Two shoeboxes, one stacked on top of the other, sit on the top shelf in the back of the basement closet. Each is filled to the brim with love letters, written more than 18 years ago when Brad (who is now my husband) and I were first dating. He lived in Minnesota, I lived in Massachusetts, and we wrote to each other once a week, sometimes more. It was the early ’90s, pre-email. The letters are hand-written on lined paper torn from spiral-bound notebooks and legal pads. I saved every one.
Even after I married the man who wrote me two shoeboxes full of letters, the correspondence kept coming. Not only for birthdays and anniversaries and other special occasions, but for any old reason. Or for no reason at all.
And then the letters stopped.
…I’m over at Prodigal Magazine today, writing about marriage. Join me?
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And it has changed yet again, with teenagers. This week we are alone. We are not the 18-year-old and 19-year-old who met 24 years ago, nor the 20-something young marrieds we were when our kids were born. We have hurt each other deeply. We have loved each other passionately. Each day, we try again.
That is a beautiful statement in and of itself, Megan.
That was a great story, Michelle. We just started a couple’s Bible study this week. The premise: God didn’t give us marriage to make us happy, but to make us holy. While I actually think that God wants us to have joy and happiness in our marriages, I do suspect that the author of this study is onto something important.
I recall that in those first trying months of baby-marriage balance, God was definitely working out the ‘holy’ thing in is. He’s got a lot of work ahead of Him yet, I’ll tell you. I’m still kind of a mess.
Grateful that we’ve been able to move past those tough first years, and into a new groove that has drawn us closer to each other, and closer to Christ.
Couples Bible study…now there’s an idea! I don’t know if Brad would think I’d lost my mind if I suggested that, or if he’d be on board….maybe I should give it a go?
Girl,
You rocked this one.