I'm the Luckiest Guy in the World

Today is our three year anniversary, and Friday we head out for a much-needed vacation on a 3-day cruise to Mexico.

Three years is a long time. It's more than half the time you spend in college (even for me), and longer than most people stay at a job (especially if you're Serra and Garry).

I met Kristin swing dancing. This is a little amusing to me by itself: I hate dancing. One of my roommates guilted me into going. He and I arrived, and soon after, the rest of the group showed up. Before proper introductions could be made, the band started playing, and my roommate (his name is Richard - did I mention he's about 6'1 and over 300 lbs?) grabs me and sort of tosses me at a group of girls. So much for first impressions. Kristin took pity on me and introduced herself, and we danced. It wouldn't be the last time she would rescue me.

Being married to Kristin has truly changed me in so many good ways. God (being sovereign and loving) uses whatever means He deems necessary to make us into the people He wants us to be. Some people He lets stay in the kiddie pool, happy and content. I was headed there, too - it was safe, after all. Marriage has been God's way of - like Richard at the dance hall - tossing me unceremoniously into the deep end of the big pool.

I'm a sentimentalist and a hopeless romantic, so I think on some level, I thought if a couple worked hard enough at it, they'd never fight. I'd bought in - if only on a subconscious level - to the whole bit about "only 'troubled' couples argue." Basically, I somehow had bought into the idea that if you're really, truly in love, you don't ever fight.

Well, if you actually buy that little gem, let me - as a seasoned three-year "veteran" (I still have no clue what I'm doing) - undecieve you. This is apparently a pretty common misconception, and you probably know some newly-married people (usually girls) who will go to the mat to convince you that "oh, we never fight." I feel very bad for people who actually say this, because either a) they are lying (which is what I used to do), or b) they truly don't ever fight - which is especially tragic since it means neither of them cares enough about anything to actually fight about it, which reminds of an awesome quote:

“The conception of two people living together for years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.”

Well, I definitely did NOT marry a sheep, and our marriage has so much more depth because of it! Most of the time, I'm not who I need to be - but I'm working on that, and Kristin is patient enough to give me points for trying. God gave me a truly rare wife who can walk that fine line - she loves me as I am without affirming me in my mediocrity. This is huge - she expects me to be all that God intended for me to be - not because she is concerned that I'll be a social liability (which I often am, I think), but because on my worst days, she believes in me more than I believe in myself.

Kristin is incredible. She loves God and she cares so much about His people. Since we've started working with the high school group at our church, she's become such good friends with some of the girls (a couple of them keep her up at night worrying about them!). She's so smart and beautiful. She figures out games and gadgets faster than anyone I've ever met. But the part I don't completely understand is how such a clearly intelligent woman treats me like I'm Superman, even when I look very different from the Man of Steel. I do the smallest thing (often by accident), and she acts like I've hung the moon for her. She is learning to be patient with me while I grow up (she even trusts me most days to dress myself now).

I'm the luckiest man alive, I think.