It seems like so much longer, as if I have been doing this married two-step for decades.

I am grateful to be doing it. I am grateful that people grow and change during a marriage, a life. I’m grateful that no matter who we become, we choose each other to spend that time with. I’m grateful that we treat marriage as something solid and permanent, and not as something that is easily thrown away and given up on. We see value in our tandem ride through life; there is fulfillment in serving each other as equals. There is joy in parenting together, even amid the sleepless nights and screaming tantrums. There is wholeness in the sacrifice that brings ahusband and wife together.

Yes, we are very different. Yes, we are both at once stupid and wise, and we both suffer at the hand of the other’s shortcomings. Yes, we are not the same people we married. But that is the eloquence of marriage. To look at the seasons and know that you did them together as one. To know that you were chosen, despite your imperfections, for an eternity of growing alongside someone who loves you, and whom you choose to love. Thank heaven we change. I watched in awe the day I saw my husband become a father. I’ve stepped back in admiration and humility as I’ve seen him rise to many occasions, both happy and sad, and with each one become a new and better man for it. What a brilliant plan for a husband and wife to experience mortality together, finding moments of perfection in the solidity of their union, and being given the blessing of time to mold them as one. It is truly divine.