescapable, aching emptiness until you can find someone else to share your sheets for a night.

The whole dynamic completely stunts the even more phenomenal reality of what marriage is meant to be. If life is lived as I just mentioned, then getting married will be depressing, especially for someone as young as myself, at age 22. What else is there to look forward to? No wonder wives get frustrated with husbands whose sole focus becomes the career. There’s no adventure left in life is one is bummed out about who they’re sharing life with, all because “she’s the only person I can have sex with the rest of my life.” Isn’t that the mantra of men at bachelor parties? The woeful cross-examination of the groom and his feelings on how bad it’ll suck to wake up beside the same non-madeup face each morning?

But if life is lived the way God recommends, marriage is, well, freedom. She becomes the person to have sex with, not the only or the last. What else is there to want? Careers are overrated. I’m a driven person, and I’m going to bust my ass to get everywhere and accomplish everything I want to in life. But I’m with a girl who is on board with all that instead of groaning that my focus becomes so centered some days. Yeah, she wants her time with me, but she understands what it means to pursue passions.

What I don’t think she even realizes some days is that she is my passion as much as any other goal I’ve set in life. She is the one whom I will fight for, even die for. Nobody stands a chance in this lifetime of loving her the way I do, and in our marriage, nobody will stand a chance of impacting her the way I will, positive or negative.

Marriage is not about pure joy. It’s going to involve knock-down, drag-out arguments that make us both act and then feel like complete jackasses. It’s going to involve stress and fear and anxiety over where we’ll be a year from now and how we’ll handle this setback or embrace this challenge. But it’s also about mind-numbing ecstasy at getting to come home to a best friend who can love us like no other friend we’ve ever had.

The crazy thing is, Jesus Christ is a lot like that, too. The same reason people avoid Christianity is the same reason they ignore advice not to sleep around—because of how some Christians present it.

No, marriage is about sharing life. And my life—a truly great life—is about to begin all over again.

We’ll be living in Wilmington while I finish the book I’m writing and begin carving out a freelance career. Odds are that I’ll get my master’s and begin teaching to provide myself steady income, all the while searching out the answers to some of life’s crazy mysteries. Cryptic, I know, but more to come on that later.

There’s no telling how long we’ll be here, but it’s a great place to start looking for the rest of our lives.

(NOTE: I was going to rewrite this and stuff to make it better but wanted to post it by July 4 so here’s what you get. Maybe I should have held off. I wrote it in like, 20 minutes. But it’s nearly midnight and I’m burnt and exhausted from five hours on the beach and feeling pretty impatient to get this up, sooooo…. Good night.)