Out of the Grave to Learn About Love

With apologies for slowness of response to those who requested it, I am finally posting the story of my proposal of marriage to JJ from that happy April Saturday not long ago. I do hope you get a kick out of it like we do, as it’s part of our very own, very unique love story. But before I go back to that part of the story, I hope you don’t mind my sharing a few sentiments of what I’ve learned in the few short months since our wedding.

Of course I’ve learned a lot (after all, I’d never been married before!), & to be sure I yet have much to learn. Of all that I’ve learned, however, what strikes me most deeply is this: that I am just a little boy who knows nearly nothing about love.

Just to be clear, I have no regrets whatsoever about getting married, for in all it is my very happy privilege to live in union with my beautiful wife JJ. It’s just that in spite of my thirty-six-&-a-half years, countless books on the subject, & earnest learning from the wide experiences of friends, family, & patients around the world, I have found that there is far, far more to love than I ever imagined.

Before getting married, I had no idea just how much of life is encompassed in that word: love. In spite of all the good book knowledge & counseling accumulated over the years, I didn’t realize that love involves the willingness to adjust in such a wide breadth of life: my emotions, my habits, my preferences, my plans, my thinking, my spending, my interacting with others, down to every little never-before-examined assumption of life between waking & sleeping. In marriage, I’m learning that everything is on the table, as the good & proper transparency inherent to unity with one’s spouse leaves no area of life uncovered. In all things, love calls me to consider my wife’s needs & desires, & what is best for her.

Another aspect of love I had no clue about before marriage was its costs, the depth to which one must be willing to give oneself in love. It isn’t enough to know what it means to show love in a particular situation, but one must also be ready to do so freely! As for myself, I’m learning just how astonishingly selfish I am, that God must repeatedly overcome my heart’s stinginess so that I would actually consent to doing what is certainly good & right.

God is so, so faithful. He knows & mercifully provides exactly what I need each day: kind words of truth, tender touches from my wife, & lots & lots of life lessons. He loves me too much to leave me where I am, & is true to His promise to complete the good work He started in me (Philippians 1:6). I suppose these lessons shouldn’t be a surprise to me anyway, as Scripture speaks of my heart as being innately blind & self-deceiving (Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:10-18). What else but marriage – far more than even fatherhood – would bring these things to light as two lives are smashed together into one, when every nook & cranny of our lives are exposed, including the very parts I take special care to hide from others? Many times, I had read & heard in counseling that marriage would expose my inadequacies, but now as a married man I know this truth far more profoundly.

Love’s breadth & depth were not the only things I was clueless about in marriage. Even in the short months since our wedding, I have learned also of love’s joys like never before. Learning to give myself wholly to God’s plan for marriage (Genesis 2:24; Mark 10:7-9) has unveiled to me the very real & beautiful goodness of love as I’d never known. Even the seemingly mundane activities of my daily life give evidence of this: my gums & teeth have never been in better shape as I’ve learned to floss regularly, & our house has been transformed from a bachelor pad to a beautiful family home. Though our marriage has certainly not been endless smooth sailing, I have been challenged to grow in my perspective & understanding of people & life. Perhaps more than anything, I have begun to learn the freedom & inexplicable, abiding peace that comes with love: no matter what happens in this world, I know whom I’m committed to. Though I’m just beginning to learn it, there is so much joy in knowing the rightness of gentle stalwartness in loving JJ through thick & thin.

Such joy in marriage would not be possible, I’m learning, without the depth & breadth of commitment in accord with God’s love (Acts 20:35). Indeed, God reminds me that wherever I would foolishly choose to limit my commitment to this relationship, I would not only be hurtful to JJ but also intensely self-destructive as well (Ephesians 5:25-30). He tells me that I am to love JJ with total commitment as He has loved me, impossible even to attempt except that through His Spirit He generously provides His strength & wisdom (Philippians 4:13; James 1:5).

Our God has loved us with great depth, breadth, & joy, hasn’t He? Every night for the last two years I have been reading to Jadon from Sally Lloyd-Jones’ The Jesus Storybook Bible, which regularly reminds me that His love is a “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love.” It’s a really good thing that His love is “Always and Forever,” for not only is it exactly the kind I need, but because it will take me just that long for me to learn it.

