Day 23: Marriage: the place where not quite enough is a good thing.

Marriage is so fun. 

We knew it would be. 

It wasn't too long ago that we ran out of an old church, had bubbles blown at us, jumped in my uncle's 50-something Bel Air and stared at each other with giddy adoration. My dress took up half the back seat and he looked so dapper in his suspenders. As the car took off we knew deep down that we had just signed up for a totally new adventure. 

And yes indeed, it has been an adventure. I can almost hear Karen Carpenter, low and melodic, 
We've only just begun....
We really have only just begun. Just a year-and-a-half old, we are growing gracefully into this new thing called marriage. Some may say that we are living off of the "honeymoon high" or something silly like that. Maybe we are. But we've had our jagged, brittle edges too. Like most good things, marriage is an interplay between incandescent joy and the sheer grit of sticking with it when it's hard. I love the peaks and dips that are making our journey so full of life. It's laughing 'til we cry about something no one else cares about. It's the comfort of closing out the day with his warm, strong arms. Belonging, closeness, companionship. These are the fruits of this great gift. 

Yet even at its very very best, we are learning that even marriage has its limits. Our hunger for each other, though given to us by God, cannot be fully satisfied in each other. Our craving comes from something much greater, woven into the very makeup of our souls. We long to be united, yearn to be fully open and known, crave to be wanted. Aren't we all just creatures longing to experience these things with our Maker, the one who dreamed us up and designed us for Himself? 

So marriage is good. It is deeply satisfying. But it's not not quite enough to quench the longings of my heart. And that's a good thing. It reminds me why we said "I do" to begin with- it's always been and always will be about modeling His lavish love to His people. I may not understand this yet, but sometimes the soul craves what the limited flesh cannot conceive (and that is not a marriage pun). 

Marriage was never meant to be where I find all of my needs met. It's the one place where not quite enough is a very good thing.