A few nights ago, I woke up to the sound of wind howling outside our windows. Tree branches bowed and scraped against the side of the house. A loose shutter thumped rhythmically and loudly enough to wake two of the four of us inside.
“At least this house can weather the storm,” I thought as I tried to go back to sleep. “The last one wouldn’t have fared as well.”
Our first home was perfect for us as newlyweds. But any storm or particularly gusty wind would send pieces of siding and soffit flying into the yard. I didn’t know the word “soffit” until we lived in that house, but we talked about it a lot those first few years because we kept needing to replace it.
It was a good house with a solid foundation, but large parts of it were still fragile. Its exterior was prone to fall apart when things got tough. This house, the second one we’ve lived in as a family, is made of stronger materials. When storms rage outside, it doesn’t lose pieces of itself as easily as the first one.
Our marriage is similar. A conflict that might have sent us to our separate corners in the beginning doesn’t do that as easily now. We’re now made of stronger stuff too, thanks to the examples of our own parents and the church community with which God has blessed us. Also, and mostly, we’ve had time to build something that can withstand more pressure.
Later this year, we will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. That’s not long compared to many marriages, but it still feels like a milestone. I can see the parts that are stronger now than they were at the beginning, and the parts that we’re still building. More accurately, the parts that God is still building. Because if we have learned one thing over the past 15 years, it is that he must be the architect of this marriage. If we put anything else in the center, we’ll be picking up pieces of soffit the next morning.
The traditional anniversary gift for 15 years is crystal, which makes me smile. Not that it’s not a lovely present (we’ll happily accept all gifts of crystal this year). But it seems a little delicate for something that has seen 15 years of highs and lows. Concrete might be a better gift.
Fifteen years isn’t a fussy anniversary, not glamorous like 10 or 20. But I find myself marveling at God’s grace to give us this time. More than crystal or concrete, the gift I treasure most is the time he’s given us to keep building, to strengthen what we started 15 years ago.
The Bible is clear that time is precious. “Teach us to number our days carefully,” the Psalmist says, “so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts” (Psalm 90:12).
I am far more mindful of time, and the gift it is, than I would have been 15 years ago, when I was unpacking actual gifts of crystal from our wedding. Back then, we tended to look ahead six months, a year, two years down the road. Where would we be living; what jobs would we have; when would we start a family?
All of that planning for the future strikes me now as a natural and necessary part of early marriage. But it kept us racing ahead instead of numbering our days wisely. Thankfully, God has done so much work, bending us slowly toward his will through patient transformation of our hearts.
When you put it in one sentence, that transformation sounds easy. But we all know it’s not, achieved only through apologies and sacrifice and humility we can’t muster on our own. Even when we weren’t paying attention, perhaps mostly when we weren’t, God was creating a marriage far more time-tested than the relationship we started with 15 years ago.
We’re not promised any length of time on earth, Scripture tells us. We’re not in control of what we will do or where we will go (James 4:13-15). We don’t even know whether we’ll be here tomorrow (Psalm 27:1).
But what is clear—crystal clear—is that every good gift is from our Father in heaven (James 1:17). In that list of gifts, this year I’m counting time. Time to build something that can weather a storm. Time to praise an architect capable to designing something that is built to last.
Meredith Flynn is a wife and mother living in Springfield.