Woah, hello 5.
It's crazy to think that we have been married for 5 years -- half a decade, peeps.
It's already been 5 years...and yet, it's only been 5 years.
It's a strange thing: Fast, but long and so, so full. This year takes the cake for sure!
This was definitely our most eventful year yet. So many wonderful things happened...
we welcomed our first child and became a family of 3.
We became parents (what?!).
(Taken after our first week with baby. Note: eye bags)
Eugene graduated pharmacy school (!!!) and then passed his boards, then got into a residency program and started residency.
I quit my job to stay at home.
And we experienced the magic of the Instapot (don't think I would forget my Instapot!)
This has also been the year we spent the most time apart. Between his long hours at the hospital and his 6 week rotation away right before baby was born, we survived it all! We learned the challenge of living and working apart while treasuring any and every moment together! It was not easy, but by God's grace we made it through and then some!
What a year.
There are new challenges that come in a marriage when a child is added. Life becomes more full and you never experience so much love in your heart - but it can put a strain. Sleepless nights, sleep-deprived delirium during the days, the busy-ness of learning a new role/way of life -- we were tested through some fires, as many parents are in those early weeks and months. So thankful for God's grace that carried us through it all.
There are so many things I learned in these last 5 years: about marriage + life, about Eugene, about myself. But the most profound truths that I have learned have been the things that I have learned about God.
I've learned that I am naturally a very selfish and self-centered person. I am extremely sensitive, though I put up a chillax front and will rarely ever show it. I am a people-pleaser to my core and need constant affirmation + reaffirmation (even when I make dinner, I ask Eugene at least 5 times if he likes it, lol! no, wait -- seriously though, did you like it? like really like it or just like it?) I am really clutter-brained, especially since I love to keep busy, but that makes it really hard to keep a tidy home! On that note, I am also a silent hoarder - not big things but one million tiny things (you know, those 30 pens you got from a conference, and those 10 bottles of mini-body lotions that you get every time you go to a hotel, and that screen cleaner from that one nursing vendor 5 years ago? I keep it all. oops) I find cooking fun but hate cleaning after. I say things like "always" and "never" way too much and tend to over-exaggerate when I'm upset about something.
I've come to know that Eugene is loyal, hard-working and in almost every way my exact opposite. He is reserved and a 100% introvert (I am more at a 30%). He is, in his words, naturally "asocial" not to be mistaken with "antisocial" and easily feels awkward in uncomfortable situations. Eugene is whole-hearted and a total one-track mind kinda guy so multitasking is not his forte (whereas I am usually doing 20 things and thinking about another 15 things at once, although not effectively.) Eugene loves Japanese food and food is most definitely his love language (and back scratches, for some reason - hrm.) He is a simple man who does not ever think too much into things. He keeps to himself in almost every way (i.e. social media, in person) but is fully present with whatever he is pursuing at that moment. He is also a great, great dad (though he has to take a nap after watching Asher for more than 3 hours, har har)
I've learned that marriage is wonderful, sweet, fun, exciting and ever-changing. There is no greater bond, apart from my union with Christ that is more intimate, more personal, more intertwined with the very being that I am than that which I share with my husband. Marriage is also pretty dang hard. You have to be adaptable, flexible and always at a ready to put on a different hat if need be. As a wife and as one called to my husband's helper, I am called to meet my husband where he is and seek to help and serve him in whatever he may need. In our current season, Eugene is best served with k-cups fully stocked and the keurig water filled to the brim. Sandwiches made. Easy breakfast on-the-go ready for the taking (currently: hard boiled eggs, unpeeled. White coats regularly washed and ironed. Clothes routinely tailored in a timely manner. Powerpoint presentations edited and formatted to look nice (with lots of pictures!) In this season of our marriage, he cares little for a super tidy house and extragavant home cooked dinners (which he currently doesn't have time for!) Though the task may be mundane and the routine, sometimes tedious - it can serve to be a tremendous joy and delight when I understand day-by-day that this is an avenue to worship God when I serve my husband, unto the Lord! I'm learning that more and more each day.
The most important thing I have learned in the last 5 years is that marriage isn't about me.
The main purpose of my marriage is not about providing me with happiness and making me feel loved and special and treasured. These are by-products, but my joy is not the end-all of my marriage. The goal of marriage is my holiness, not just my happiness. My marriage is an instrument in my Creator's Hand to make me more like Jesus; to teach me and shape me into a vessel that is beautiful, faithful and fruitful for Him and His purposes. I need to remind myself of this daily, sometimes. I've had to remind myself of this almost every day for the last 5 years. Though it sounds a little like a sad and emo thing to say - but it is actually extremely liberating to understand that my marriage was not meant to just make me happy. What a small, and insignificant purpose that would be if that is all my marriage, or marriage in general, was created for!
I praise God that He sovereignly created marriage to prepare us for eternity. That in marriage, we see a shadow + glimpse of the Perfect Union that we have + will have with Christ. It's easy for me to be deceived into thinking that marriage was made to serve me, affirm me, value me - but how much frustration and discontentment we would experience in our lives thinking that way! How quick we are to complain and grumble and compare when we feel like our marriage or husband (earthly, selfish and sinful as all husbands are) fail us, disappoint us, or hurt us (usually unknowingly!). There have been countless days in my last 5 years that I have experienced the frustration and disappointment of trying to force Eugene to fill the deep, dark void in my heart that only God is able to fill. I've found that I am only able to fully, unconditionally, sacrificially and joyfully love and serve Eugene with all my heart with everything that I am when I have my fill in Christ. I am freed from the pattern of giving to gain, or serving because I need something back - but am empowered to give and love and serve as an overflow of what I have already gained through Christ.
To be honest it is a daily battle. I fail ALL. DA. TIME. I am seriously so selfish and naturally so self-seeking (it would be so embarassing for you to know all of the ugly and shameful thoughts that run through my head on the daily.) but God is faithful and He is good. His hand is near at all times, ready to help, ready to forgive, ready to give new strength again and again. He is patient, and so gracious to reveal the depths of my sin to me (and others!) so that I can turn from them and renews my strength daily to start again. He is sovereign: He knew that I would fail, and that I would be completely helpless on my own - so He gave me the perfect example of selfless, sacrificial and uncondition Love in Christ and the same Spirit that raised a dead Man to life empowers me to have victory over every hurdle that comes our way.
* * *
I am thankful for every good and bad and easy and hard thing these last 5 years brought our way. I am so excited to see what God will do in the next 5, 10, 20, 60 years in our lives and marriage! Though I don't know what our future holds (and it's usually more weird and scary things -- ugh, hello, morbid and sad imagination) I can look to the future with confidence and hope and anticipation and without fear because I know Who holds our future.
Cheers to more learning and growing & more adventures!
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord,
and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in Thee.”
- St Augustine -
* * *
For our previous posts: see one from our first anniversary, our third anniversary, our fourth when baby was in-utero and an overview of our weird/crazy/random relationship history :)
No Comments Yet, Leave Yours!