It seems like
yesterday that I was corralling the nearly 30 member wedding party down the
aisle of Millville Baptist Church. After a two year courtship and nearly a
lifetime of knowing each other, we stood before our family, friends, and God
and vowed to love each other until death do us part. I assure you, we had no idea what that would
truly look like, but at that moment we believed it would be true and blissful. Well, we were right…for the most part. This past month on September 26, 2013, we
celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary…for those of you doing the
math…Yes; I was a really young bride.
Often times people
say the following phrases to Brian and I:
·
You guys look like you enjoy each
other.
·
You two seem like you really love
each other.
·
It seems as though you genuinely like
to be around each other.
We often respond
to those kinds of comments with: We
do. Funny how that is a phrase very
similar to the one made on that fall September evening in a candlelit church
filled with family and friends; some of which who thought we were making a huge
mistake and others who felt there was no better time than the present to take a
chance on this marriage thing. So, on
that night our journey went from: I Do to We Do; from I Am to We Are. With the whispering of two words and the
extinguishing of two candles, we became one. Ubuntu!
Ubuntu is a South
African word (pronounced Ooh-BOON-too). In English, it roughly translates to
"I am, because we are." This is a phrase that Brian and I share with
each other often. It is written in our
home over our fireplace to remind us that who we are together is based on who
we are as individuals. It reminds us
that neither of us is more significant than the other. Yes, we have different roles, strengths,
weaknesses, abilities, traits, etc., but we have both been placed in this
relationship, in this body of marriage, with purpose and by design.
In First
Corinthians 12:14-26, Paul uses the illustration of our bodies have many parts
to make one whole to depict the church. He writes:
1
Corinthians 12:14-26 (MSG)
14-18 I want you to think about how all this makes you more
significant, not less. A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something
huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning
together. If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I
guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m
not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the
head,” would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how
could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has
carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.
19-24 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your
significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how
significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a
gigantic hand wouldn’t be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with
many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important
on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, “Get lost; I don’t need you”? Or,
Head telling Foot, “You’re fired; your job has been phased out”? As a matter of
fact, in practice it works the other way—the “lower” the part, the more basic,
and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not
without a stomach. When it’s a part of your own body you are concerned with, it
makes no difference whether the
part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just
as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower
parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn’t you prefer good digestion
to full-bodied hair?
25-26 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding
our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the
parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we
don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the
healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.
I also believe that couples can hold
fast to the truths that are presented in this passage and apply them to their
relationships. We know that both of us
bring different attributes to the plate.
We know that we both have strengths and weaknesses. However, the
importance lies in recognizing the dependence and interconnectedness with and
to each other. It is no longer I, but
we. It is not my strengths and
weaknesses, but ours. It is not my plans
and dreams, but ours. It is not my fears
and concerns, but ours. We realize that
God has placed us together to be as one for His plan and His purpose. He created us as individuals with the intent
to use us as one body for Him!
We do love each other, we enjoy each
other, and we genuinely enjoy being in the presence of each other. My heart truly longs to be near Brian when he
is away. I still get butterflies when he
walks into a room. Is our marriage
perfect? No. Do we struggle? Certainly, we do! I have found that when I think of myself as I
instead of We, I put our marriage and relationship in jeopardy. I struggle with “We”. I struggle with putting me aside and focusing
on the “we”. However, I know that when I
act as me…I hurt us. When I act as
we…the “We” flourishes and is able to be used the way He intended for it be.
I will be the first to say that marriage
is not necessarily easy. It takes a
daily commitment. I truly believe that
the key to a successful marriage is loving the other person more than one loves
him or herself. Doing this helps to keep
the focus on the “we” instead of me. We hurt together. We laugh together. We
pray together. We serve together. It is more than date nights and getting along
with each other. It understanding the two individuals grow and develop into a
new entity known as “We.”
I long to be the wife that God would
have me to be in order for us to be the servants that He has called us to be for His cause!
Ubuntu!
