Three years of marriage

Friends, today is our third wedding anniversary! We had the most beautiful weather yesterday – crisp, clear, warm, blue skies, low 70’s – and it reminded me so strongly of the weather on September 15, 2012. You’d better believe I’m still grateful for that!

I challenged myself to include just one favorite photo in today’s post, and I did, even though it nearly killed me. Tanja Lippert is and will always be my hero — I think she is beyond compare in the realm of wedding photography. Having her by our side on that day is another thing for which I’m still grateful!

Earlier this year, to mark our ten year dativersary, I ruminated a bit on our ceremony reading from C.S. Lewis. I was just reading over the post where I shared all three of our readings again, and a different one is standing out to me at the moment — our reading from Colossians 3.

From where I’m sitting right now, these verses make my heart feel a bit swollen and my throat a bit lumpy. Put on compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, patience, love… forgive… let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… and be thankful. This is the reading our pastor chose to draw his message from, and in it, he told us that these words were telling us that we’d have to put on our “work clothes” every day of our marriage.

I have found that this is true – doing those things that Paul commands is not always easy, and sometimes requires work. But it is unlike any other work I’ve ever experienced. It is a JOY to do these paradoxical things, to make myself meek, to be kind, to forgive. It’s a joy because it’s in the service of one who always does the same for me. It’s still hard — my most basic instinct is always to care about myself above everyone else — but it is so sweet.

And I am so very, very thankful. (That part is easy.)

P.S. More wedding photos and a film here, two year anniversary post here, one year here.