I'd like to share with you a few brief lessons I have learned from my first year of marriage. Keep in mind, I'm only twenty. My experiences are microscopic when compared to those of someone who has been around longer. Also, remember that me and my husband are 100% imperfect!
The first thing I learned from marriage was… I cannot rely on my husband if I haven't first relied on Christ. Aaron and I had the unique experience of spending the first three months of our marriage living in travel trailer at a Christian camp in the Black Hills. Let me tell you. Starting your marriage in a cramped camper makes getting used to living with each other happen really fast! It was incredibly hard as a recently independent collage girl to learn to share my life honestly with my husband. When something with my job didn't go according to plan, I often wanted to bottle it up. Aaron, however, had other plans. He helped me realize my struggles are his struggles, and our struggles are God's struggles. I am only able to have complete faith in my husband, because I have complete faith in my Savior.
The second thing I learned from marriage was... if something was going wrong, we needed to be there for each other. We needed to show up for our new marriage in ways that were very different from when we dated. When we became frustrated with each other, we could not hang up a phone and each go our separate ways to calm down. We had to lay it all out on the table, come to a conclusion, and move on together. The most valuable lesson we learned was to fight like Christ. Stay with me, I'll explain. In the Bible, when someone disagreed with Jesus, did Jesus yell? Did Jesus belittle others? No! So, learning to calmly work through our differences was wonderful. We were finally able to have conversations that would have been impossible before.
The third thing I learned from marriage was…it is SO important to encourage and support each other! We have had to make some tough decisions this year. I know that if Aaron hadn't been right beside me making those decisions, we wouldn't have been able to move forward!
I know I am not any kind of marriage expert! Hopefully this is a good start to many great years to come!