“Out of the Grave”

April 10, 2010

The Story of Sid’s Proposal to JJ

(as told by JJ, with interjections from Sid)

JJ: So Sid invited me over to do some gardening at his sister Ruth’s house as a surprise for her husband’s return. Sid wanted us to plant some flowers in the back yard. When I arrived, he said he wanted us to plant one flower for each of the years that we knew each other from 2004-2010, to symbolically give new meaning to our hard years.

Sid: Eric was returning from a year-long military tour of duty in Europe, so I’d bought some red & yellow Ranunculus flowers (Eric’s favorite color is red; JJ’s favorite is yellow) for us to plant at their place, where I used to live years ago.

JJ: We started to plant six flowers all in a row, with the boys all around us helping out.

Sid: Jadon was there, along with Eric & Ruthie’s kids: 6-year-old Nathan & 3-year-old Timothy.

JJ: When we were done, Sid said “Let’s count the flowers,” & we called out the years each flower symbolized: “2004, 2005, 2006…” And we were short one. We had miscounted & didn’t have one for 2010.

Sid: Of course, we hadn’t miscounted at all…

JJ: As I was lamenting on this, Sid said, “Don’t worry, we have more,” & went to get another plant from the car because he had gotten some for his house – our house – as well. As I was thinking about where we might plant the last flower, Sid said, “Let’s plant it over there,” & pointed to a corner by the fence behind the AC unit. I didn’t want to plant it there because the sprinklers wouldn’t reach it, but Sid said, “No, no, no. Trust me, it’ll get back there. It’ll be fine.” We argued about it a little, & then I said, “Let’s ask Ruth.”

Sid: Obviously, it was important that she dig the last hole in that particular spot, & I’d arranged for us to plant the flowers in a row pointing to that exact place, but NOOOOO, we had to argue about such issues as whether the spot could sustain a plant! ;)

JJ: Ruth came out & said “I don’t think so,” & I said “See? The sprinkler won’t reach the flower and it will die.”

Sid: Even though I’d told Ruthie that I wanted to marry JJ, I didn’t fill her in on what was going to happen that day aside from having a date with JJ while giving them something nice in their back yard. So all the time Ruthie was looking over the proposed digging spot, I was giving her the eyes that said “SAY YES! YOU BETTER TELL JJ YES, THAT THE PLACE IS JUST FINE TO PUT ANOTHER PLANT!” …It didn’t work.

JJ: But Sid said, “Let’s just try,” & he was adamant. So I said, “Fine.” He handed me the shovel, & I started digging while he watched. After a little while I finished digging a hole the same size as required for the other flowers, & said, “Sid, hand me the plant so I can put it in.” But he said “No, no, no. It has to be deeper.” I said, “What?! Why?” So he said, “Because the nursery said this plant needs a hole 2 feet deep & 2 feet wide.” I asked again, “Why?” & he replied “Because the roots need it.” I said, “The roots?!” And he handed me the shovel again & I started digging while he watched.

Sid: Of course, the nursery said no such thing about the Gardenia plant, but I wanted to be sure JJ dug deep enough. Also, I did try to look busy while watching JJ dig that hole.

JJ: After a long while, I finished digging a 2’ by 2’ hole & told him I was done as I handed him the shovel. But he said, “No, deeper.” I said, “What? Then you dig…” He said, “No, no, no. Keep digging.” So I kept digging a little wider & a little deeper while he watched.

Sid: During this time, I started to worry that I’d mistaken where I’d buried my special box. You see, I’d proposed to JJ at a bad time in 2005, & in 2007 when I felt things were going nowhere with JJ, I had put everything related to her into a plastic box, covered it with 3 plastic bags, sealed it with tape, & early one morning before daybreak buried it in Eric & Ruthie’s back yard in a kind of funeral of my dreams, right there in that very spot… so I thought!

JJ: Suddenly I hit what looked like a pipe, & said “It’s a pipe! I’m not digging anymore! I don’t want to break Ruth’s pipe. If I do she’ll never invite me here again!” Sid looked & said, “Oh, no it’s not a pipe,” & handed me the shovel saying, “Keep digging.” I said, “Yes it is a pipe!” & then returned the shovel to him & said, “YOU dig.”

Sid: What’s a guy gotta do to get a woman to dig up her own engagement rings?

JJ: So Sid started digging a little deeper & a little wider, & then said, “Hey JJ, come over here & look.” I thought that he might shove me into the hole when I bent over to look with my butt in the air, so I said, “No way! I’m not looking in there.” He said, “No, no, no! Come look!” & I said, “No! You’re going to shove me in… I know you!” So Sid bent down to look more closely & I shoved HIM in.

Sid: Of course, all the kids thought that this whole process was really funny.

JJ: After he got up, he said, “Let’s dig deeper.” When he dug a little more & hit something again, he said, “Come here & look.” He came out of a hole as deep as my knees, then handed me an ice pick.

Sid: Strangely, the only thing I kept that was connected to our romance was that ice pick. As a joke, JJ had asked me to find one for our first date in 2004 when I’d asked her how I should prepare for our time. I actually bought one & brought it along on that first date. Now, in 2010, I handed it over to JJ so she could use it to get us into another new phase of our relationship. And the way into that new phase was inside a buried box.

JJ: Sid said, “Hey, let’s take it out & look.” I said, “No way! What if it’s something that died there or a piece of dead human being?” He finally convinced me that it couldn’t be anything more than a dead cockroach, so as Sid watched, I used the ice pick & pulled out something that looked like a rotted lunchbox. As I put it down, I realized that it had “peed” all over me. I had stinky ooze all over my pants.

Sid: That was strange to me to see that the box was somehow half-filled with stinky water, since I thought I’d sealed it well. Somehow water had slowly seeped into the box & was slowly decomposing its contents. Still, in my happiness, I hardly thought about the smell.

JJ: Sid excitedly said, “Open it!! Open it!” & I said, “No, YOU open it!” Still thinking that something dead might be inside, I feared opening the box, but Sid finally convinced me that nothing would jump out & bite me. Meanwhile, all the kids were excitedly jumping up & down around us saying, “It’s treasure! It’s treasure! Open it! Open the treasure!!”

Sid: They were REALLY excited about what the treasure might be!

JJ: Not wanting to touch the rotten box with my hands, I broke the plastic around the “lunchbox” with the ice pick & opened it. Immediately I was hit with an odor worse than stinky poop, which made my eyes & nose tear up. As I was thinking it really must BE a dead animal, all the kids ran away screaming, “Ewww!!! It’s stinky treasure! It’s poo-poo!!!” I looked at the kids & wished I could run away too, but Sid said, “Look what’s inside.”

Sid: It REALLY smelled horrible at that point!

JJ: Controlling the urge to hit him on the head, I used the ice pick to fumble through the contents of the box. I grabbed what looked like a person’s soggy, rotting old socks & found that they contained bells that were equally rotting away.

Sid: When I prepared to propose to JJ in 2005, I knew that she didn’t want any diamonds, especially because we might end up living among the world’s poor. But I didn’t want to skimp on her ring, so after thinking about it I ended up getting her not just the ring for her finger, but also infinitely-renewable “rings” – handbells! Thankfully, I never buried the nice ones…

JJ: Then I looked & saw that there was a bunch of rotted papers. When I looked closely they had my writing on them. It suddenly dawned on me that these were the letters & printed-out emails that I had given Sid years ago. Curious, I looked around some more & saw a smaller box covered with white fuzz, & as I reached for it, the white fuzz scurried away. Tiny maggots! Ewww! Dreading what I would find inside, I opened the box, & found 2 shining rings untouched by all the rot. It started to dawn on me that these were the rings Sid had shown me back in 2005. I thought he’d thrown them away long ago! So as I crouched there in an amazed daze, Sid took the rings, removed my gardening gloves, kneeled & asked me to marry him. Filled with joy, I said “Yes.”

Sid: She wasn’t the only one overjoyed!

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Looking for something good to read? Check out these 3 books I'm working on:

1. Soul Survivor: How Thirteen Unlikely Mentors Helped My Faith Survive the Church by Philip Yancey. Pointed out to me by our church's book club, it is a very thoughtful, candid book which describes God's faithfulness to a man scarred by blatant evil (especially racism) in the church of his upbringing.

2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. One of Yancey's "mentors," Tolstoy (1828-1910) was a Russian writer who himself struggled with the vast chasm between God's holy ideals & the reality of our broken world. I'm almost finished listening to this book, & through the story I am learning just how unsearchable & deep our hearts really are, full of competing passionate desires often unbeknownst to ourselves.

3. War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles by Paul David Tripp. I'm actually re-reading this one, & its biggest point to me is that healthy communication comes not from learning better technique but from submitting my heart to the One who made words & rescued my heart for His good purposes.